However, there is something a little silly about invading Berlin, which conflict involved two and a half million Red Army soldiers, under a population cap that limits you to around 70 troops. It is not hard to see why this wasn't included in the game. The game sees the Soviets execute a handful of Polish partisans, whereas individual mass graves of several thousand Polish soldiers have been unearthed in the Krakovian countryside.
The brutality of the Red Army is referenced, although we perhaps don't get a sense of the actual scale either of the conflicts, or of Russian war crimes. The nowadays seemingly obligatory plot device of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Battlefield 3, where a soldier's historical exploits are revisited during an interrogation, frames the campaign.
COMPANY OF HEROES 2 UPGRADE
The visuals have been given a mandatory upgrade – six years have passed since Company of Heroes, after all – so when flamethrower meets flesh the resultant combustion is ripe with detail. Stalin declared all retreating Red Army soldiers traitors to the Soviet Union, and this is nodded to with another mildly irritating feature, whereby retreating troops are intermittently shot by AI NKVD officers. Smoke can be used defensively, either to cover advancing troops or to shield tanks from heavy ordnance.Īnd, the new race – in the parlance both of RTS games, and of the Nazis – the Soviets, has a unique play style founded on numerical superiority. There is a good reason why, in the great majority of games, your troops do not die spontaneously of natural causes. In multiplayer, thankfully, this is optional.Ī new line-of-sight mechanic enhances the tactical role of positioning: you'd better make sure to point your guns in the right direction. A nice idea, perhaps, but in practice it's irritating: your soldiers die unless they stand in cover, or by conveniently located fires dotted around the map. Less pleasingly, Company of Heroes 2 brings to life 'General Winter', the Soviet nickname for the extreme climactic forces that ravaged the Nazi invasion of Russia during Operation Barbarossa, and the invading French forces during the Napoleonic War. They are no longer specialised infantry killers or anti-tank platforms, but multi-purpose vehicles that serve both offensive and defensive roles. A larger pool of tanks means each vehicle performs a more versatile role. This is close to the deck of cards system in Age of Empires, where experience provided small bonuses to unit or building characteristics.Ĭompany of Heroes 2 also complicates tank conflict somewhat. Here repeated playing yields decorative ribbons, vehicle and troop skins, and special abilities. Unlockable enhancements are currently à la mode in the games industry.
COMPANY OF HEROES 2 SERIES
Game developers Relic instead opt for a series of minor changes, and a graphical overhaul. These components of Company of Heroes, which made it both a commercially successful and enjoyable game, remain unchanged in Company of Heroes 2. Company of Heroes offers a kind of RTS different to Total Annihilation/ Supreme Commander or Star Craft II – base building and warmaking on an epic scale is the approach of the former, while the latter demands micromanagement and mastery of short cuts. This worked better than the straightforward mass-'em-and-rush-'em strategies beloved of the genre's less imaginative offerings. Combat, as in the Second World War, was both fluid and attritional – grinding away at an enemy's front lines and rapid outflanking were both successful strategies. In Company of Heroes, infantry and vehicle classes balanced each other in a sort of six-way variant of 'rock, paper, scissors', while cover and firing lines made positioning central to tactics. Resource-gathering RTS games turn off many casual gamers, since to achieve mastery it helps to have a little bit of decision maths up your sleeve. It's widely credited with having revitalised real-time strategy games: out went detailed economy management, in came territorial capture. Company of Heroes: Tales of Valour is a tough act to follow.
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