Two years later, and this game is still the best RTS of this generation.
So, I recently got back into PC gaming having finally bought a new computer. I actually bought CoH when it first game came out, having been a huge Dawn of War fan. That said, I couldn't get the thing to run on my old PC and so they game lay on my shelf for a year and a half, collecting dust. Along comes my new XPS and the first game I play is Company, naturally. Little did I know just how good this game is.
The Good
Where to start. Let's talk about game balance. The game is all about balance. It's hard to rush and it's even harder to turtle. Every unit can be countered and every build can be countered. Both armies are equally good and every command tree is playably good. Win or lose, you will rarely feel that you are breaking the game, nor will you feel that you've been unfairly screwed. Your win or your loss comes down to your strategy and your choices, not due to your opponent maxing out on one unit or following a specific build order.
Let me add further detail to that. Not only do your choices of what points to go for and what mix of units to build affect your chances of winning, but so does what you do during an actual firefight. Company of Heroes has perhaps the best micro-management that I've ever seen in an RTS. Many units have abilities, such as tossing grenades, providing suppressing fire, or "buttoning" enemy vehicles. These abilities are easy to employ, but it is never necessary, or even recommended, to spam them. This means that while micro-management and your in battle instincts will obviously greatly help, you CAN survive without going wild with these abilities. This turns micro-management into a neat, fun, helpful part of the game (part being the key term here) rather than a crucial, frenzied click-fest that shapes the entire engagement. Well done, Relic. Micro-management has been made fun, fluid, and simple as opposed to a brain crushing affair of clicking as fast as possible and keeping track of three dozen abilities.
That said, Relic really rides the balance well here. While you won't be micro-managing like a maniac, this often isn't about throwing units at each other and winning by having superior firepower. You will have to be mindful of moving infantry into cover where possible, into buildings even. The same goes for tank combat. Gone are the days of throwing tanks at each other, with the winner being whoever has more. Rather, tank battles become a tactical chess game of maneuvering, as players vie to get behind each other or bait each other in order to get that rear armour shot. Vehicle combat that is usually a mindless smash-up becomes a tactical match with a bit more realism that loses no sense of fun.
The control point system inherited by Dawn of War works just as perfectly here as it did there. It keeps the game moving, keeps combat coming, and stops the game from being dominated by rushes and turtling. It keeps the game fast, fluid, and tactical and for the most part, steers it away from the horrid land of 10 minute ravagings and memorized build orders. Basically, with standard base building and unit production, the game feels like ye olde RTS. However, the point-capturing gameplay prevents it from falling into any of the tired trappings associated with those games that often render them stagnant and non-fun.
The graphics and the voice acting deserve special mention here. Both are superb. Despite being two years old, the game still looks, not just good, but great by RTS standards. Such longevity from a technical standpoint is impressive for any game, let alone a PC game.
Another general point. Everything in the game, perhaps due to the graphics, perhaps due to the fluidly tactical and yet fun nature of the game, everything in the game feels inately satisfying. The explosions are glorious, as are the kills in general.
I think that part of this satisfaction comes from the rpg elements inherent in the experience system. Getting the kill on an enemy infantryman feels all the more satisfying when you see that little "+3" show up over the dying soldier. You can imagine how great it feels shelling an enemy unit and seeing a veritable forest of numbers pop up.
Speaking of the command points system, it works out great. It makes your army for that game unique while also forcing on the fly tactical decisions as to what you'll need soonest, while also giving you something to look forward to later.
As far as multiplayer goes, the game is great fun as any great rts is bound to be. The online works reasonably well for a game that is so graphics intensive.
With regards to the single player campaign, overall it deserves special mention for its diversity. The missions all feel distinctly different without any sense of repetition or tedium. This is only aided by a difficulty level that is almost perfect (with one minor exception that I'll get to in a bit). The campaign does at times feel brutally challenging, and yet it never feels unfair or impossible. If you lose, you want to keep at it or give it another go. If you win, the satisfaction is intense. Spending two hours on one campaign mission never feels like a drag in the slightest and the payoff feels immense.
Ultimately, this is a great RTS where every unit truly has its uses as well as its counters, where nothing is unbeatable. Best of all, this is an RTS that is fast paced as far as RTS games go, but one where it is also possible to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. A game that looks hopeless after 30 minutes can turn into a rousing victory at the one hour mark if you keep at it. It's details like this that keep a gamer playing.
The Bad
Only a few minor quibbles, most of which have to deal with the design choices in the single player campaign than anything to do with the game's design itself, which is essentially flawless for an RTS of this age.
First off, be aware that while fairly lengthy and challenging, the campaign is purely from the American standpoint. You can only play as the Americans and the story is solely from their perspective. A bit disappointing if you enjoy using the Nazis.
Also, as far as the campaign goes, the storytelling falls pretty flat. It is utterly disjointed and can't seem to decide whether it wants to develop a few characters or simply hit you with cutscenes that basically point out that "war is violent, bad, and not patriotic/ideal/glorious/whatever." There are some cutscenes that show hints of character development and others that merely provide cinematic setpieces to display another tableaux of the horrors of war, ultimately giving rise to a story that lacks any unity. By the game's end, Relic seems to expect you to be attached to a couple of the characters...despite never having adequately developed them due to so frequently flitting away from them for another cutscene of war violence. Simply put, Relic should either have decided to have no main characters and no story and simply played videos of war violence, or they should have made all the cutscenes involve the characters they liked. They tried to have it both ways, and it fails.
Back to the gameplay. I have a particular issue with the "Mortain Counterattack" mission from a design standpoint. As a mission, it stands out like a big red stain in an otherwise perfectly balanced campaign. It makes the big mistake of relying on how you did in the previous mission...something that has not happened thus far. Due to this being unprecedented, the player will not be as focused as he should be on preserving his units at mission's end and thus end up being screwed for the counterattack mission. Furthermore, despite how late this is in the game, it's also the first and only time that Relic introduces the Victory Point scenario. If this was to be brought into the campaign, it should've been introduced in an easier, earlier mission before this point. As such, this mission can be unnecessarily brutal, all the more due to its being unexpectedly different from the rest of the campaign.
Finally, a minor technical quibble, but installing this game, if you buy it now, is quite a task. Before playing the game, you'll have to patch it up. This takes a ridiculously long time, hours even. For some reason, it isn't good enough merely to download and install the latest patch. Rather, you have to singly download and install every single patch that's ever come out since the game's release two years ago. That's just a bit silly.
The Conclusion
If you have a decent PC and have even the slightest interest in RTS games, BUY THIS NOW! The only flaws are poor storytelling and one bad mission sequence in the single player. The rest of it is RTS perfection, a flawless blend of rock-paper-scissors unit production and on-field tactical micro-managing with each side balancing the other out so that neither side dominates or decides the game. Pick this one up.