User Reviews (1 - 11 of 119)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Brilliant

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 97 / 103
Date: September 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is brilliant.

First a little history. I am a 43 year old gamer (and bad speller)who has been around since pong. I have gone the route of Pong, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, Atari ST and then the PC since the 386. Other than FPS (just not my thing, plus I suck) I have played all the different type of games many many times.

Even though these are my initial impressions of the game so far this is easily the most fun I personally have had with a RTS game since Total Annihilation. I have played the Age of Empires, Warcrafts, Starcraft, Rise of Nations, Dawn of War etc etc. All these games were different yet they had the same "feel" about them. COH feels new and that is something that the RTS genre really needed. The bar has been raised to a staggering height.

Why do I enjoy COH over these other RTS games.

1. Strategy: Flanking, Machine guns covering arcs, armor facing, etc. COH has real strategies that make you think instead of how fast you can click around the battlefield(more on this later). The battlefield is destructible which also adds a level of strategy. The brick wall that feeds enemy troops towards a choke point is great until that tank rolls through it giving the enemy another point of access. Wait until you come back to a great defensive point while you were busy at another area and see off-board artillery devistate your position.

2. Atmosphere: The atmosphere in COH's is awesome. The voices (warning crude language), graphics, etc. Every little detail is done to a new level of perfection.

3. A.I.: The A.I. is very good. Your troops will find cover if possible (unlike the report from a previous reviewer). If you have mortar teams back and a rifle company come upon enemy units they will automatically start bombarding that location. the computer player on normal is a very tough opponent for someone at my level in the skirmish mode (I have yet to bet him).

4. Resources: Resources are done like Relics pervious game Dawn of War with a added level of complexity. You have to take over points on the battlefield which will supply you with one of the three types of resources required. What is different is that each point is in a sector and these sectors must be joined back to your base (by being adjacent to another friendly sector). It is possible to lose a sector which will isolate some of your other sectors and their resource income. This adds even more strategy to the game.

5. Map: The map in the game is outstanding. It shows the sectors your troop locations with a symbol what they are, if they are pinned, suppressed, in combat. A excellent way to have a snapshot of what is happening.

Is this game perfect no but what is. Although some might find this game easy I (like most) find it very hard. Even with the advance A.I. I always feel like I am out of control and need to be at 20 places at once. The good thing is that you can pause the game, go through your troops giving them orders, gather your wits and then let all hell break loose again. I have not played online but at my speed I would probably get massacred. Even tough I think the language fits the game perfectly I agree with some that you should have the option of turning it off if you have kids around. I was also underwelmed with the first mission of storming the beach. I know they were trying to ease you into the game but i think they missed the marked and was more confused after the mission than I was before I started.

I highly recommend that you purchase this game, support Relic as they deserve it. Give yourself a treat pick up Company of Heroes.

a great game with the least ammount of issues

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: October 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

this game is great!
I have played many many hours verse friends in college, and will continue so until the next CoH.

The good:
The graphics are the best part. The textures make extremely low polygon units and vehicles look almost photorealistic; it also adds the feeling of history on weapons and buildings. Bump maps make helmets and sandbags have depth instead of a flat texture look. The effects are simply amazing. There is nothing worse than seeing your veteran tanks all ready to go get destroyed by an artillary barrage. And there is also nothing cooler than watching your guys fire a bunch of rockets at faraway units.
The sound is the next best part. You can hear muffled sniper rifles firing, or enemy artilary attacks before you loose many units. Machine gun fire from across the map is that low thumping sound you hear from realistic war movies.
The next best and sometimes worst part is the AI. Your guys will take cover when attacked, and wont do anything when nearby enemies are around which is both great and self defeating. I can usually send my guys somewhere to attack an enemy and leave them be for a while, which is always good.
Dawn of War, Relics next best game has a mode you can set your guys to that lets them know they can attack nearby units, but only so far. That is one of the things missing in this game that I would have liked to see.
Your guys will also do some weird things like not do what you say or keep running into things, but it is easily forgivable. The computer AI is also very predictable and linear.
The learning curve is very low. I'm not a huge fan of RTS, but I love this game. If you like Warhammer, Command and Conquer or Blitzkreig, then this is a great game.

