The World War II epic has become a staple of the entertainment industry. Films like, Saving Private Ryan, The Longest Day and, most recently, Flags of our Fathers have provided gripping visualizations of the long-ago conflict. Sadly, the game industry’s view is that of a horrible cliché. Mediocre shooters and strategy titles milk the war for all its worth, and has led to dozens of imaginings of the landings at Normandy . Fortunately, Company of Heroes goes above and beyond the call of a regular game. The micromanagement gameplay combines with fantastic visuals and spectacular storytelling to create a WWII strategy juggernaut that, just like the war, won’t be easily forgotten.

Company of Heroes follows the exploits of Able Company in the latter part of the war in 1944. Their h**ish landing at Normandy kicks off the single player and players follow them as they defend vital supply lines, liberate city after city and eventually remove the n** threat from . Objectives vary greatly from mission to mission and rarely do players experience the standard “build base and attack” formula that plagues many RTS games.

A certain eagerness prevails over each mission as there’s a surprise around each corner. Objectives vary greatly from basic frontal a*aults to parachuting behind enemy lines to secure heavy weaponry for attacks on secret facilities. The most exciting scenarios tend to be the ones that put players on defense, giving them time to construct defenses and then unleashing the entire fury of the AI upon them.

Players may find themselves in a desperate attempt to salvage a mission as grenades explode and bullets whiz by a lone defender, stuck in a church bell tower, as the timer ticks down the final seconds. Even with a base established it’s challenging to hold a consistent front line. As territory expands, so does the AI’s ability to perform sneak attacks. It’s very difficult to set up a definitive kill zone as players will be attacked in multiple areas—strategic points, base HQ, front-line units—nothing is safe. Strategy perfectionists, those who prefer to stabilize an area before moving on pull their hair out in agony realizing that their border is as porous as Swiss cheese.

But to expand their territory, players must capture strategic objectives. This allows the construction of base defenses and observation points so-long-as the territory is connected to the HQ. If a territory is cut-off from the HQ by the enemy, it is considered out-of-supply and no buildings can be constructed nor can resources be added to the total pool.

Resources come in three flavors—fuel, ammunition and manpower—and each strategic point represents one of the three. Each continually counts up, first slowly as a mission begins but as more strategic points are captured the ticker counts faster, contributing to the overall resource pool. These resources are used to construct buildings, build units and use special abilities in the game.

And much like the unique resource gathering, Company of Heroes also has many uncommon strategic elements to the gameplay, which is one of the most exciting aspects of the game. Suffice to say, if players try to a*ault defenses head on they can expect units to become pinned down and their effectiveness quashed. Machine gun nests and anti-tank guns have specific areas in which they can they can lay down fire, so intuitive players can simply maneuver around and flank. Why a*ault the business end of an 80mm gun when it’s much easier to simply go around and kill the gun crew?

Of course it’s not always that easy. Rarely will there be a unit all alone. Supporting infantry and armor will do their best outflank players to escape machine gun fire and hit the thin rear armor on tanks. This highlights an important feature of Company of Heroes—the presence of micromanagement. It’s not enough to point and click armies around a map but actually direct individual units. Engineers can use clippers to bypass barbwire emplacements, infantry can build sandbags to give themselves cover and tanks activate smoke screens to hide themselves from the punishing enemy bombardment. A Tiger tank can tear a basic infantry squad to shreds but with enough supervision a basic rifle squad can turn even the fiercest of armor into scrap metal.

To complement players’ fighting abilities are a choice of company, or doctrines in the case of the Axis. The Allies can choose between airborne, armor or infantry powers while the Axis pick defensive, blitzkrieg or terror as their subversive weapon of choice. Abilities are tailored towards that type of fighting like the ability to call in bombing runs, having tanks repair themselves or upgrading buildings with machinegun nests. As players gain experience points through defeating enemies and building structures, more powerful abilities will become available to unlock.

And as unique as their powers, each faction operates differently. The Allies, like their historic counterparts, can quickly mass-produce units and deploy them on the battlefield quickly. The Axis, on the other hand, is initially limited and forced to upgrade many times over to achieve full strength. The trade off is that while deploying quickly, Allied firepower cannot stand toe-to-toe with that of the Axis. A fully-upgraded German army is a completely dominant force on the battlefield

Multiplayer can be handled either through the Internet or on a local LAN connection. Matches can be up to eight players but will always be Axis against Allies. Aside from the standard annihilation game mode, Company also boasts a victory point mode, similar to that of the Battlefield series. Certain strategic points will dot the map and if one side captures more than the other, the minority team’s tickets will start to fall. The team that runs out of tickets first loses. The interface for online matches is quite extensive and features a seamless transition from important server news to chat, leader boards and the list of available games. In all ten matches played online, there was virtually no lag, even when each side’s unit cap of 75 was full

From a presentation standpoint, Company of Heroes is one of the best games released this year. The graphics are amazing and a completely interactive environment adds to the immersion. Fences can be blown to smithereens, clearing the way for infantry and craters from exploded artillery become forms of cover for infantry. Buildings look like any other structure at the beginning of any firefight but after enough punishment roofs will collapse and walls will cave in, leaving entire cityscapes with nothing but shells of buildings—much like those seen in newsreels of post-war Berlin.

Animations highlight the attention to detail given to everything in the game. Tracer rounds zing from machine gun barrels, infantry open shudders and crouch down near holes in the wall of garrisoned buildings and players can even see their trusty engineers laying down sandbags as they construct. Explosions and artillery fire will light up the screen in some of the most realistic fire effects players have seen to date. Rockets leave charred earth as the surrounding ground glows a menacing red. Perhaps the best part is that despite all the visual treats, the framerate stays fairly consistent throughout the course of the game.

The audio is another fantastic element of Company of Heroes. Units will scream out for help, desperately calling for a*itance. “Enemy armor sighted,” “Sniper,” and “We’re pinned down,” all help add to the immersive ness of the game. Sound effects are crisp and loud, just as they should be. Those with surround sound should be able to feel the bass as artillery pounds the ground and tank treads roll over pieces of rubble. A militaristic orchestral score will keep the action flowing but there’s typically so many effects on during regular firefights that players may not always notice it.

To put it smply, real-time-strategy fans that haven’t bought Company of Heroes need to seriously examine their genre loyalty. The orgy of graphics, varied gameplay and an enthralling single-player experience all combine to create one of the, if not the best real-time-strategy game of the year. Two great multiplayer modes also ensure that people will be playing it for a long time to come.

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