We all have our blind spots in this crazy, crazy world of video games — I have two. MMOs — which have never appealed to me — and the RTS. Until last week I’d never spent longer than 15 minutes playing an RTS, and that was the original Command & Conquer. I decided to jump in headfirst with Company of Heroes 2.
It was, absolutely, a massive baptism of fire. Friends: I was burned the hell up. I had a rough idea of how these games worked — select units, direct them, attack other units — but the intricacies were lost on me and it was a struggle. And there was zero hand holding. Normally I see that as a massive positive, but this time? I was begging for some kind of dumbed down, stripped back ‘easy’ mode for me to cut my teeth with. Alas, there was no such thing.
Still, I had fun, and got an idea of what it is that is so compelling about the genre. I don’t know if I will play more Company of Heroes 2, but I’m certainly more inclined to do so now that I’ve popped my proverbial cherry.
I’m imagining that plenty of you have, by now, been blasting through Company of Heroes 2. What are your thoughts?
Let us know in the comments below.
Comments
12 responses to “Community Review: Company Of Heroes 2”
I’ve barely scratched the campaign and haven’t touched multiplayer at all.
From what I have played though, it feels like a more polished Company of Heroes. The weather mechanics are interesting but I have literally no idea how they’ll play out in multiplayer balance.
I think for a pleb like me, blizzards only serve as an annoyance, but I can totally see in higher play how people react in blizzards being game changing.
Would watch streams.
I’ve been really impressed so far. The game looks and sounds amazing, and plays really well. Most of my use of this game will be in multi, as was the case with CoH1. There’s not a lot of difference, but it feels like CoH1 with a helluva lot more polish and graphics/sound upgrades. No complaints from me on that front.
As for campaign, I’ve only played the first 2 missions, and honestly haven’t been too blown away by that though. Cutscenes look rushed and poorly done. Story and voice actors are pretty average too. Missions seem to be standard fare, nothing too special.
Depends what you’re after. If you enjoy multiplayer – comp stomps or playing against other people, it’s pretty freakin’ great. The theatre of war stuff is pretty good too – single themed missions which are a heap of fun. Campaign seems a little lacklustre though. If you’ve got people to play with and enjoy multi, jump in. If you’re only here for a campaign to follow up on CoH1, maybe do a bit of investigation first.
Really really loving it so far. Played about 7 missions into the campaign and then multiplayer all the way. I was initially not liking the whole cold weather concept, but now I really dig the changes it forces you to make. It shifts the gameplay every now and then, and whoever has planned for a blizzard better can get the upper hand. Mortaring houses and campfires so their troops freeze has been my favourite thing lately.
I probably haven’t played enough to comment on balance, but initially it seems like the Soviets have a strong early game, whereas the Germans have an unbelievable late game. I’m not sure I agree with shoehorning one faction into rushing and one into turtling, both in terms of gameplay and history. Once Germany brings their big tanks out, they can be very hard to deal with – basically forces you to ram them, cancelling out both tanks. Soviet tanks are made of paper.
That said, even when I lose it’s fun, and that’s one strong sign of a great game.
It’s so hard playing as German and having to fend off Soviet harassment forces while you’re trying to get all your shit together. But once the Germans get going, they’re pretty beastly.
The only thing that does my head in about this game – MORTARS. The ultimate harassment tool. So freakin’ annoying.
My favourite answer to Mortars – FLAMMENWURFHER!… or a flanking Sniper!
Flamethrowers do the job, but can be fiddly to get into place and chase the subsequent retreat. The sniper idea is excellent though!
Actually thats pretty much the same “balance” CoH 1 had w/ the initial US vs Wehr factions.
Soviet Tanks aren’t made to take on Germans head on. Your aim is to either ambush from a flank… or run straight behind the enemy tank. Or in a pinch… steal some Schrecks from the Germans =P
I want to get coh2 but not sure if my laptop will run it. 4gb ram, intel 2.53ghz is all i know haha
It should really be labelled as a COH1 expansion.
It is great fun, I love the atmosphere (as I did with COH1), and the introduction of blizzards, snow, and freezing conditions is wonderful.
However, visually, the game looks little better than COH1 (which is almost 7 years old!), yet seems to chew up resources on contemporary computers. The graphics are embarrassingly out of date. I know one shouldn’t get hung up on graphics, but a big thing about COH is the atmosphere and attention to detail, and for a game to fail to really improve on this after so many years between releases is really not good.
There are some changes to gameplay, which have a fairly minor impact on gameplay experience to an average player, even though they are nice – e.g. new line of sight mechanics, changes to the units available etc.
Perhaps one significant change going from COH1 to COH2 is the introduction of an elaborate system of unlocks and powerups and awards – these are tedious – it is the junk-food side of making a game addictive. I don’t want to have to get 50 of a specific kind of kill to unlock a 5% damage boost for example.
7/10.
@molaram: To be perfectly fair most of those power ups are tied to units that you use (and actions in campaign and ToW also count to this not just MP games). If you tend to favour light infantry a lot then those infantry get boosted during the course of your game. It’s not like most arbitrary grind/fetch quests on other games where you do X to upgrade something irrelevant.
If mortars/hmg’s aren’t normally a part of your army make up those bonuses won’t really be an issue for you as a player anyway since you barely use them . However having a slight boost on units you tend to favour is nice.
Unless you *are* completely OC enough to try and unlock all the bulletins xD
That makes sense, but don’t you think it reinforces your play style and makes it harder to diversify? You put some hours into using infantry, get some infantry unlocks, and you have an incentive to keep using infantry instead of learning to make use of other units. Intense specialisation, else grind.
As an old fan of the series, i have to say that i really love this game.
My only complaint is that the camera is a little bit restricted. I’d really like to be able to zoom out more, for a better view of the larger picture on the battlefield.
Done campaign for Soviet just 3 days.but how switch to play campaign for German?