For example, sometimes the AI over-pursues enemy troops, making it easy for them to be trapped and annihilated. Multiplayer, via LAN or the Internet, adds more variety though maps are limited and a random map feature is not, or could not be, included. Individual missions usually take an hour or two to complete, more if you replay them to win medals by fulfilling secondary objectives. The campaign consists of just 15 missions, all played from the Allied side (which is a good thing). It's a shame, then, that the ride is so short. This, along with the realistic AI of your troops, separates CoH even more from other games of this type. Your riflemen can even use craters caused by artillery as cover. Engineers demolish buildings and build sandbag walls for cover. Tanks burst through concrete walls and wooden fences, sending the pieces flying. In another departure from traditional RTS, the Havok Engine in CoH lets your troops physically alter the landscape. Framing the RTS genre within a historical, realistic context lets you identify with your troops much more than say, an alien Zerg, and adds a layer of tension lacking in many other RTS games.Įach of the single-player campaign missions and maps are carefully designed and beautifully rendered, so it seems a shame that you'll end up blowing most of them up. A true RTS, CoH has you managing resources and troops much like StarCraft or WarCraft, but with the added twist of accomplishing primary as well as secondary mission objectives. Army unit, during the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from D-Day, when over three million troops crossed the English Channel, to the crossing of the Seine River and the occupation of Paris. With startlingly realistic graphics and sound, innovative and intuitive gameplay, and deeply compelling subject matter, CoH represents the next leap forward in real-time strategy, and stands as a tour-de-force of the genre.Ĭompany of Heroes puts you in command of troops in Able Company, a U.S. From the first, where you are placed in control of a brigade of troops tasked with landing on Omaha Beach and destroying German 88s, Relic's Company of Heroes grabs you and doesn't let go.