Company of Heroes
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ESRB:
Blood and Gore,Intense Violence,Strong Language
Publisher: THQ Genre(s): Strategy Home Page: http://www.companyofheroesgame.com/
Take two thoroughly marinated and aged genres: the Second World War (specifically D-Day and the ensuing push across the Rhine) and the real-time strategy game. Put in a pot stirred by a successful, ambitious developer looking to rewrite the cookbook, and add some Havok for flavor. Get ready for a taste explosion!  Company of Heroes is the newest game from Relic Entertainment (of Homeworld and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War fame). The familiar interface from Dawn of War is back, and fans will find themselves right at home. Even the gorgeously pre-rendered opening demo features a familiar-looking face, and has a morbid portrayal of heroic death, eerily similar to Dawn of War's opening. If you've played that game almost to death, this is where you might start getting a little worried. Company of Heroes is set in D-Day Europe, and borrows much of its style and storyline from HBO's Band of Brothers mini-series and Spielberg's hit movie Saving Private Ryan. Has Relic completely run out of ideas? Have you just bought what is essentially a Dawn of War WWII total modification? Also, what's with the cooking analogy? Don't worry, let me assure you: you made the right choice when you picked up the game. Company of Heroes adds spadefuls of innovation and top class production values to the genre, to become a new milestone in the evolution of RTS games. In fact, I got so much into the game I forgot to eat, hence the barely palatable beginning of this review. Without further ado, let's move on to the main course! More than goreCoH's beautiful graphics and presentation are what you'll likely notice first. Even after you get to the meat of the game (OK, enough food analogies! Ed), the game's visuals will amaze, awe and agitate. Like its predecessor, Company of Heroes displays the harvest of war in gory detail. Infantry units can be blown to pieces when hit by heavy weapons like artillery, and mortally wounded soldiers often lie writhing on the ground for agonizing moments before finally perishing. After a few moments of playing, you start to realize that this is more than just for the splatter effect: realistic visuals extend to other units and structures as well, as vehicles' metal hulls get crumpled, torn and twisted, anti-tank shells can visibly deflect off armor instead of penetrating, and cover is literally blown away exposing units hiding behind it. Whole areas can get fouled up beyond all recognition during a serious fight or an artillery barrage: buildings and fences collapse, trees and bushes get knocked or burned down, and the ground gets churned up and pitted by shells and grenades. Welcome to fully destructible terrain, provided by the Havok Physics engine, a perfect marriage of form and function.
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