The Video Game Revue

Company of Heroes - First Impression

Today was a big game-spending today: I picked up Company of Heroes, Valkyrie Profile 2, and Okami. So what was the first thing that I played when I got home? World of WarCraft, of course! Actually, to be entirely honest, I did play about a half hour or so of Valkyrie Profile 2 before diving into WoW. After a couple of hours of WoW, I installed and geeked out on Company of Heroes. Sadly, Okami hasn't been put into the PS2 yet.

First I'd like to comment a little on Valkyrie Profile 2. Holy freakin' cow is the artwork in that game ever impressive. It sure looks sweet, although the town and dungeon exploration does feel somewhat limited due to the inability to adjust the camera angle. The combat system seems neat but I haven't played nearly enough of it to make a fair assesment, and ditto on the storyline. In a lot of ways I wish that the game had more of a traditional RPG format like Final Fantasy X or Suikoden V, but on the other hand, what is there seems like it could work.

Speaking of Suikoden V, I haven't quite decided yet if it will be pre-empted in favour of Valkyrie Profile 2. One major problem with Suikoden V is that I've played a few hours of it now, and there's only been about 45 minutes of actual dungeon exploration and combat. The vast majority of the game so far has been town exploration, talking to people, and story sequences. I'm trying to be patient for the game to pick up and become a game, but it's frustrating--especially compared to something like Disgaea 2 where I can fire it up and be bashing skulls within a few minutes.

Alright, enough RPG talk. Company of Heroes is fucking awesome. I knew that the game would be pretty, and I was hoping that it would help to justify my recent (and fairly hefty) investment in new computer hardware. What did somehow manage to escape my attention is that CoH is developed by Relic, the studio that brought us Dawn of War. And as you may already be aware, I've been on a major Dawn of War kick lately.

On the one hand, CoH is DoW++. It uses a lot of the same mechanics, particularly in terms of the squad-based infantry system, which I'm now convinced is roughly the only sane way to conduct an RTS game these days (having said that, I still play WarCraft III and Age of Empires III and have a great time.) The interactions between squads have become much more sophisticated, however, largely because terrain plays such an important role in the game.

In CoH, terrain is king. This game is all about finding cover, seizing buildings, setting up covering fire, and all of that good stuff. Setting up a machine gun unit in this game actually reminds me of Hightway to the Reich, except that now you can actually see the little guy with the MG hammering away and watch hostile units scramble for cover. It's quite the experience, and it feels very strategic.

I'm not sure if this will change as I get more into CoH, but so far I've found that I don't tend to rely on groups of units as much anymore. I'm fairly comfortable to jump around the map adjusting the front lines as necessary without assigning CTRL-# shortcuts to major task groups. By contrast, when playing DoW, I rely heavily on shortcuts and groups of units to accomplish tasks--often having as many as five different groups of squads and vehicles that I jump between by double-tapping the number keys. Perhaps the mini-map in CoH is simply that much better, or perhaps I just need to get more streamlined in CoH before I start employing more frantic methods.

So far, it feels to me that CoH and DoW are different enough games that I'll continue to play DoW even though I now have CoH. That's a lot of RTS to handle, of course, but Relic's creations really are that much of a joy. I've sung a lot of the praises of Blizzard lately, and now I have to point out something fairly negative: they've allowed Relic to completely steal the ball from them in the RTS genre. Dawn of War is everything that StarCraft 2 should have been, and now Company of Heroes is pretty much the single best World War II themed RTS ever made. Hell, CoH may even be the best WW II themed game ever made, period. And while WarCraft III remains a solid game, it's quite ancient now. Relic's only real competition this last while has been from Rise of Nations and Age of Empires III (those crazy Microsoft studioes RTS games, which have been a guilty pleasure of mine these past few years), and I think it's fair to say that Rise of Legends is not stealing any attention away from Company of Heroes.

In the end, it's funny because I don't consider myself much of an RTS fan at all. My main gaming focus for PC games is on RPGs followed by RTS and turn-based strategy games. But as something of an all-inclusive gamer (well, there are a few bases that I don't cover much of, such as sports games), I do find myself often drawn to whatever is getting the most critical acclaim regardless of the genre. Rise of Nations appealed to the Civ fan in me, and I got swept up in AoE largely because of hype. But Dawn of War and Company of Heroes are making a more genuine RTS fan out of me. I find myself loving these games without reservation, as purely as I would love any RPG or FPS game. Company of Heroes stands poised to be to RTS games for me what Half-Life 2 represents in FPS games. Let's just hope that the appeal is lasting.

Tomorrow I hope to scope out some Okami. I'm really excited about that game too; one review that was quoted on Metacritic described it as "like Zelda, only better." I've been meaning to add some quest game to my diet, as it turns out.

posted by Parappa @ 12:35 AM