Now, the bad:
Besides AI, the voice acting is pretty bad. They practically the same stuff which is great for about 5 minutes. Your shermans will complain that they are being attacked, even by units that do NO damage to them. And it also seems like your allied engineers dont like their job..."this isnt what I signed up for", etc.
There is 0, repeat ZERO support from Relic. Okay, well, maybe a little, but there are no map mods or other downloadable content (which make 2 sides and only a handful of maps boring after a while), and if you ask for help, they give you answers that dont fix the problem.
The requirements are pretty steep, but I can play very low textures, no shadows, etc on a mid to low end system (p4 2.6Ghz, ati 9600xt 128, 1 gig ram).
Also, while the single player was pretty fun, the storyline was boring and didnt serve a purpose for me.
The animation is not great, like you see all kinds of clipping and skipping in walk cycles, but I didnt really care.

Its still an awsome game. I cant wait for the next one.

An impressive addition to Relic's RTS stable.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: September 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Company of Heroes is the latest real time strategy game from Relic who are known for their excellent Dawn of War RTS titles set in the Warhammer universe.

In Company of Heroes Relic takes a more realistic approach to the RTS genre. Set during WWII CoH follows Able and Fox Companies from their landing on the beaches of Normandy through their closing of the Falaise pocket.

In CoH the gameplay has been adapted and enhanced from Relic's Dawn of War games. Instead of capturing generic control points on the map just for resources and territory, instead in CoH capturing points gives you control over that territory and in addition provides a population cap increase and generates more manpower. Manpower along with fuel and ammunition are the three resources that you will use to supply your army. While you gain manpower by capturing any control point there are specific control points that generate fuel and ammunition. Obtaining and defending those points successfully is a major part of the game.

Because of this gameplay mechanic, playing the game defensively is usually not a very successful tactic. The game rewards players that move in and capture territory. During the campaign as you capture territory and destroy the enemy you receive special command upgrades that allow you to obtain more advanced units, build units more quickly and call in air and artillery support among other things. These special abilities still cost you resources to use though and the person that has resources to use them when necessary will be the winner in an engagement.

The AI on both sides of the game is able to handle itself fairly well. Your soldiers are usually very intelligent about taking cover, but they still require micro-management to use their special abilities. All infantry units have special abilities that can tip the balance of an encounter in their favor, but without your guidance these abilities will never get used.

The vehicle AI is generally good with the exception of some pathfinding problems and an annoying tendency for vehicles to present their lighter armored backside to enemies at inopportune times. In tight combat situations micromanaging which armor side is shown to enemy gunners is critical and at the same time you'll need to maneuver your armor to flank the enemy and catch them from the rear. At certain points the enemy AI is very good at keeping their armor effectively positioned and at other times they ignore facing completely and present an easy target. Sometimes this is the difference between facing a green or veteran unit, but at other times the AI just seems to give up their back.

Another issue with vehicle AI is that vehicles when ordered to directly attack another vehicle like to run right up on that vehicle and collide with them rather than come to a stop at a distance and fire. This can be problematic when the enemy you attack is grouped to the rear of other enemies and your unit ends up presenting their rear armor to the other enemies.

The enemy AI can be challenging and in some scenarios overwhelming. The scenarios in general vary in difficulty that way, but usually the challenge is in finding the right mix of units and support to utilize. Each scenario presents primary goals to complete and a secondary goal which will earn the player a medal for outstanding performance. These secondary goals often involve inflicting additional casualties on the enemy or avoiding excessive losses on your side.

While there are only fifteen scenarios to complete these are packed with details and can often last for several hours as each scenario will have multiple goals embedded in it. For instance you might be tasked with capturing a town from the axis and then afterwards you must hold it for a period of time against a counterattack. The aforementioned secondary goals also add performance challenges that will make you rethink how effective you were in completing the scenario.

The graphic engine makes use of as much hardware as you can present. The units are well crafted and scaled, the terrain is detailed and the destructible environments are well done. Being able to reduce buildings and obstacles to rubble adds to the gameplay experience immensely.

Running on two year old hardware my play experience was limited by my Radeon 9800 Pro AGP graphics card with a measly 128mb of RAM and limited support for the latest technologies. In addition I'm running an Athlon 64 3200 with 1GB of RAM. While the game recommended running at 1024x768 with most of the more advanced settings turned down I found that even at that resolution I was getting a good amount of slowdown in large scale battles. I ended up lowering the resolution to 800x600 to keep things moving smoothly. I found the graphic presentation to be quite good even without being able to turn up the juice.

If you haven't bought/upgraded your machine recently with PCI Express and one of the newer video cards then you'll probably have the same experience I did in terms of performance as this game requires a lot of computer power in every area. Loading a scenario for the first time can take up to a minute on my machine even with a 10000 RPM SATA drive.

