Off Topic Game Review: Company of Heroes

[Der Kuenstler]

Truly a stinker of a game...



So I'm at the store the other day and I come across "Company of Heroes - Gold Edition." I'm a little skeptical but I notice that it allows you to play as Axis or Allied, which is sometimes rare among WWII games. So I shell over the $29.99 and bring it home. The next day I'm back buying a new GeForce 9400 video card for $98 - the game graphics were too advanced for the one I had.

I loaded it up and went through the tutorials - and realized I was just playing the goofy clickfest "Rise of Nations" with a WWII flavor. That's all it is, seriously. I've never seen a WWII game so heavy on pretty pictures and so devoid of any realism or serious tactics.

Here's a screenshot - this looks very impressive until you realize that there is very little you do as the commander other than click on a platoon in one place and click on another place. They all run over there and start shooting by themselves, often standing out in the open, until all of the enemy are dead. Look how many guys here are standing right out in the street, right in front of enemy tanks. There are only three "forms" of cover in the game: light, heavy, and exposed.



I loaded up the D-Day scenario where you just click on the squads coming out of the boats, click on the beach obstacles to make them run there. If they all get killed, more squads are spawned at the boat - you just keep clicking here, clicking there, until you get 25 guys to the cliff edge. Wow. Then you have to get some engineers to take out some MG nests. If your engineer squad is kiiled - no biggie - another one gets spawned at the boats. The way these nests are taken out is you left click on an engineer squad, left click on "satchel charge" then right click on the MG nest. That's it. Watch them do all the rest - they all run up there and throw it - boom.

This two-click boredom is often interrupted by long overblown cinematic scenes of "drama" that you must just sit and watch - like this:



Sorry - if I wanted to watch a movie I'd put a real one on like "Saving Private Ryan."

Are there tanks? Yes!! And when they fight they drive around each other as nimbly as VW bugs, firing at each other from 5-10 meters apart, like this:



I've loaded up this game about 4 times and it's already on the shelf. I think I spent more time installing it and downloading the patch than actually playing it.

Thoughtful decision making and using your mind to overcome obstacles is almost completely sacrificed to the god of pretty graphics. The soldiers do cuss realistically though - a bunch of potty-mouths I'd say. Better play with headphones on if the kids are in the room.

Long live Combat Mission!!