Today, I will deal with one of my all-time favorite gaming franchise: Company of Heroes! Yes, I said franchise because I have played both 1 and 2 (plus I intend to play 3) which I enjoyed them for different reasons that I will explain soon. It was developed by the Relic Entertainment studio based in Canada and even though the name may ring a bell to some of you, I found useful to remind our audience that it is a nice wink to the HBO miniseries entitled Band of Brothers. It was produced by both Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks in 2001, right after their earlier collaboration on the Saving Private Ryan movie about World War 2 and more specifically D-Day. Something interesting about Band of Brothers is that, unlike Saving Private Ryan, which is a fiction inspired by historical facts, Band of Brothers is a direct adaptation of a non-fiction book of the same name, book that is adapted from actual interviews and letters done by veterans of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the famous 101st Airborne Division that was directly involved in D-Day and eventually fought its way to Hitler's Eagle's nest in Austria. The game name comes from a D-Day veteran's reply to his grandson asking "Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?" and grandpa said “No, but I served in a company of heroes.” *wink* *wink*

Back to the game now! Its revolutionary aspect lies in the fact that it is the first World War 2 3D RTS that is so freaking immersive! Relic Entertainment used an engine developed to release a Warhammer 40,000 themed 3D RTS game in 2004 that some of you have certainly played... I am of course talking about Dawn of War. So, Company of Heroes allows you to play either US forces of Wehrmacht forces with different doctrines adding a lot of diversity in the strategies you may use to win. Be it paratroopers, mechanized infantry, blitzkrieg, elite panzers, you name it, you know them all like a pro. The game was awarded numerous Game of the Year titles in 2006 from PC Gamer, GameSpy and GameSport among others and recieved a 93/100 score on Metacritic which is really good! Well done! So, some words about gameplay now. the engine developed for the game is the famous Essence engine, which is the first RTS engine to propose detailed faces with facial animations as well as dynamic lightings and shadows. Hence the capacity given to players to zoom in the battlefield like they are lying into cover to avoid enemy fire and glance at their brothers-in-arms in the eyes. The other key-feature of the engine that makes the game incredible and was already seen in Dawn of War, also developed by Relic Entertainment, is that unit management is squad-based. What I mean by that is that rather than having to select soldiers one by one, you manage a whole unit in one click and you can refill it in case of losses. However, this is true only for infantry and artillery pieces since you must manage individually your armor and trucks. At first glance, I thought it was pretty bulky but in reality, it gives the commander awesome cover taking options sorted by light, middle and heavy according to how well your units are protected from enemy sight and thus fire. It also makes decision-taking and orders much faster, which adds adrenaline to the game!

You want to make sure your soldiers are in heavy cover as confirmed by the green shields above their heads

Company of Heroes 1 was rather balanced in terms of units and each of the two faction’s ability to actually win a multiplayer game. The single player mode was cool and designed as a remake of your favorite motion pictures talking about World War 2. Later on, Relic decided to add expansion packs to give their players both new single player campaigns and new multiplayer factions and launched Opposing Fronts adding the British army and the Panzer elite. The British addition to the game is interesting because it focused on rock-solid defense and bold counterattacks on more heavily armed enemy units, backed by Air Force - which is one possible although expeditionary narrative outline of the British engagement in the conflict since they had to resist on their own soil before launching a counterattack, but we appreciate the almost historical touch here. Second patch Tales of Valor was a new single player campaign to play three real historical episodes of the Battle of Normandy was such a treat to the community who is in its majority made of History fans and amateurs. Sorry, I do not want to offend any scholar or war veteran. This franchise was followed by a stand-alone sequel under the form of a free massively multiplayer online real-time strategy game released by Relic Entertainment and published by THQ as usual. Unfortunately for its fans, this opus did not stand even 1 year online because it had nothing to do with the franchise. Chinese and Korean versions were also released but overall, this one did not have a long-lasting echo among players. Check below one COH2 game I played online in the context of a tournament qualifications (the video is not mine and I am not the commentator):

2nd opus was released in mid-2013 and using the same engine as did Dawn of War 2, still managed to bring freshness to the genre for many reasons. First of all, it added the weather having an influence on your troops. They must stay in cover and light fires during blizzard unless they freeze to death and you cannot call the air force neither. This aspect is pretty much of a hassle if you were relying on infantry but can turn to your advantage if you have some shiny armor to deploy on the battlefield. As interesting as this feature was, it has been removed pretty fast due to massive whining from the community. Factions now, the great surprise the Soviet army is the most highlighted faction in this one. Yes, you pictured correctly, massive use of conscript infantry men, hold it as much as you can and then drop the tanks and specialist troops specifically trained and designed to counter Wehrmacht problematic units. One of the main particularities of Soviets in the game, is that they do not have any retreat point options whatsoever, except with one doctrine, out of dozens and only three can be selected before you launch a game. Unlike other factions that all have a retreat point that can be built or deployed on the map by non-doctrinal units, so they don't have to marathon the whole map back to HQ. This is another historical aspect delt with by the game, reminding us of the sadly famous order number 227 that Stalin sent to his troops in 1942, de facto forbidding any retreat move in the whole red army. One doctrine even allows you to detach political commissars to boost troops morale. The games are not 100% History accurate of course, but they deserve to be classified as realist taken into account some details, they add in the gameplay, you will reckon. This aspect of the game was unfortunately badly received by members of the community in Russia and ex-Soviet states and I am sure this was unintended as in no way, I would want to disrespect the Great Patriotic War veterans. This is a common issue with realistic historical games involving real conflicts so please boys and girls, let’s just play together and have fun or go play Fortnite if you cannot deal with those events.

You certainely don't want to take your chances with the commissar...

Company of Heroes 2 has way more factions and way more doctrines than the first opus. You can play US, British and Soviet for the Allies or Wehrmacht Ostheer and Oberkommando West if you want to play the Axis. Each of them has between eight up to twenty-one commanders for the Soviets! So, you have such a great diversity of doctrines in the game, you can play thousands of hours before being bored if you ever get bored of this fabulous game!

OKW is the least diverse faction of the game however, you still have that many doctrinal choices!

This is now the end so please let me know about your Company of Heroes 1 and 2 gameplay experience (Yeah, we all like those M-M-M-monster kill grenades thrown at our infantry), how it relates with how you believe a game should deal with History dramatic events such as World War 2 and of course, what you expect from Company of Heroes 3 - See you on the battlefield!