A squad of six Volksgrenadiers runs across a field of hedgerows in Normandy. As a few seconds pass they take cover near the shell of a broken tank. Suddenly bullets from a British Bofors cannon fire towards the squad, pinning them down. With no hope of rescue from allied forces, the squad lays prone. As some die, others go into the fetal position, attempting to protect themselves from the bullets – but that doesn’t work. Within seconds the entire squad is dead.
The scene described here sounds like something from “Saving Private Ryan,” but it’s actually from a game called “Company of Heroes”. The weirdest thing about this is this game is actually a real time strategy game.
That’s right, you heard it. It’s a game like “Starcraft”, or “Command and Conquer” where troops can actively build a wall of sandbags, take cover behind the wall, and then suppress enemy troops when they come by. Unlike most RTSs (Real Time Strategy games; a genre in which you control armies in combat), troops in “Company of Heroes” act dynamically to protect themselves.
Company of Heroes is based in the days of WWII, which is by no means a new time period setting for video games, but the interesting thing is that it’s an RTS. Most games in this time period are shooters, and RTSs are usually either set in times long gone or far in the future. Players choose between either the American army or the Wermacht, the German army of WWII. In the expansion pack, “Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts” players can also choose to play as the vehicle based Panzer Elite, or the artillery-based British Second Army.
One of the most captivating aspects of the game is the resource system. Instead of using gold or credits this game uses three resources: Manpower, Fuel, and Munitions, each of which is somewhat dedicated to the construction of a certain thing. Manpower is used in the creation of combat units especially infantry. Munitions are used up when unit abilities are used such as a squad of riflemen throwing a grenade. Finally, fuel is used in the construction of buildings and vehicles.
The length this game goes to when maintaining realism is shown through the acquisition of resources, which is deceptively simple because all it involves is having your infantry units touch a point which controls a territory on the map, and then hold it. This is not exactly new, but all of the problems arise because that territory needs to be connected to your other territories by sharing a boundary. If they aren’t then that territory doesn’t provide resources, meaning your supply lines have been cut. Just like in any real battlefield, it’s also not very easy to hold onto territories because your opponent can capture them easily due to the weakness of turrets in the game.
One of the things about this game that is the most fun is how fluid it is. There are no turret walls in this game, and it’s not as easy as in other games to set up an easily defensible front line. That’s because in this game your turrets take up supplies so you must choose between making a tank, or making a machine gun post. Most people choose to make units over turrets because they can’t be flanked.
Flanking, the act of moving around an enemy units side so that it can’t fire at you, is very important in this game. Most units have very fixed arcs of fire, so it’s important to move your units with regard to cover and where they can be shot from, unlike in lots of RTSs where units can shoot in any direction with magic bullets that always hit their targets.
Now, here is the point where some would make criticisms, but I’m not sure what is wrong with this game. From my standpoint the graphics requirements are too high for me to play it in the awesome quality that I see in various screenshots. While that’s a problem it still looks pretty good on my computer with its minimum settings, so that’s not so much a problem as a minor gripe.
In my opinion for $30 dollars this game is an incredible buy. It’s unique, and incredibly interactive, more so than the vast majority of real time strategy games.