Company Of Heroes : Opposing Fronts Review

goldfries rated it

 

Company Of Heroes : Opposing Fronts (CoH:OF) is the stand alone expansion pack to hit game in 2006 – Company of Heroes. So what does Opposing Fronts hold? Let’s have a look.

The Story

Yet another World War II story, this time you’re given 2 to play the British 2nd Army and the German Panzer Elite. The campaigns in the game would have you leading either one of these factions to victory.

Gameplay

The CoH RTS (Real-Time Strategy) series are one of those that aren’t based on the usual RTS’ Build, Gather resources, Build more, Spam, WIN! formula.

In CoH games, structures are limited. You don’t have to spam building all over the map, neither do you need to spam resource gathering units.

It’s pretty simple, the structures provide units and special abilities to various units while resources are acquired by capturing and holding resource points across the map. The resources used in this game are manpower, ammunition and fuel.

What I really like about this game is the intense action right from the start, unlike most RTS where the first 5 missions or so are easy and dull, CoH:OF on the other hand gives you plenty of action even with all the beginner units.

Tutorial? Nope, no in-game tutorials on CoH:OF. The tutorials are on a section of its own so it’s best you do some warm-up in the tutorials before taking the AI head on. 🙂

Another thing I like about the CoH game series is the squad behavior (# of infantry per squad varies), I like how they walk cautiously when they’re in enemy territory and how they take cover when under fire. It adds realism to the game. The squads could also upgrade their weaponry, use structures such as trees and fences to add defensive bonus, hop into vehicles, garrison building and so on so forth.

In this game, you spend most of your time controlling infantry. Tank spamming won’t help you win the game, in fact vehicles such as tanks can’t capture the control and resource points. 😀 You can capture such points with light vehicles but they’ll probably fall flat before reaching there.

What I didn’t like about this game? The Internet requirement, well at least it requires Internet access for the first run. After that it works fine without Internet access. The game requires you to register an account with Relic, each time you start the game you must log in before you play – even if there’s no Internet access.

Another thing I didn’t like was that the ESC key couldn’t summon the MENU. Petty matter, I know but I just have to highlight it.

Graphics & Sound

I’m actually quite surprised and how this game performs on my Galaxy 8600GT OC Edition.

After playing World in Conflict, I thought CoH:OF would probably be laggy on my rather low-end graphic card but apparently it wasn’t so. In fact, the framerates were decent even when there are many things going around the screen, furthermore I was on 1680 x 1050 resolution with most of the details in the game set to high.

Cut-scenes in the game were a mixture of videos and rendered scenes from the game engine itself, in some missions you’ll see footages that seamlessly transits to the scenario in the game.

As for sound, the game had great soundtracks and sound effects (like for gun fire, explosions, aircrafts, tank and vehicle engines….) but the voice of characters who speak during the heat of combat are often drowned.

Online / Network Gaming

Online gaming was fun! It’s just like any other RTS.

I’m actually surprised at how fast the games were listed right after I click on the Multiplayer option. If was as if the game was tracking the game real-time which I think it’s doing, it’s probably has something to do with the log in at the start of the game.

As for the actual gaming itself, the lag was acceptable. However loading of the game may take a while should anyone of the players involved have a slower machine as the game could only begin when everyone has the game loaded.

Besides showing the ping of each player the system also shows the performance level of the computer used to play CoH. In my case, I had a full 5 bar rating for my machine (YAY!), I waited for a minute or 2 for some other guy with a 1-bar rating to load the game.

For skirmishes, I had quite a few rounds with the normal AI. The AI was decent, on some maps they could actually put up a decent fight while on others they just fail miserably even in denting your advances.

Conclusion

I love this game. It’s like I’ve totally lost interest in Command and Conquer 3 and Supreme Commander already. Speaking of which – Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance was recently released. 😀 Stay tuned for more game reviews.

If you’re new to RTS gaming – I think CoH:OF would be quite tough on you. If you’re not a tactical person – I think CoH:OF would be quite tough on you. If you’re an impatient person – I think CoH:OF would be quite tough on you.

🙂 So yeah, be prepared for a challenge should you decide to play it. It’s not impossibly tough but it takes quite some skills to make it through.

Ratings

PC Specifications Used

Processor : Intel Pentium E2140 @ 3.2ghz
RAM : 2GB DDR2 667
Cooler : Xigmatek HDT-S963
Graphic Card : Galaxy 8600GT OC Edition
Monitor : 20″ Dell UltraSharp Wide-screen LCD