Company of Heroes: First Play – Completed Campaign Mode

The real time strategy genre of PC gaming has long been overshadowed by Blizzard’s Starcraft. What other game can boast regular live Korean television coverage of matches, complete with adoring fans and breathless announcers? However, since Blizzard has refocused its enormous creative talent to crafting the gilded hamster wheel that is World of Warcraft, Relic has silently stolen their RTS crown. First, they completely reinvented the RTS with Homeworld 2, then perfected the genre with Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. Now, Relic’s Company of Heroes represents the culmination of twenty plus years of RTS evolution, while taking the genre in several completely new directions.

Set in the well traveled gaming territory of WW2, Company of Heroes features the best graphics and physics simulation possible on today’s PCs. Nearly every object in the field of battle is destroyable and interactive. For instance, if I’m dealing with some wide open spaces, I can send in an artillery bombardment or satchel charge to dig myself some holes. Then, I can order my riflemen to take cover in the holes I just created. In another example, if I’ve got a sniper hiding in a building, I can set up a mortar squad to knock the roof off and take him out. Similar physics apply to heavy vehicles. Although I can’t drive a Sherman tank through a hedgerow, I can upgrade my Sherman with a bulldozer to smash through the tangled foliage. Additionally, if my Sherman happens to run over a land mine or two on the way through, its ruined hulk makes excellent cover for my elite rifle squad.

If you’re like me, you hate the canned damage animations common in RTS games. It doesn’t do much for my suspension of disbelief when I’m wailing away on the east side of a building with some super unit, only to have the west side of the building explode. Rejoice, because the canned animations are few and far between in Company of Heroes. If I accidentally clip the front porch off a house with my Sherman, the front porch is duly clipped off. Also, the next time a shell hits, the unfortunate front porch debris will be sent skittering across the battlefield. Wow. I don’t know what dark magic Relic had to evoke to achieve this level of physics simulation, but I applaud them vigorously for it.

RTS games have always required thoughtful military tactics. Unfortunately, the tactical portion of the genre has largely been dwarfed by the sheer amount of memorization and repetition required to excel. For example, in Starcraft’s highest ranked ladder matches, a base construction shortfall of less than a second can mean certain defeat. On the other hand, the design mantra of Company of Heroes is that careful tactics beat speedy deployment and memorization every time.

The first rule of tactics in Company of Heroes is that flanking is key. In fact, I’d go as far to say that the game is a flanking simulator first, and a RTS second. Nearly every unit has a field of fire. If I can get behind a MG emplacement, taking it out is a piece of cake; however, a frontal assault leaves my rifle squad crawling around; pinned, scared, and swearing like cornered pirates. Same rule applies to tanks. Front armor is strongest, side armor is weaker, and rear armor is made of lightly perfumed tissue. Relic’s heavy focus on flanking creates a battlefield dance where every movement requires consideration.

Relic’s second rule of tactics is that the careful balance of range and defense is crucial. I may think myself undefeatable with an array of back to back weapon emplacements; however, if my opponent can get a spotter close enough to unleash an artillery barrage, my well entrenched nests will be helpless to retaliate. Careful consideration of accuracy is also vital. My artillery support will do their best to get fire where it belongs, but friendly shells can easily rip through my own squads if I’m not careful.

The third pillar in Company of Heroes tactics is that war is all about owning ground. Although this aspect is represented metaphorically in the game by setting up flags on predetermined points, it still does an excellent job of shaping the battlefield. First, it provides a clear sense of the “front” within my little piece of WW2 by coloring chunks of territory on my map. More importantly, Relic also used these chunks to introduce the concept of supply lines. Unless your territory is all connected, it cannot be supplied. This opens up all sorts of tactical options, like capturing roads and bridges to cut off supplies and cripple a much larger force.

Of course, no modern RTS would be complete without a storyline, and Company of Heroes excels again in this respect. The game’s campaign alternates between tank command, defensive operations, and squads of paratroopers. Not only does each specialty require vastly different tactics, but within each specialty there is a lot of variety in the missions. For example, one paratrooping mission has me infiltrating a heavily fortified German position at night, complete with urgently whispered commands and air dropped reinforcements. The company of Heroes campaign also features everything from elegant pincer attacks, to desperate last-ditch defenses. Relic’s storyline is backed up by excellent voice acting and machinima, combining scenes that use the game’s own graphics engine with some peerless 2d animation similar to the artistic gems found in Homeworld 2.

The aspect of Relic’s storytelling that stood out the most for me was the expressiveness of the characters. I thought I’d have to wait quite a bit longer for an RTS engine that supported facial expressions, but Relic has surprised me again. Not only do the individual characters give each other hand signals and alter their voice acting based on their emotional state, but if you zoom in far enough you can actually see the fear in their eyes.

The one warning I offer is that Company of Heroes requires a fast PC to run and even with that fast PC, expect to contend with agonizingly long loading screens and occasional software crashes. The game seems to have extra trouble with my ATI X1900 card, and will crash every few hours to a black screen for thirty seconds or so before restoring connectivity with the graphics drivers. With ATI’s VPU recovery feature activated, Company of Heroes drops into eight color mode and requires a reboot during this same type of crash. Another glitch I get occasionally replaces the damage decals with bright purple squares that say “bad splat” on them, backwards.

The overlong loading screens do feature a nicely detailed overview of the next battlefield; however, I’m not a big fan of the “press any key” box that pops up at the end. I don’t have anything against pressing keys, per se; however, I expect something actually to happen when I press one. In Company of Heroes, my key press initiates a second loading pause, with no accompanying status indicator. Granted, my 400 MHz system ram is a little long in the tooth, Relic, but a progress bar would have been welcome.

Overall, Company of Heroes sits at the edge of an era. Twenty-three years after the first RTS game hit shelves, we finally have a masterpiece where tactics, realism, and emotion are dealt out with equal consequence. Tune into my next play rating for some multiplayer experiences.

For reference and in excruciating detail, I played Company of Heroes on a Socket 939 Toledo Dual Core Athlon 64 X2 4600+, a KN1 Lite motherboard, 1 Gig of DDR 3200 RAM, and an ATI x1900 512MB PCI Express Graphics Card.

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