Reviews of PC Games

Introduction

It's hard to remember that the original Company of Heroes is nearing its third birthday, especially when you consider it's still one of the most popular real-time strategy games out there. When it was first released, it truly set a new standard for the RTS genre, and Relic built on its success by releasing an expansion pack which added two new armies. While there was very little innovation in that title, that made it by no means a bad expansion. After a significant wait, Relic launched a new game in the Dawn of War series, aptly named Dawn of War 2. In DoW2, Relic made a rather significant shift in focus, moving from large-scale battles to a more squad-oriented approach. Smaller battles, with more upgradeable units and hero-type units made for a completely different experience from what we'd become used to with Dawn of War and Company of Heroes.

The history lesson here is of importance, because Company of Heroes and Dawn of War II are built on the same engine, merely different versions. So it might not come as a large surprise that after the smaller-scale Dawn of War 2, the latest expansion to the Company of Heroes line follows in the same vein. The result is very, very strange, at least to me: two of the three new game modes allow you only to control 1 (one!) unit, and level him up. The other game mode is a cooperative game, and pits the players against wave after wave of enemies. Then, finally, there's some new campaign missions. When I first heard about these new multiplayer game modes, I can't say I was very excited about them; they sounded pretty dumb. Was I right? Let's find out.

When I saw, among the latest releases, the title: “Wheelman”, I'll admit: I laughed. When I then noticed it had Vin Diesel's name on the cover, I tossed the game aside. We all know how well movie-licensed games tend to do for the hardcore gamer: terribly. However, since there is a virtual drought in the realm of games at the moment, I soon found myself checking out some trailers for this game. They got me intrigued, and before I knew what I was doing, I had popped the disc into my drive.

Ever since Mirror's Edge was announced, and the concept art was released, it's had almost cult-status. The fresh design of the game made it stand out, especially in an age of videogaming where so many developers opt for a grainy brown/gray color scheme. But it wasn't just the artwork that caused expectations to rise quite high, the very foundation of the game was to be different from what we've seen so far in the industry: we were promised a true 3D platformer.

Let's see if the game makes true to the expectations the developers (DICE) created around it.

Let me start out by explaining that initially, I had thought I would not review Dawn of War II. Not because I don't like the series, quite the contrary - I'm a Relic fanboy. In my opinion, they revolutionized the RTS genre, just when it was getting stale. I'm not worried about being too biased to review this game, though, as the review will unfortunately show.

When Warhammer 40.000:Dawn of War was released back in 2004, it blew me away. The clever system with requisition points, Critical Locations, Relics and so on made for a deeply tactical and enjoyable experience. If you then toss in the dozens of options to upgrade your soldiers with better guns and armor, squad reinforcements and morale you're in for quite a ride. From that point on, I kept a sharp eye on Relic, and I couldn't contain a squeal of anticipation when they announced a World War II RTS: Company of Heroes. Playing that, Dawn of War almost seemed like a tech-demo: they added a whole resource, expanded the cover system, added more to the morale system and so on, so forth. Although the core concept remained the same--and you could even sometimes see a bit of Dawn of War shining through in Company of Heroes-- it was just so much better.

So, one would expect that with the experience of Company of Heroes, a wildly popular RTS, Relic would be able to create a sequel to Dawn of War which would rock the foundations of the RTS genre. This game, after all, will be competing with Starcraft 2 in the "Distant Future Space-RTS genre".

"The Rainbow Six series is tied to what can now be called the "Tom Clancy franchise". If it's a government organization, wears a cool outfit, wields a gun and shoots at terrorists in some shape or form, it's likely to be playable in a Tom Clancy game. Traditionally, the series is aimed at the very hardest of hard-core tactical-shooter fans, but with the "Vegas" series Ubisoft seems to move away from that audience. Based on the Unreal Engine, Vegas 1 brought to bear an impressive cover mechanic that we might well recognize in Gears of War, and like in Gears of War it worked really, really well. It also took away health bars in favor of a more "dynamic" system, in which you can only take so much damage in X amount of time or die, gave you a team to order around and ... gave it an arcade feel.

Although some fans of the Rainbow Six series complained heavily about this shift, it was generally well-received (a score of 85 on Metacritic, at the time of this writing). Sales were good enough to warrant a sequel, and here we are: Rainbow Six: Vegas 2." More behind the link.

"Company of Heroes is a game by THQ, based on the same concept as their previous success Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War: Real-Time Strategy with capturable resource-points. Unlike its "predecessor" Dawn of War, Company of Heroes is set in the past; World War II to be precise. In its storyline, we follow Able Company in their advance through Europe, fighting back the Nazis. We have the option of playing both the Allies (American GI's) or the forces of Nazi Germany. The game has a full-blown storyline campaign and a skirmish mode. Multiplayer-wise, it is no wonder it is such a popular game: Multiple gametypes (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Victory Points), as well as the option to team up with other players/computer players versus another team.

Company of Heroes' Engine can render beautiful cutscenesSince it was first released, Company of Heroes has built up a large fanbase and received many extremely positive reviews. Beautiful graphics, combined with great gameplay and historical accuracy, Company of Heroes still stands as an exemplary addition to the RTS Genre." (more in the link)

"For those of you whom enjoy building empires, but would like some more combat depth than that which is offered in the Civilization series, Creative Assembly has created a sequel to the successful Total War series: Medieval II: Total War. It expands on the existing formula explored in Rome: Total War and Shogun: Total War, both of which well-received games. The game looks magnificent, but has it exchanged gameplay for shiny graphics?"

The latest Battlefield 2 is a good MMO RTS title packaged to fit the online experience.

Online deathmatch is the ultimate game mode for those who have more faith in their own reflexes than in the cooperation of strangers...