Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor Review
Back in 2006 Relic’s Company of Heroes absolutely blew us away, shattering expectations of another ho-hum WWII RTS like a sticky bomb on a cookie jar. Relic came back the next year with that title’s first expansion, Opposing Fronts, delivering two full-length campaigns and plenty more action, and then took a break to amp up the Warhammer 40,000 franchise with Dawn of War II. Now it’s time to bring some life back to the Company with Tales of Valor, a standalone extension to the original that does offer more action — but sadly losing much of the game’s strategic soul along the way.
Mini Campaigns Require Minimal Tactics
Valor isn’t a typical expansion in that it doesn’t require the original game to be installed and it’s priced higher than your average mission-pack. But, it’s a little cheaper than a full title. That’s good, because otherwise it would be truly awful value – instead of the merely poor value it offers; three so-called campaigns with a measly three missions each. There are nine new missions total, most of which can be completed inside of 15 minutes, and many of them sharing maps.
Of course, quality is far more important than quantity, and opinions on the quality of the missions here are likely to be varied. The new operations feel more directed than before, seemingly holding your hand on a single path through a series of objectives. This is most apparent in the Tiger Ace missions, which have you starting by paving a path from one end of a long, narrow map to the other end from inside your overwhelmingly powerful tank, then in the second mission scampering back across that same map more or less to where you started. Even in the missions with larger maps there’s little strategy at play; the game shows you exactly what you need to do and where. You just have to click your units around.
Clicking is something you’ll be doing more of thanks to the new “direct fire” addition, which gives you the ability to take control of the main gun in your tanks. You click directly on a target to hit it with a shell, and then wait for the reticule to slowly refill as your virtual crew scampers to put another virtual round into the virtual chamber. When loaded, click to fire, then watch it refill again. This is thankfully optional, but that the game is even playable with controls like this should say a lot about the generally reduced level of activity here.
More Multiplayer Means More Online Play
Matching the three mini-campaigns are three new online gameplay modes, and while they too show the same level of simplification that will annoy many serious fans of this franchise, they are at least a bit more challenging and entertaining to play. That’s especially true when playing them online, which you’ll have to most of the time, as only one of them, stonewall, is available to play in an offline skirmish.
That mode is a fairly standard survival gameplay, pitting you and your co-op comrades against wave after wave of bad guys. Successful defense earns you upgrades, along with the occasional bonus air-strike and the like. It’s fun and challenging, especially for those with a good group of friends. Next is the panzerkrieg mode, which basically takes the Tiger Ace campaign online, throwing you in a single tank and racing against opponents to secure command points, each one offering you bonuses like artillery strikes or infantry support. However, since you can’t directly control that infantry, you’re mostly stuck just driving your tank around.
Finally is assault, probably the most challenging gameplay mode. Here you and the other human players are each given control of a single “hero” unit on a single battlefield full of AI squads that mindlessly throw themselves at each other. There’s a home base on either end of the map and a big line down the middle that represents where the bloodshed starts. From here each player tries to sway the tide of battle one way or another, but given you’re again only in charge of a single unit (sniper, recon jeep, etc.) it can be a bit boring – despite all the fireworks and big booms that envelop you.
How About Those Big Booms
Valor is still built on the same basic graphics engine from three years ago, and while its age is starting to show a bit, this is still a great looking game. It’s the details that really make it, like the flapping canvas on machine gun emplacements or the crackling fireworks that go off whenever an ammo crate gets jostled just so. Sure, if you zoom in these polygons and textures show their rough edges, but everything still looks more than presentable, and runs great too. That said, being able to zoom out a bit more would have been a welcome enhancement – sometimes your perspective is barely above rooftop level.
To get a full appreciation for the game’s cacophonous sound effects you’ll want to be zoomed in close to the action. Squeaking tank suspension, rumbling engines, distant artillery booms, and even a decent soundtrack make for an acoustically satisfying experience. But, so too was the original.
Constricting
Company of Heroes has never been about massive, expansive battlefields populated by hundreds and hundreds of units, but neither has it been about holding your hand from encounter to encounter, giving you only a single unit to tend to. On the plus side this is a very lightweight strategy experience built on top of a quality game, meaning those who have skipped this franchise because of fears of difficulty can safely join in the fun now. But, established fans are likely to be somewhat disappointed by this semi-expansion, which offers more of a great thing, but in a flavor that will leave those with sensitive strategy palates rather unfulfilled.
Article Written By: Tim Stevens
Source:g4tv
