Developer: Relic Entertainment    Publisher: THQ
Platforms: PC    Genre: Real Time Strategy
Release: Fall 06    Rating: Pending (M expected)
Players: 1-8    MSRP: $49.99
Website: www.companyofheroesgame.com

Relic is a company that has really carved out a spot for itself as a world-class game company.  Quality games are their business, and they do their business well.  Their original claim to fame was a revolutionary title in 1999 by the name of Homeworld.  It was a game of unmatched beauty and splendor; this fully 3D RTS was like nothing ever seen before and absolutely rocked the gaming community.  Mind bending graphics, a wonderful story, and a beautiful soundtrack with input by British rock band Yes made this title legendary in the annals of gaming history.


This was Relic's first hit title, but certainly not their last. They would go on to develop Impossible Creatures, Homeworld 2, and Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War; all brilliant RTS games in their own right.  Some would hazard to say that with a track record like this, Relic may come to rival Blizzard as the premier RTS developer in the future.

Relic's next would-be hit is a WWII themed RTS known as Company of Heroes.  CoH (not to be confused with NCSoft's City of Heroes) features an all-new graphics engine that rivals those of first-person shooters.  Physics driven game-play, destructible environments, and an advanced AI system all guarantee that this game will live up to Relic's legacy.  Relic also promises an absolutely immersive single player story from the opening moments of D-Day and on you will follow the courage and bravery of not just the soldiers, but the heroes that defined a generation.  Your friends can get in on the action as well with one to eight player multi-player.


When sitting down with CoH, the first thing that strikes you is the visuals.  Relic has made some of the best, if not the best looking RTS's, and CoH is no exception.  Individual soldiers are detailed down to the folds in their uniforms and the sun glaring off their helmets. This is the first RTS game that I have ever seen that is detailed down to individual fingers on the soldiers! Structures topple beautifully when struck with a tank shell.  You can see the individual floors of a building through blown out walls, as well as protruding rafters and windows which shatter realistically when shot. The visuals that come with environmental damage are not based on scripted animations either, but on real time, physics-based calculations.  If you shoot a particular part of a building, that part of the building will take and show damage realistically.


The physics and graphics tie together to make an impressive package.  Graphics take care of the pretty explosions, and then the physics take over to make sure the resulting debris react realistically.  Chunks of buildings fall and deform in a realistic manner,  walls tear apart and bricks scatter as tanks plow through them, and soldiers drop and skid as they are shot.  Soldiers explode gruesomely with heavy weapons fire, and boy, do the body parts fly.  A tank round can send a torso flying in one direction, while the legs flop about in another as they skip across the battlefield with explosive momentum.


As far as RTS games go, CoH has some very impressive AI.  Soldiers will take cover behind any part of the environment they can find, and as new factors are introduced, they will change their tactics as needed.  For example, if a mortar blows a chunk out of the ground soldiers may move from behind a car to the better cover provided by the deep crater.  Soldiers can hold up in buildings, using them for cover and firing from windows, the roof, and terraces, but the fun part comes when that building takes damage.  If the side of that building were to be blown out, soldiers will take note of the gaping aperture and reposition themselves around it for a better shot.  Though my favorite show of the soldier AI was when they flanked an enemy machine gun nest from behind.  They decided to just take out the gunners instead of blowing out the entire nest, so that they could take over the machine gun themselves (yes, that's right; your troops can commandeer enemy tech for their own advantage).  They then proceeded to turn the machine gun around, so that they could ambush enemy reinforcements coming to back up the original occupants of the nest.

Relic seems once again poised to deliver another fantastic RTS, in a setting we generally associate with shooters.  Many may be tired of WWII themed games, but when one of this quality comes along, those people might want to rethink their feelings toward the setting.  Relic has yet to let us down and we have no reason to believe they won't deliver yet again with Company of Heroes.

Trailer

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