That said, once you are in the scenario there are no loading screens and save game loads within the same scenario are much quicker than the initial load. It's worth the wait.

The sound in the game is immersive. The explosions and weapon fire will rock you if you have a subwoofer attached to your sound system. The units will call out and alert you when they are under attack and in general respond appropriately depending on their status in a battle or otherwise. As one poster noted there is a bunch of harsh language mixed in, but I didn't find it to be out of place.

The campaign story itself is well put together, but certainly doesn't approach something like Starcraft in terms of tying the story and the scenarios together. This didn't detract from the gameplay, but I wasn't really drawn into the campaign story very much.

Overall, I found Company of Heroes to be a satisfying game in most aspects with only minor quibbles and very few obvious flaws or bugs in the initially delivered product. Unfortunately, now I think I think it's put me in mind to upgrade my computer.

A Near Perfect Game - Best I've Played in 2-3 Years

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: September 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

First, I'd like to say that I'm not the biggest fan of Real Time Strategy, where you have to move quickly to get everything done. I play a few, but prefer strategy, simulation, and role-playing games. I buy 5-10 games per year, normally highly rated, and play them until I'm bored, I finish them, or I reach too difficult of a stage.

This game, frankly, is the best game I've seen in 2-3 years. Graphics are stunning on my new IBM Thinkpad with a mid-level graphics card. Sound is great, the dialogue is original, and sounds realistic. I can't believe it NEVER gets old, as it always changes (it seems very real to life).

If you never play RTS games, it WILL take you some time to learn this game. But it will reward you with 20 good hours of solid, fun, non-repetitive gameplay.

From the opening scene of landing on the beach of Normandy, through the remaining 15 missions, it's an incredible experience.

I give this 5 stars, without hesitation.

The most engaging RTS I've played in a long time

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: October 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

If you haven't bought Company of Heroes yet, you're probably thinking another World War II strategy game is about as fresh and exciting as the next Kelly Clarkson clone on American Idol Season 42.

But in this case believe the hype - this game is easily in the running for best strategy game of the year. The graphics put many first person shooters to shame, the music and voiceacting is top notch, and the gameplay is easy to learn but hard to master. Best of all the emphasis is on outmanuevering and killing the enemy, not harvesting mulberry bushes and wood.

Pros
1. Absolutely beautiful graphics - I dare you to zoom in to ground level and try to tell the difference between COH and Call of Duty. Let me also mention the fully destructable world (tanks can plow through hedgerows, artillery can blow up buildings, etc).

2. A streamlined economy that makes sense. There are only three resources, with manpower being the most abundant, munitions being semi-abundant, and fuel being the precious "gold" source. By capturing strategic points on the board you increase your rates of resources. You can build upgrades that improve your resource rate but there is no need to actually sit and mine resources once you capture a point.

3. Emphasis on tactical decisions, not "ZOMG Zerg rush!" In the thick of battle you have to build obstacles and emplacements with your engineers, ensure your infantry troops are in cover, try to outmanuever enemy tanks for a killing rear blow, and use special abilities like throw grenades or satchel charges. There's no such thing as gathering a million units, right clicking towards the enemy lines and hoping for the best - your massive hordes will get mowed down by just 1 or 2 well-placed bunkers. Resupply of new units is also pretty slow compared to many games - meaning every unit from the lowliest grunt to the big Pershing and Tiger tanks matters.

4. A great deal of historical accuracy without bogging down in "Grognardism." The units all look wonderfully realistic and most major vehicles and weapons from the invasion of Normandy are in the game. You can even add historically accurate upgrades such as bulldozer blades to Shermans for busting through hedgerows, etc. Vehicles that were incredibly rare for the European theater are correspondingly hard to deploy in the game - so there's no worry about being bulldozed by the "L33T" all-Tiger tank company. On the flipside, the game doesn't go into stupid historic detail that would confuse/frustrate many players.

5. The best single player campaign I've played since Warcraft 3. Ok, there is the "Saving Private Ryan" melodrama and the obligatory storming Normandy Beach opening. That being said, the campaign is excellent. The cutscene movies are great and the objectives for each mission are incredibly challenging. In the second mission I had to gather a company of paratroopers that had gotten cut off after the Normandy airdrop, raid a nearby ammo depot for heavy anti-tank guns, then set up an ambush as an armor column of Germans arrived. Fail at any step along the way (don't rescue enough paratroopers, dont capture the guns) and you will have no way of achieving the final objective.

