Now, before you get depressed, let me assure you that there's still more than enough here to recommend.
#COH OPPOSING FRONTS GERMAN MISSION 7 FULL#
Throw in some suspect pathfinding and the fact that troops often ignore your commands to take cover, instead opting to run into the open and get pumped full of lead, and you're left with an unbalanced and unpolished experience. With your foes rarely venturing out of their comfort zones to retake the territory you've just prized out of their grasp, victory can sometimes feel rather inevitable.Ĭonversely, some other missions are too taxing. While many of its missions are brutal, tactical and fairly entertaining (especially the larger tank battles) they're also all too often overly linear and predictably designed, leading to a lack of freedom that reduces potential replayability.Īnother quibble lies with the lack of proactive attacks from the opposition, which often feels somewhat stagnant: a problem given that Opposing Fronts is a territory-based game. You see while Opposing Fronts clearly likes to make a big fanfare about not being an expansion pack, it has that distinctive, unmistakable whiff associated with an add-on. Expandingīut what are these two campaigns actually like to play, hmm? Well, here's the thing. This is offset by the German's relatively small infantry squads, which can be easily overpowered by the larger Allied platoons. A wrecking ball on caterpillar tracks, a division of Nazi armour can trounce almost any enemy force in a head-on confrontation, while staying highly mobile. The German faction is quite simply the most awesome faction yet seen in the Company of Heroes series. Luckily, the German campaign's story is rather more thoughtful and convincing, revolving around two brothers battling as part of the Panzer Elite against the allies during Operation Market Garden. Meanwhile, the mustachioed generals are wet-lipped toffs whose main participation in the war seems to revolve around staring down binoculars while watching the proletariat getting their noses blown off, then retiring to their tents for cream tea and Etonian reacharounds. Brit grunts sound like a bunch of cockney twats whose sole purpose in life appears to be to blurt out as many expletives as possible before getting kiHed. Sadly the compelling plot and clever character development of Company of Heroes' cut scenes seem to have been replaced here by hackneyed stereotypes. However, rather than degenerating into a predictable slug fest, the Caen campaign requires careful use of combined arms and all the tricks you learnt from the original game if you're going to make the push towards Berlin anything more than a limp shove. While I could spend hours boring you with copious historical nuggets about the operation, I II spare you the blurb and just say that this battle saw the clash between two giant tank regiments, which roughly translates to loads of explosions, carnage and debris. The Brit campaign revolves around the liberation of Caen and the push towards Berlin that took place after the D-Oay landings. Brit officers are also no slouches, possessing valiant abilities such as Heroic Charge, which counters suppression and maximises the amount of damage nearby troops inflict on the enemy. These grunts have the ability to build battlefield emplacements (such as machine-gun nests and mortar emplacements) and call in additional support, which is spewed onto the war zone from passing gliders. First up are the plucky Brits, a defensively stout faction specialising in anti-tank weapons and artillery, and possessing some of the game's most versatile foot soldiers. Opposing Fronts introduces two new factions into the WWII meat grinder, each starring in its own campaign. Which brings us nicely onto this stand-alone expansion pack that despite its best efforts, never quite manages to scale the same lofty heights as its predecessor. So, a tall order to follow, I'm sure you'll agree. Not only did it manage to recreate the visceral brutality of warfare, it also succeeded in striking that ever-elusive balance between accessibility and strategy.įew other RTS games have ever managed to pull off this tricky equilibrium with such aplomb, let alone managed to also seamlessly integrate a moving plot that explores the human element of war: the fears, the hopes and the insecurities of man. Company of Heroes was one of those games that utterly exceeded our expectations.