For those of you who like Company of Heroes

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FrozenLiquidity

[H]ard|Gawd
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Aug 28, 2007
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There's a new game coming up shortly, that I'm sure you'll enjoy.

If you're a CoH fan like I am and love the tactical style of gameplay it provides, then check out this game that's coming out shortly (March 17). It's called "Men of War". There's a demo available now.

Game site: http://www.menofwargame.com/
Review of EU release: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/r_facesofwar_pc
Demo version: http://www.gamershell.com/download_39500.shtml

The voice acting is pretty terrible, but the game seems to retain all the elements that made CoH a blast, and add more control, options and feel to all the units. Yes, I know that there were two prior releases from this developer (S:HoWW2, Faces of War) but these games never even hit my radar until I was looking into Men of War. Looks like I have some catching up to do with my gaming. Anyway, about the game...

If you've read the review, there's not much more I can tell you to sway you if you're not already interested, but if you want my take then read on. As I said before, it seems to retain all the elements that made CoH enjoyable; fun missions with fully destructable terrain, being able to upgrade/vet units, using dynamic cover, manning enemy weapons and having directional armor and good graphics. It's all there, with the addition of throwing in the option to take direct control of any unit (not quite FPS style) and go rambo with him. You can also pick up weapons and items off of the ground or corpses, cook a grenade for a second or two before tossing it (Nazis have no time to dive!) and use all sorts of emplacements or mobile guns that you find lying around. The demo seemed to include a little something for everyone and I have found it not only enjoyable, but quite replayable.
I immensely enjoyed taking direct control of one of my units and scrounging up all the rifles I could (most of my men were armed with SMGs) and sending this unit into the enemy held village and picking guys off. I was impressed that when my unit went up to a window in a house, he'd break the glass out so it was a viable place to shoot from. I was also thrilled that when my tank got hit in a tread, that is was immobilized and I'd have to provide cover while one of the crew (or supporting infantry) got out and fixed the vehicle. Being able to switch ammunition types was welcome, and the difference between AT and HE rounds was apparent. Even when I ran out, I was able to have soldiers scrounge up ammunition from the same caliber AT guns that were around the map. The only real gripes I have about it is that the controls are bit awkward (but remappable), the voice acting sucks, and my soldiers get their helmets shot off far too often! Haven't these guys heard of a helmet strap? Well, one things for certain, I will be buying this as soon as it's released in the US.

Just so those of us who are short on cash don't feel left out, if you're looking for more gameplay options to extend your enjoyment of Company of Heroes, here's a few mods for you.

Battle of the Bulge - Edges towards more realism and introduces a whole new territory capture system. Brilliant! http://www.moddb.com/mods/battle-of-the-bulge
CoH: Eastern Front - While still unreleased, it's going to bring a taste of Russia to CoH. Relic isn't going to add the Russians to the game, so this mod team has tasked themselves to it. http://www.moddb.com/mods/coheastern-front

Finally, if you're just looking for some more CoH action, the 2nd expansion pack "Tales of Valor" is just around the corner and looks like it's shaping up pretty well.
 
i actually played that last week, its a pretty fun game with a few new features not really seen in WWII RTS's. i give it a thumb and a nub up!
 
This game is awesome. The game does have some warts, but they are easily ignored because of how fun the game is to play. If you like CoH, you should definitely pick this one up.
 
Yea MOW is awesome, iv played the closed beta and now i play the public beta. It is a lot different from COH tho. My roommate and I (who played COH since the beta and still play today) enjoyed Men of War but nothing will come close to COH. Men of War is a lot like World In Conflict-Large tactical strategy type.

Also, a new COH is coming out in April. Its COH: Tales of Valor.

http://relic.com/games/
 
And here I thought this thread had faded into oblivion. I’m glad to see at least some people made good use of it!

ezac said:
Yea MOW is awesome, iv played the closed beta and now i play the public beta. It is a lot different from COH tho. My roommate and I (who played COH since the beta and still play today) enjoyed Men of War but nothing will come close to COH. Men of War is a lot like World In Conflict-Large tactical strategy type.

Also, a new COH is coming out in April. Its COH: Tales of Valor.

http://relic.com/games/
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Yeah, I mentioned Tales of Valor towards the end of my post. Looking forward to that as well as the Eastern Front mod for CoH. I really do enjoy and appreciate the added elements that are in the MoW series though. Both are great games imo. CoH doesn’t have as much coop goodness (Unless you count the Joint Ops mod, previously known as Destination Reichstag), and the direct fire ability provides for a whole new gameplay element. Not to mention when you’ve been playing the same CoH maps again and again for years, it’s nice to be seeing some different terrain. I’ll be picking up Tales of Valor for sure as well.

So this last week I've been catching up on the other games in the series, starting with Soldiers: Heroes of World War II. For $9.99 at gog.com it was well worth the money. The missions were interesting and varied and I thoroughly enjoyed many of them. The vehicle models are a bit dated, but I was surprised to find a game like this on GOG. While the MP system isn’t really well thought out, a buddy and I were able to play a few coop missions over the internet without any issue. We were both mutually surprised and I’m sure I’ll be getting more mileage out of this game at the next LAN party.

Nabbed the second in the series from ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. (Heart heart heart heart, yes yes, I know) It was cheaper than the first. Only 3 campaigns as opposed to the 4 in the original, but it looks like about the same number of missions overall. The missions are still well designed and inventive, though I feel more constricted than I did in the first game. The missions feel slightly more linear, and I honestly don’t like having AI allies in my battles. The missions where it’s only men under my control are a blast though and are surpassing the enjoyment I had with the first. Have currently played through the American campaign and am on the 2nd to last Russian mission.

