I have to admit, I was starting to get really rather bored by this current trend for World War II games. Why bother thinking for yourself and creating something inventive when you can just use something from real-life history... apparently the imagination is highly overrated!
If I'm honest... I'm still quite bored of most World War II games but Relic (the people behind Dawn of War) have managed to create something rather special in Company of Heroes.
I'm not even sure I can explain exactly what makes it THAT special... it's just the whole package. The main factors are probably just the incredible attention to detail and the overall quality of the game. If you've played Dawn of War, you'll have experienced Relic's 'touch' before... that moment your first Dreadnaught opens up with it's chain gun before grabbing an enemy and pounding them into the ground; Company of Heroes is like that, only better!
The first time you grab a mounted machine gun (as part of the tutorial)and start blasting away at some approaching Germans, or throw a satchel charge through the front of a bunker... it's just incredible. But it's not the killing that does it, it's how it effects the scenery: barrels and crates get obliterated as bullets carve their way through them, houses collapse having had their insides rearranged by high explosives, artillery fire leaves huge craters in the road throwing everything aside. It's just as you'd want it to be: action and reaction.
Don't believe me? Download the demo... I have nothing more to say (and that's unusual).
Naiboss
