Company of Heroes

Pros and Cons

Pros 👍🏻	Cons👎🏻
Good and long campaigns Still has an active multiplayer base Decent graphics, game-play even after 16 years since release Historically accurate Great fighting mechanics Simple game-play, easy to learn	Somewhat repetitive missions FPS instability at time

A great WW2 strategy game, Company of Heroes is made to test your battle-hardiness and tactical thinking in the most difficult of situations

🎮 Gameplay

Company of Heroes is a World War 2 real-time strategy game developed by Relic entertainment. It provides realistic battle simulation where you can relive through some of WW2s greatest moments.

Included in the game on purchase is one campaign, 'The Battle of Normandy'; single-player and multiplayer. The United States and Wehrmacht are the only factions playable in this version, although you can buy two standalone/separate DLCs to add five more campaigns, more maps and the British and Panzer Elite factions. Also, there are plenty of community-made (and officially acknowledged) campaigns. They offer some more value for your money.

Units can seek shelter behind defenses, vehicles, world objects or inside buildings to reduce damage received from enemy fire.

Single-player lets you wind down and take it easy while battling against some AIs with maps and battle conditions of your choosing.

Battles in Company of Heroes are all about strategy rather than majority. If you have good, defensive positioning, you will take much less damage from enemy troops. It is seemingly small mechanics like these that could decide the outcome of a fight. Battles are much more realistic and satisfying because of this.

Each faction has their own unique play-style and units. Both are well-balanced as well.

There is, surprising, an active player base still going strong. So if you finish campaign content and still want to have some more fun, just hop into multiplayer and off you go!

💻 Visuals

For a 16 year old game, Company of Heroes is still surprising good looking, even still, resource demanding. All soldiers, tanks, buildings etc. are realistically depicted, and the amount of detail when zooming in is awesome - pop in and watch your engineers smoke a ♥♥♥, would you? Or zoom all the way out and watch your ant-sized squads move across the map. Graphics are still great for such an old game.

Graphics are very good for this old game. User interface is clean and appealing. Zoom levels range from really zoomed in, to far.

Campaign cinematics are bad on higher resolution monitors, however, but generally still look pretty bad-ass.

🎶 Audio

Soldier and campaign voice-acting is pretty good, and captures pretty much how real life WW2 soldiers would have spoken.

Guns, tanks and planes all have realistic sounds. Make sure you don't have the volume too high during a large battle.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Audience

Company of Heroes is great for anyone into history, strategy or WW2. It is simple to learn, and because it is quite an old game, it will not require a really powerful gaming setup.

The game contains violence and coarse language, making it unsuitable for younger ages. However, the Pegi 18+ rating is not really applicable for the game 16 years on.

🔥 Performance

Company of Heroes performed excellently on my system, running at 60FPS. Be warned, however, that weaker CPUs will be likely to cause FPS drops when more units are moving/firing etc. If you are having very jumpy FPS due to CPU limitations, try forcing the game to run at a lower FPS amount.

❓ Conclusion & Recommendations

Company of Heroes is an example of a job done right. Perfect in nearly every way, and still enjoyable nearly two decades later, Company of Heroes is a great game for any RTS or WW2 enthusiast.

Company of Heroes comes with only one campaign. Download more at the workshop or purchase the two DLCs for five more.

Next time Company of Heroes is on sale, I recommend you hit that 'purchase' button. If you like single-player, make sure to check out the two DLCs - Opposing Fronts and Tales of Valor - for some more campaigns and factions to play as.

Rating: 8/10