5. Top-notch music, sound, and voice acting. The music is by Jeremy Soule - 'nough said. If you don't know Jeremy's work, let's just say I rank his work in Company of Heroes on par with any big budget Hollywood soundtrack. The sound effects are all well done but what shines are the voice-acting. The chatter is often hilarious with grunts saying "close enough for govt work" or "if I see another f'ing sandbag" when you have them build structures. In a firefight you'll hear them scream obscenities and "eat my pineapple you f'ing Kraut." And yes the F-bomb is frequently uttered - which to me is a refreshing change from the "boy howdy we're pinned down" politically correct voiceovers you find in way too many games these days.

Cons

1. Steep learning curve - even on easy the AI can give new players a run for their money and the hard AI is downright diabolical. This is the first game where I've seen the computer do really sneaky things like set up ambushes or use snipers to pick off lone patrols. Needless to say, PVP is incredibly brutal for noobs (which I fully consider myself).

2. System hog and poor multiplayer connectivity - This game's requirements are among the most demanding of any PC game out there. Even with a pimped-out gaming rig you can expect long load times, although the game itself runs smoothly once you're in a mission. Make sure you have close to the recommended specs (3 Ghz processor, 1 Gig RAM, latest video card or two) before buying.

Also, the multiplayer servers run by Relic are currently lag city. Expect to get dropped from more than one multiplayer match.

3. Adult content - This isn't really a con for me but it could be if you're buying this game for your 12-year-old grandson. The violence is pretty realistic and so's the language. However, COH is a perfectly acceptable title for anyone in their mid-teens and older.

4. It's based closely on the 40K Dawn of War engine. Once again, I liked the 40K series and I've found COH to have made large improvements in most areas (especially graphics). But some people don't like the Dawn of War franchise so here's fair warning that the gameplay is pretty similar.

In conclusion, Company of Heroes is a must-buy for any strategy gamer or even WW-II enthusiasts (I've had several friends who are hardcore shooter fans warm up to COH because it's such an excellent historical title). Considering I burned out on Starcraft, Warcraft, Command and Conquer, and Age of Empires in my early 20s, only a tremendous game like Company of Heroes could get me excited about the RTS genre again.

Absolutely Brilliant

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: September 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Relic has done it again. Following up on their spectacular Warhammer 40K: Dawn Of War series, the acclaimed RTS developers have delivered what is possibly the greatest micro-RTS ever made. With STUNNING graphics, realistic physics, and sound that makes you feel like you're actually on the front lines, Company of Heroes is a technical wonder.

Above all else, though, this game is FUN. Every minute is packed with excitement and incredibly intense firefights. The two sides are well balanced, unique, and historically accurate. The Command Points system adds another great dimension to gameplay, putting the "S" in RTS.

This was easily the best $50 I've spent since Half Life 2, but don't just take my word for it. Reviews from magazines and websites have all been equally remarkable, with the game receiving some of the highest scores of any RTS ever.

If you enjoy PC gaming at all, and have the rig to play this game, you owe it to yourself to BUY THIS GAME.

Outstandingly Fantastic

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: October 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

After a solid week of playing through the campaign every day, I've now finally completed CoH. This is one of those all-consumating games which you find yourself thinking about at every moment of the day (the last game to do that for me was Rome: Total War); I was literally having dreams in which I was coordinating pincer movements with my Shermans, moving my infantry forward with .50 cal support and sniper fire, and watching as a brave soul sprinted towards an enemy panzer, threw his sticky bomb and was shot just as the tank's engine was destroyed.

This is truly a fantastic game; every aspect I can think of is polished and beautifully absorbing. It goes without saying that the graphics are great- I love seeing a tank punch through a tall stone wall and seeing it crumble intricately. The ragdoll effects on the infantry are great, and much cooler with the high powered weapons of WW2 then they were in Age of Empires 3.

One of the things which impressed me about the game upon first playing it was the AI; seing an enemy unit or vehicle make a tactical withdrawal when I was beginning to overpower them and move units onto their flank was an awesome sight to behold. The developpers have clearly made a huge effort to eliminate the most annoying afflictions of WW2 games. It's hard to pinpoint it, but with features such as minefields and crashing airplanes, the developpers have managed integrate without ruining or unbalancing the game.

