Company of Heroes

by THQ

Product Features

• From the award winning RTS studio Relic
• Redefines RTS genre, visceral WWII gaming experience, bringing soliders to life
• Proprietary Essence Engine delivers unparalleled graphics, destrutible battlfield using havoc engine and rag doll physics
• 2-8 player multi-player competition via LAN or internet with Clan Support

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000FJSIUA
• Item Weight: 8 ounces
• Media: DVD-ROM
• Release Date: September 11, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (92 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,970 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #45 in Video Games > PC Games > Strategy
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Edition: Standard

Company of Heroes is a WWII RTS game that brings to like the journey of the brave men of Able Company as they fight across Europe in the greatest war makind has known. System Requirements:Windows98/ME/XP/2000 DirectX: DX9 1 (included) but DX81 (supported) 3GB HD space 1.5GB Processor 512 MB Ram GEFoece 3 64 MB or Ali Radeon 8500 64MB or greater Direct X certified sound card Broadband or 56kb modem Format: WIN 98ME2000XP Genre: ENTERTAINMENT UPC: 752919492970 Manufacturer No: 49297

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent RTS give great WW2 feel, September 28, 2006

By 

A Reader (CA, United States) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Company of Heroes (DVD-ROM)

First let me say other reviewers mentioned this is a difficult game to play and win because of all the action. It is difficult until you realize two very important things:

1) You can give orders to your units while the game is paused! This makes the game almost like a turn-based game. If you try to play without pausing it does become a very tough click-fest.

2) Relic themselves published a 'cheat' that allows you to adjust the game speed from its default of '10' all the way down to '1'. So if you do not like pausing you can simply slow the game in general.

So having said that how is Company of Heroes (CoH)? First the graphics are outstanding. They are almost equal to that of a FPS game of just a few years ago. You can fully rotate and zoom the view. Like Relic's previous 'Dawn of War' title you cannot zoom out very far but they did include an 'operational' map view that shows the overall battlefield with unit icons. This helps alleviate the problem with the inability to zoom out.

Sound is very well done. Weapons sound correct and the various audio clues of what is going on are vital. The units do swear, which is unnecessary and really adds little to the game, but it is humorous the first few times you hear it.

Game play is very similar to `Dawn of War' and most RTS games. What CoH does well is it includes the objective resource system from DoW but expands it to include four different resource objectives: fuel, munitions, gas, and area. Combinations of the four allow you to build and improve your units. In addition, as you capture resources you gain control of an area. It is also possible to cut off an area and thus lose the resources from it. This simple system encourages not only attacking but also higher level options such as flanking. This is unique to a RTS title and is very well done and works even better.

CoH is not a wargame but a RTS game with a bit of wargame feel to it. The game plays much like a normal RTS game. The unit choices are interesting and mostly historical. Most of what you would expect in a WW2 title are here. You can even call in artillery, airstrikes, paradrops, and other support functions. Engagement ranges are ridiculously short and this hurts some of simulation feel as vehicles and heavy weapons are not able to stand off as far as they should. But, again, this is a RTS title not a wargame.

The biggest complaint with the game is the AI. The enemy AI does a very good job overall especially for a RTS game. But the friendly AI reactions have some real brain dead moments that will either cause you a lot of grief or force you to micromanage more than you would wish. For example, an enemy tank will move up and fire on your infantry squad and wipe it out while a friendly tank of yours sits just half a screen away doing nothing about it. I've lost buildings to infantry attacks while my own infantry sat by and watched. Units will also make some silly moves. Tanks will sometimes ram each other and rarely try to flank each other or seek nearby cover.

But overall the limits of the AI and few other quibbles are overshadowed by the great game play and overall great `feel' of the game. It provides the most tactical and combined arms options of any RTS game to date and for that it succeeds and for that any RTS fan should pick up `Company of Heroes'.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just when you thought you'd seen it all..., November 16, 2006

By 

Yu-jin Chia "Yu-Jin Chia" (Cupertino, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Company of Heroes (DVD-ROM)

Let's face it, the Real Time Strategy genre is getting old, and I don't just mean that it's been around for a while (which it has). One might say the same for WW2-themed games of any sort. How, then, can a WW2-themed RTS possibly be one of the best PC games of this year? I'm still not entirely sure what the answer to this question is, but I do know that Company of Heroes fits the bill.

Anything coming from Relic can be expected to have decent production values, but for CoH they have outdone themselves. This is a title spit-shined and polished to do any parade ground GI proud. I happen to be a military history buff, and can attest to the fact that what you see and hear in this game is the genuine article. The campaign story could have been taken, practically verbatim, from the pages of Stephen Ambrose's "Band of Brothers" and "Citizen Soldiers," making the game's name more than apt.

First and foremost, the graphics are impressive. And by impressive, I mean they are clearly superior to any RTS to date. The units, down to uniforms and weapons, look real. They animate realistically, and the environments are detailed to the point that they resemble pictures taken during the war. Even the mission briefings look like what you'd see in a military ready room. I've heard it said that the game can crawl on older systems, but it ran perfectly smooth with all settings turned up to max on my (admittedly high-end) rig. Stability is superb- I have not seen the game crash a single time.

The game's sound is likewise superb, with excellent voice acting and the best effects I've heard in any RTS to date. There's liberal profanity, which is one of the reasons this game is rated what it is, but this is realistic. Being shot at and shelled tends to warrant expletives. When artillery comes down it actually sounds like artillery, and your men will let you know if they're in the middle of it.

As can be expected, the AI is advanced. Troops move and react realistically, dropping behind cover or falling prone if under fire. Units support each other and lay down suppressing fire. The computer can be downright brutal, even on moderate difficulty settings.

Campaign design is superb, and multiplay is available. Gameplay in general is somewhat similar to the earlier Warhammer: Dawn of War, especially in terms of the strategic point system. The big difference is that there's different kinds of points and 3 different resource types, and the points must be linked in a chain to your headquarters to provide anything. Innovations include the use of resources to facilitate special attacks, most of which don't require any sort of research, as they do in other games. For example, you can have infantry throw grenades, provided you have enough munitions available.

The one big downside is there's only two factions- Axis and Allies, but there's also separate commander 'trees' for each side. Axis (essentially the Germans) have Blitz, Terror, and Defensive; Allies (essentially the Americans) have Infantry, Armor, and Airborne. You gain experience by completing objectives or destroying enemy forces, and then spend points in one of these trees. The differences are significant, so there's essentially 3 ways to play each side. Additionally, the two sides are very different to play, with unique weapons and abilities.

I'll readily admit, despite the fact that I was once a hard-core RTS player, I've started to lose faith in the genre and stray to things that were formerly of secondary interest- most particularly, RPGs and MMORPGs. However, Company of Heroes has demonstrated to me that there is hope yet. In fact, it's the only game that has actually managed to divert my attention from World of Warcraft; no easy task, I can assure you. If you have even a passing interest in real time strategy or World War 2, you owe it to yourself to get this game as soon as possible.

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An impressive addition to Relic's RTS stable., October 4, 2006

By 

Harvey H. Meeker (Shelton, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Company of Heroes (DVD-ROM)

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.

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