*Possible spoilers* I’m having a blast with the mission I’m on. With about eight soldiers under my command I’ve acquired two German scout cars, a half track and two 75mm AT guns. I tried to capture the Hetzer and the StuH, but both were irreparably damaged. Once I had the scout car to it’s destination I set up a perimeter with my 2 AT guns, 2 MGs, 2 scout cars and moved the additional forces I was awarded (4 76mm AT guns a few light vehicles and nearby 150mm artillery piece I captured) to the top of the hill I was stationed on. As enemy armored columns advanced on the position, not even the heavily armored tiger tanks were able to withstand the barrage, and soon my hill was ringed with a massive line of tank hulks. (Of a side note, even on a modern system, the game slows down horrendously when too many physics effects are happening, as when new tiger tanks were trying to plow through the lines of broken hulls to attack my hill) Eventually I lost some men in the ensuing battle, and when the 150mm arty ran out of ammo I started looking for ways out. Even trying to repair some of the disabled tanks back to operational status so I could use them seemed out of the question. The objective said to only hold the city, and I was on a hill right outside the city with an endless supply of enemy armor rolling at me. My numbers began to whittle away and I gave up, presuming that I had done something wrong. Finally I sent a few of my guys out scouting, since this is the only map with forced fog of war that I’ve played so far. The city was overrun with tanks and infantry and there were few places to hide. As my last few AT guns fell victim to the swarm of advancing units, a whole new section of the map opened up and gave me control of an entirely new line of defenders laden with mines, bazookas, AT guns, and with promises of tanks on the way. I wasn’t doomed after all! Unfortunately I had to call it quits there though, as the battle for the hill had lasted a good 45 minutes and I needed to get to bed.

The new game “Men of War” looks like it will be available tomorrow. I’ll be placing my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ order then.
 
This game is great. IT's a little rough around the edges with regard to GUI, etc, but the real physics and ability to scavenge and use everything on the battlefield is awesome.

It's alot of fun, has a bit of a learning curve, but with the unbelievable variety of vehicles and troop types, it's worth a look. :)
 
FrozenLiquidity said:
And here I thought this thread had faded into oblivion. I’m glad to see at least some people made good use of it!


Yeah, I mentioned Tales of Valor towards the end of my post. Looking forward to that as well as the Eastern Front mod for CoH.
Click to expand...

Post some info on Mods...i havnt heard of any. thanks
 
ezac said:
Post some info on Mods...i havnt heard of any. thanks
Click to expand...

I provided links for both the Eastern Front mod and the Battle of the Bulge mod in my original post. Look towards the bottom. They'll take you to the moddb portal and you can visit the mod site from there. Though the portal has plenty by itself.

In short, the Battle of the Bulge mod provides a nice winter tileset which reskins all the buildings and units in the game for the winter scene. It also adds about a dozen custom maps. It's realism based and features an automatic territory capture system (your infantry will capture territory just by being in the sector). Increased realism means deadlier infantry vs infantry fights, longer ranges for tanks as well as authentic penetration values (a panther will generally one shot a regular sherman). It has completely reworked doctrines and quite a few other features including doctrine specific buildable units, forward rally areas, recon squads, *real* engine damage, forward repair posts/triage centers, sprint ability for all infantry, non-spammable artillery, new weapon sounds, new models, new skins and more. Definetly worth checking out.

The Eastern Front mod attempts to add the Russian faction to the game and looks like it's well on the way (currently unreleased). It is also adding a few more axis units such as the Elefant. It will feature among other things the Russian faction to play as, complete with doctrines and a good selection of historic weapons and units for the faction. Deserves a spin when it's released. The T-34s look promising.
 
Does this game have base building? After playing Dawn of War II, I don't think I'll ever play a traditional type RTS again D:.
 
chineseman said:
Does this game have base building? After playing Dawn of War II, I don't think I'll ever play a traditional type RTS again D:.
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No base building. In SP you start off with some units and are generally expected to complete the mission with those units, sometimes you'll get off-map reinforcements that join you though. So no base building, more "force" building as you equip your men with more and better weapons, vehicles and other supplies.

In MP there are several modes and I have not gotten to try them all, but suffice to say there is no base-building and all the units are called in from off map much like WIC.
 
Nice, I've always enjoyed the combat aspect of RTS' but really hate the overall micro/macro-management of base building. Is the single-player campaign long? I generally don't play multi-player when it comes to RTS'.
 
chineseman said:
Does this game have base building? After playing Dawn of War II, I don't think I'll ever play a traditional type RTS again D:.
Click to expand...

That is until starcraft II comes out.....

I loved both company of heroes games. Ill check out this game when I get home tonight.
 
chineseman said:
Nice, I've always enjoyed the combat aspect of RTS' but really hate the overall micro/macro-management of base building. Is the single-player campaign long? I generally don't play multi-player when it comes to RTS'.
Click to expand...

The first game (Soldiers: Heroes of World War II) has 4 campaigns with 4-5 missions each, plus about 7 stand-alone missions. Depending upon how you play you could finish it in two or three days, or it could take a week. Pretty good for $10, available on gog.com.

The second game (Faces of War) has 3 campaigns with about 8 real missions each. I'd say it has the same overall amount as the first but the missions seemed to take longer, I'd account it to an increase in difficulty as well as map size from the older game. There's also a dynamic campaign generator for it, and if it does what it sounds like, then it could provide a ton of replayability. However, I'm working on finishing off the last of the included missions in this game and haven't tried this yet. It's only $4.90 at the love store (♥♥♥♥♥♥♥) right now.

It should be noted that neither of these games have a skirmish mode that I've seen. The last one in the series is the Men of War, but I haven't received my copy yet, so I can't tell you much about it. For the two titles right now, $15 is a small price to pay for probably ~100 hours of entertainment.
 
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