Customer Reviews

Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I have always enjoyed the CoH series and this expansion pack in a sense gives us a little bit more of what they wanted and that's being able to get up close and personal with some of the major battles that has been fought in the game. I like the idea that Relic has moved this game from more of the same to a more tactical RTS. But it's not enough...read on and see what I am talking about.

This game is reminiscent to the recently released Men of War but prettier and contains much less micromanaging.

I do like the idea that you still accumulate resources and use them to upgrade your men based on the amount of kills incurred. Also some of your solders get new abilities based on the upgrades like calling in artillery strikes or healing your solders. Also I like that this game is a bit more fast paced than Men of War where ONE scenario could take a long time to play with sometimes overwhelming odds only problem is, sometimes it feels arcadey.

The controls are sometimes a bit touch and go as the direct firing system you have to learn to manage and switch over to access another squad without taking the present unit off of an objective.

One of my complaints right now is that sometimes the enemy AI doesn't respond to attacks and just sit there while fired on or sometimes they retreat from my units for no reason or that some kills on enemy armor is insanely quick.

But my biggest gripe of them all is there are ONLY 9 MISSIONS total?? (and it doesn't help that I am 5 missions in!) Ok...wait you mean to tell me this is called a 'standalone game' in which you don't need the original games and you ONLY OFFER 9 missions that you can breeze thru in a day or 2 Relic?

This is not a good deal unless the people who want to play this game online don't care and unfortunately I am not one of them. This wouldn't fly as even a seperate solo game!

Relic, listen closely...when you produce a game like this for the single players out there, 9 missions is NOT ENOUGH. Try doubling that number or better yet, go back and let players use old maps from the originals to play in the new mode, don't cheat us by giving a thirsty person a sip and steal 30 bucks for it!

Worse yet you don't get any new countries such as Russia, Japan or Italy to tangle with and the new units just don't feel all that special.

I will be the first to admit that I fell for the okey doke because I liked the other 2 games but this felt like an afterthought and not worth a 30 dollar purchase. SO be warned.

Heck take notes from the little guys from Russia that produced Men of War!!!

You guys dropped the ball on this one!

Let me start by saying I've been playing CoH since initial release and so far have bought every installment of it on their respective release dates. I'm not going to tell you that ToV doesn't add to the game. It does, and as a matter of fact, I would recommend getting it at some time. However, that time is not now, as so far this product is grossly overpriced.

Let's compare. Opposing Fronts came with: 2 new factions, 3 concentrations for each faction, consequently a huge number of new units. Tales of Valor comes with: I believe 6-7 new units, at least 3 of which you'll probably never use depending on your play style. Also 3 new game modes. I'll leave the campaigns aside for now. So on paper, you can see that OF had much more to offer to the game experience, however, ToV still looks decent. That's until you realize that at this point there is only ONE map for each of the 3 new modes. Not to mention the fact that so far OF owners such as myself cannot play as the British or Panzer Elite during Operation: Stonewall. So that means that the largest multi-player component to this latest expansion is going to become pretty stale pretty fast.

Now single-player-wise, I would say that the Tiger Ace campaign was pretty fun, however that one sports a grand total of 3 pretty short missions. Woop dee doo. The other campaigns are decent enough too, but really, does anybody buy CoH to play the campaigns?

Relic has been touting the addition of Direct Fire for weeks, however after having used it, I have to say their implementation of it in CoH is substantially more limited than I thought it would be. It's not allowed in multiplayer (unless you're doing panzerkreig), which honestly is a little puzzling to me. One would think that at least the big ol' tanks--Pershings, Tigers, etc. would be able to use it in skirmishes or basic matches.

The bottom line is this: If you own the original CoH only, buy OF but skip ToV. If you own both CoH and OF, skip ToV. If you don't own any games in the CoH franchise, I wouldn't start off with this one. If and when Relic releases more maps for the new game modes, and after the price goes down closer to the teens, I would say that at that point it's worth it to pick up a copy of Tales of Valor. Until then, however, you're really only looking at about a week of interest in the new features before you start asking yourself why you bought this. I suppose the lesson I've learned now is not to touch Relic's products on or shortly after the release date. They're likely to burn you.

