The cutscenes, rendered using crude 3D models (see above), are hammy like a bad 70s war movie, their grim tone is at odds with the ragdoll action in the missions and it's all dreadfully dull, making the campaign's story as insufferable as (sorry) a cold Russian winter.Īnother problem with the campaign is that it attempts to shoe-horn several new features into the game in the name of factional authenticity, like an endless supply of conscripts and NKVD officers who shoot retreating soldiers. It begins too slowly and, even worse, is drenched from beginning to end in an awkward veneer of moralising, as Relic attempt to justify the fact you're playing as an army "not as bad as the Germans because they're on our side" by putting you in the shoes of a dissident aghast at the Soviet's shocking brutality. The fact the Soviets are now playable is the main addition here, though, and also the most disappointing.ĬoH2's campaign does not live up the standards set by the original game and its expansions. Snowstorms will slow your infantry and even kill them if they're out in the open too long, while frozen rivers can be blown open to block passage or sink enemy forces. The Eastern Front was a brutal theatre of war, and the weather in this game wants to make sure it has more than a cosmetic effect. Seven years is a long time between wars, though, and now that we have a sequel, people are expecting a lot from this game, the first time Company of Heroes has ditched Western Europe for the Eastern Front. There was no resource collecting, no tank rushes, none of the hallmarks of other games that look like they're about a clash of armies but are really little but mouse-driven sprint races.īuilt around the concepts of cover and directional fire, suppression and morale, you had to use actual battlefield strategies if you wanted to succeed, and seven years on (the game was released in 2006), the formula is so perfect that it remains unchallenged, even by developer Relic's semi-related Dawn of War series. Company of Heroes was a game for true armchair generals.
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