Rogue

Last night I played my first multiplayer match in Company Of Heroes, the amazing new strategy title from Relic and THQ.

Follow up:

As unfair as it is, the best way to explain many of the subtleties of the game is to compare it to it's peers. When you're playing in multiplayer it's like they've taken the best of breed for gameplay mechanics and concepts from across the board and seemlessly fused them together into a brilliant implementation of a period game.

You still have a traditional builder unit and construct buildings to produce units. However you don't obtain resources through the regular harvesting facilities and peons, it's done through capturing key points across the map - the ownership of which generates resources. This is similar to Ground Control and Relic's last game, Warhammer 40000: Dawn Of War. There are three different resources; manpower, munitions, and fuel. Appart from generic manpower points you also need to capture certain points which are set as munitions or fuel to get any of those respective resource types.

And just like in Dawn Of War, you can fortify each point with outposts letting you gain resources at a higher rate and prevent the enemy from taking it over without destroying your fortifications.

There are also additional points called 'victory points' which when captured operate much like the Battlefield series flags. When you hold them they force your opponents tickets (team or individual) to flick down. When your tickets run out you lose. It might sound simple but certainly is a boon over the percentage captured vs time system which was present in Dawn Of War, and it really adds to the multiplayer battles - providing a sense of desperation when you are fighting around them as there are few and they determine the victor.

Then there is the reinforcement system, again something retained from Dawn Of War, yet unlike in DoW when troopers are killed off you can't simply respawn them anywhere on the battlefield at any time. In CoH you need to move the survivors to a base structure, when they're close enough you have the option to reinforce them (bringing them back to full strength). Thus giving you the ability to retain the veterancy of squads instead of having a half-dozen 1 man units or a bundle of sacrifical lambs.

Something borrowed from another game is the commander abilities. Almost identical to the system in Command & Conquer: Generals, you earn command points for capturing key points/victory points, killing the enemy, building structures, etc. Then you can save them up or immedately spend them allong an upgrade tree of abilites. Some granting immediate bonuses and abilities to your units, others letting you call off map support (artillery, dive bombers, recon planes), or even request new units (elite ranger squads, tanks, even an entire expiditionary force), or give you the ability to build a unique unit (like the howitzer). However unlike in Generals, most of the abilities which arn't passive require the investment of resources for each use (artillery attacks require a hefty payment of munitions for example).

Which brings me to some of the genius of CoH gameplay. The units are not arcadey. Let me say that again... Company Of Heroes is not arcadey. You infantry don't wander around in a flock, standing upright and firing from the hip - destroying tanks with enough small arms fire. In CoH they stick to cover and fire and move in semi-realistic fashion (as realistic as any men being commanding by a crazy PC gamer can be). Having two rifleman squads attack a tank will not win you the day, newsflash hotshot; tank armor can't be penetrated by small arms fire. It doesn't even make a dent. You need to invest in things like sticky bombs or high calibre machine gun munitions to take those suckers out if you don't have access to AT guns, artillery, or armor of your own.

The official reviews are starting to come out (IGN in particular) and the game itself is due in a week.

I can safely say, if the beta is any indication; this game is a must have.