Do not purchase this "standalone" expansion if you like long single player campaigns or b) like low dollar per hour entertainment

The single player campaigns are literally 3 missions long and take only 1 hour to complete each. So thats roughly $10 per hour of entertainment if you do not play RTS's online. There's an extreme lack of content here and its borderline gouging. The $40 previous add-on actually gave you some value with two fully featured campaigns but theres nothing to recommend here for the single player RTS fan.

I can only recommend purchasing if you are new to the series and like multiplayer RTSs because thats the only value in this purchasing this edition, you get all 4 factions to play online. Otherwise forget it until it the price drops to $10 because thats all this garbage is worth.

It feels more like a mod than a standalone game.

The original game was great, this edition is a waste of money that adds nothing to the original game concept. I pre-ordered because I enjoyed the original game so much that I trusted this to be an extension of the that experience. I was proven wrong and will never pre-order a product again.

As other reviewers have stated there are only 9 missions for the solo player. What I didn't notice them mentioning was that none of the missions even have a "base building" scenerio. They are all attack this or defend this area missions. None are start with your headquarters and build from there which makes them very fast to play. I feel cheated...First Total War with their terrible Steam DRM and now Heroes that I finished in 2 days and barely spent any time playing it.

I just bought this so-called stand alone game (I own the previous two COH's) and havn't gotten too far into it yet other than some skirmishes on single player. I really enjoy fighting all four opposing armies on my own for five straight hours while my comrades (or allies) sit with their guns slung over their shoulders or have 30 tanks idling in one spot doing nothing but getting blown away by enemy AT weapons. The AI has some serious issues. I also enjoy the constant crashing of the game also. Other than that I recommend it.

With only a total of nine missions, some of which can be completed fairly quickly, your mission to money value is greatly diminished. Your replay value will come with playing online. If you are looking for a single player RTS game, this is not the one you are looking for.

This can be played without owning any of the previous CoH titles, but the price doesn't reflect what you really get with this "expansion" pack.

If you don't own the previous CoH titles, do yourself a favor and get those before you try this one. CoH: Tales of Valor is only for the hard core CoH fan who just can't get enough.

On the positive side the gameplay is excellent as always, the cutscenes are well done and the graphics are top notch. Just wish there was more to the GAME.

I don't even know what to say....terrible. A "standalone" game? Give me a break. I finished all three "campaigns" in about two hours. This is gouging, plain and simple. A complete let down after the last one. Very sad. Don't waste your time or money on this.

The original was great. The OF expansion was decent and at least worth the money.

Like many other unfortunates, I purchased this game before thorough reviews had been posted and therefore had no full picture of what my hard earned $30 was being wasted on.

This game is pathetic. I wont waste time elaborating anymore other than Relic has earned a full boycott of all their products after this sham, no two ways about it.

You get the picture.

This is a HUGE disappointment from Relic/THQ.
Contrary to the hype and advertisements, this game does NOT have the following features:
1) New units are very few & the ones important, like Tiger Ace are NOT available in Skirmish games (90% of the game type being played).
2) Performance is poor: I have a high-end system (9800 GTX+ card and 4GB RAM). I used to play Company of Heroes and Opposing Fronts at High/Ultra setting. Now i have to reduce the setting to Medium to play at same framerates on same maps
3) No major improvements in unit types or qualities: Opposing Fronts was a game changer and was worth the money spent on it. This ToV does NOT change any paradigm, except, probably slowing down your system.
4) Bugs aplenty: Relic has released it before the depression deepens and people have no money to left its product. So there is a HUGE list of bugs from AI, to UI: All you previous medals are wiped out. You need to start afresh. The computer cheats against you by refusing to obey your orders. For instance when playing against the computer AI, if you order a Tank to attack a MG Nest, it will refuse to attack it, or show its backside to Anti-Tank weapons: deliberately. This amounts to Treason.
5) Huge Size: Although Relic has moved towards Steam and Impulse releases (I love Impulse), the size precludes any reasonable imagination. 7.5GB ? Come on.
6) Mods disabled. Relic, in its infinite wisdom, thought that players should NOT write mods for it. Excussse me Relic: Mods are what made your game popular in the first place. Disabling them for NO reason defies all logic and reason. But then Relic produced a Tea Coaster and made us pay $39.99 for the same, so i guess they want to close shop.
Stick to CoH and OF. You are better off.