|
|
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Game with the Worst Patching Scheme I've Seen , January 3, 2008
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
First of all, there are a lot to like about the CoH series. The graphics, the physics and the unit strategy elements of the CoH series of games are by far among the best in the RTS games I have played, and I have played RTS games for almost 20 years starting from a very young age. This series of games present campaigns in managable segments and load them with tons of strategic elements to make them fun and refreshing. The opposing fronts game adds two more armies: Britsh 3rd Army and the German Panther Elite to which you can command (in addition to the original CoH's US Army's 101 air born able company and the German troops).
My interest in the WWII history made this game even more fascinating to me personally as I can engage my computer units in some historically signifcant WWII campaigns. The game does a good job of including bits of actual WWII history to further engage the players. The representation of the units and equipment is also quite authentic, true to the real life. However, this can be somewhat problematic as the Panther Elite troops tend to be very strong (true to real life). In a small skirmish setting, this in-balance leads to some game play problems, as in a multiplayer game, a player commanding Panther Elite units can quite easily over power other players due to the high fire power and the great mobility of the Panther Elite units.
Panther Elite units are heavily armored, fast moving, and the basic grenadier units are good in both fighting and vehicle repair. The Panther Elite also has the best troop carriers, best armor protection and incredible mobility and mobile fire support to provide fast recharge to mobile units. This make the Panther Elite a force that is very difficult to defend against in games against actual human players. The problem with balance is not significant in playing against the computer in campaigns as the balance is well tuned in those missions. But in playing against human opponents on an even play field, a player playing Panther Elite has significant advantage in the game play.
With British units, the mode of play is more concentrated in defense and longe range barrage, as the British tanks are slow, the engineering units are also slow and expensive. The British troops need more leadership guidance, and has relatively weak weaponry in comparison to the German and even the Americans. The artillery units of British is where the action is for this faction, so I guess depends on your prefence in gameplay, the British could be fun. But for me, I prefer a quick and efficient run of armored units, so Panther Elite units are far more entertaining, much to my dismay (as my historitical learning, and dispise of Nazis always tugs at me whenever I play the Panther Elite and lay waste to allied units).
The intallation process was a huge pain however, which is why the game gets 4 instead of 5 stars, the intall from the Opposing Fronts game DVD reverted my patched intallation of CoH to an earlier version, so upon login I had to download patches AGAIN!! What's so insane is that the patches are not cumulative. In order to get to version 2.2 let's say, one has to download and install version 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5... INDIVIDUALLY!! This is the most insane patching scheme I have ever seen. Every other game can handle patching any previous version to the latest patch with just one install, but not CoH series, this just drives you nuts. It tooks over 3 hours overall to install CoH: OF then having to download and install all the patches.
Stability is overall great on my system, with a Dual core proecssor with a Nvidia 8800GT video card on 2 GB of RAM. I did not experience crashing problem many others experienced, but I also didn't get the game until patch 2.2 is released which seemed to fixed a great deal of issues.
Overall, this game is lots of fun to play and a big pain to install and patch. But if you can stand the wait (give you self 3 hours on a fast internet connection) it takes to install, you will be rewarded with an execellent RTS experience as long as you have the right hardware to handle the game (fast video card and lots of RAM for all the eye candy). Make sure to patch the game to the latest version.
|