What stands out the most for me about this game, however, is the tactical richness of the gameplay. The squad level use of cover and flanking, as well as abilities like frag grenades or suppressing fire, together with the 'zone' capture system, creates an incredibly interesting RTS game. I've just started playing multiplayer, (which has an excellent auto-match feature, pairing you up with someone of similar experience), and you really find yourself thinking- the base building mechanic is kept very simple, and your success on that front hinges on your tactical abilities (rather then the other way around, as in most RTS games).

There's a lot to say about this game, but fans of any genre will most definitely find something to like here. If you're thinking of buying a new game now (October 2006) there are few better choices- this will remain a classic for many years.

(Final Notes- this is graphically demanding; I can play at high graphics and 1680x1050, but I have a powerful PC (Opteron 165 @ 2.7ghz, x1900xtx, 2gb ram). I have a laptop which I installed it on as well, though, and it's playable- albeit at 1024x768.
Also, it's true what's been said about swearing; if you're trying to shield your children from the full range of colorful english expressions then....... actually, that's pointless. They'll find out those words eventually, the important thing is to teach them not to say them rather then not to know them. This game makes you think, it's challenging and a much better way of spending time then watching TV. )

Well, that's it from me! Now find your credit card and go forth!

Great Real Time Strategy for All Levels of Gamer

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: January 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Company of Heroes is a squad based World War II real time strategy game. Instead of commanding individual soldiers, you command squads. You don't get life bars for individual soldiers, you worry about the squad health and upgrade them as a squad. If you lose squad members, you send the remaining guys back to the home base to regroup with new guys from your barracks.

You can't find vehicles and jump into them - you have to build a jeep group, for example. On the other hand, if you have a group with a MG42 and they get killed, another squad can come over and pick it up. Some upgrades apply to an entire unit, while others give a specific person a new item to use. The game is nice about this - if your unit is being whittled down, they leave any special guys for last.

As you build up experience with your units, they develop new abilities. There are different kinds of branches available, each with its own new features. You can become able to call in an air strike, for example. Different types of upgrades require different resources. For example, if you want to call in an air strike, you have to use resources to do that.

There are numerous forests, shrubs, rubble, stairs, waterfronts, and much more to use as cover, to bottleneck your enemy with, and to strategize around. It makes for great tactical fun. You can put down defenses too - barbed wire for infantry, mines for tanks, and sandbags for your own protection. The cover AI is rather good.

You can take cover in buildings, and if you zoom in you can actually see them peering out of the windows and using cover naturally in there. You can even blow up buildings and pieces will fall off. Your world is quite destructible!

You take on territories which are marked with colors on your mini-map and with colored lines on your larger map. This helps to make it easy to track your progress. Also, taking more locations increases the total number of units you can support. You capture flags which indicate resource piles - depending on which flag you grab, you can supply upgrades for weapons, armor or so on.

The graphics are great - if you've got a top end computer you can crank up the quality level to some pretty amazing detail. Even slower computers get a lot of detail with flags on the houses, leaves on the trees, and details on uniforms.

You have a soft background music track playing, but it is very low key and does not interfere with gameplay. The various voices of the characters have the country accents that you'd expect and seem relatively good. They all speak English of course :)

Like most games of this ilk you get a campaign mode with preset missions, a skirmish mode where you can practice on various terrains, and then an online mode where you get the real challenge of facing off with other humans.

If you've got a *really* basic PC, you might be annoyed that this game won't run well on it. But really, I find that hard to be a fault. If you make a super, top notch game, it's going to need a lot of horsepower. There are plenty of other more basic games on the market for those systems to play.

Gameplay is realistic but not gamer-destroying - you get a great challenge playing this game but not the instant-death frustration that some other games pose. We really find that both beginners and experienced RTS fans enjoy this one, playing for hours and hours.

Highly recommended!

Rating: 5/5

Addictive and amazing RTS immersion!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: September 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm darn picky when it comes to paying premium price for a new game these days, and there are soo many of these things on the market too! However, this RTS game really stands out with all the elements of a great RTS game. Its got great graphics, sound and gameplay that will keep you coming back for more. Multiplayer is easy to use and its free on the LAN - very nice for house parties!!!

If you are a WWII fan and even a casual RTS player, this is the game for you.

simply......WOW!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: September 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

First of all, the game will take you about 2-4 hours just to learn how to play, I mean even after the training you will still have to learn how to play yourself. The graphics are stunning, never seen graphics like that in a RTS game of any kind. The gameplay, like I said is hard, but after a while it will be worth it. I just played the demo and know that I am buying the game. The videos are also nice. Averall, fantastic game.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next 

Actions