Designers:  Runic Games

Platform: PC

Release Date:  September 20, 2012

Genre: Action Role-playing Game

Game Modes:  Single-Player Campaign & Multi-player Co-op (6 players)

Cost:  $19.99

Reviewed by:  Anthony Du Lac

I’m not sure what it exactly says about me, as a writer and reviewer of stuff, that I so frequently use relationship analogies in my articles, but it’s an analogical device that’s often appropriate.   My romance with Torchlight 2, for example, is well-suited to this sort of flowery vernacular for a variety of reasons.  It was more than a simple fling but not quite a long-term partnership, either.  It featured all the excitement and enjoyment of a really great first date, the one where you suddenly realize, “Hey, we’re really hitting it off!”

For those not “in the know,” the original Torchlight (by Runic Games) was a surprise hit in the action-RPG genre that revealed that Blizzard actually weren’t the only ones who knew how to craft an Action RPG.  Since Runic Games features some key members from previous Diablo design teams, it’s probably unsurprising that they understand the genre so well.  Despite very positive reviews for the original Torchlight, it wasn’t entirely without flaws and Runic was determined to address most of those with the sequel.  Torchlight 2 does, in fact, improve many weaker areas of the original game while managing to carve out its own unique successes.

Let’s start by pulling the curtain back a bit on Torchlight 2’s (very) few fumbles.  The primary complaint I had was that the storyline was underwhelming and often seemed somewhat schizophrenic or even rudderless.  It basically revolves around stopping the Alchemist from the previous game who has been corrupted by ember blight from the Heart of Odrak and now seeks to do bad, bad things.  As a brief aside, it seems to me that many of the issues facing the frequently imperiled fantasy worlds in this genre stem from a simple lack of ethics or moral fiber.  Had any of these world-threatening villains ever attended Vacation Bible School, for example, a lot of drama might have been averted.  

The Robot who could not love.

Leaving aside the moral failings of the game’s villain, the story simply does little to ever truly invest players in any of the quests or the larger picture, yet despite that issue, it doesn’t much detract from the overall experience.  A comparison between Torchlight 2 and its 900 lb. gorilla of a competitor, Diablo 3, is inevitable but nowhere is the disparity in design resources more noticeable than in the cut-scenes and voice-acting.  Torchlight 2 uses a simplistic yet stylized cartoon medium to deliver cut-scenes and while effective, it’s still more functional than “fancy”, whereas Diablo 3’s cut-scenes are stunningly high-quality and extremely cinematic.  

Coming from Diablo 3’s extremely impressive voice-acting and music down to Torchlight 2’s much more meager offerings is also somewhat disappointing, but again, you’ll not find yourself noticing it THAT much once you dig into Torchlight 2’s superb gameplay.  You’d be forgiven for assuming that since the voice-acting and video cut-scenes in Torchlight 2 take second fiddle to Diablo’s far superior offerings, that Torchlight 2’s graphics must fall badly short as well – but that assumption would be utterly wrong. 

"Isn't this overkill?  Nah, it's just enough "kill."

While Diablo 3’s in-game graphics are, indeed, sumptuous, beautiful, and appropriately dark and gloomy (rainbow haters will be pleased¹), Torchlight 2 heads in a more stylized, colorful, and (again) “cartoony” style that works extremely well (rainbow haters will howl in fury¹).  For every instance in Diablo 3 where I found myself admiring the scenery, I had an equally pleasant experience with Torchlight 2’s interesting environments and special effects.  But gamers don’t always play games to have their eyeballs tickled and when it comes down to the core clicking-gameplay action, Torchlight 2 delivers with extreme prejudice.

There won’t be anything terribly unfamiliar about T2’s gameplay to diehard fans of the series but there have been some welcome additions and tweaks to the series.  Overland environments are more interesting with the addition of day/night cycles and weather effects (used to great effect in one mini-quest path during the 3^rd Act), while character personalization options have increased to include sex, face, hair type, and hair color.  The fishing mini-game and pet usage are still available and just as spiffy as ever (new rare magic items or spells can actually speed up your Pet’s shopping and selling trips into town by quite a bit) and the UI has been enhanced to improve convenience and functionality.

Frankly, I prefer Barbara Eden...

Players can select one of four all-new classes to play and despite leaving the familiar old roles behind, they’ll find that these new ones are every bit as useful and enjoyable to play. The Engineer is a master of ember-powered steampunk contraptions and a potent melee fighter and seems best-suited for solo players.  Meanwhile, the Outlander is a nomadic ranged fighter who appears to benefit the most from his pet’s assistance.  If you like dual-wielding pistols or blasting away with a shotgunne (Torchlight 2’s spelling, not mine), this is the class for you.  The Berserker might sound like he should be a beast of a fighter but he’s mostly focused around faster attacks and animal-themed powers.  Finally, the Embermage is your somewhat prototypical spell-blasting magic-user specializing in elemental-themed magical attacks.
 

I chose to play as a shotgunne-wielding Outlander who was heavily assisted by his trusty lupine pet.  Despite the fact that the Outlander is supposed to be a low-level magic-user, I found his magical “Glaive” special attack to be extremely potent and eminently useful.  Since I prefer NOT to read about the best “builds” and instead like discovering things for myself, I ended up not fully realizing just how powerful several other skills/powers were and only added points to some of them much later in the game.  
I played through Torchlight 2 on Normal difficulty but despite the label, I found large portions of the game rather difficult without very astute micro-management of my character’s abilities and some clever tactical decisions.  In short – I died a lot.  But if you’d already used a Town Portal scroll, it wasn’t too annoying to return to the scene of your failure in short order.  The game does offer several sizes of refreshing Mana and Health potions and there are also spells you can find during the game which can also boost hit points, armor, or defense for further support.

I was quite impressed with the variety of boss types in the game. For example, many mid-level foes even proved difficult sometimes without solid preparation.  I also enjoyed the Torchlight 2 dungeons more than in Diablo 3, as they felt more focused in both theme and challenge.

NPCs everywhere offer a large variety of quests to keep your inner “paladin” constantly busy fighting evil here, recovering lost loot there, and just generally playing the role of a do-gooder as you see fit.  Unfortunately, most quest decisions or storyline options seemed fairly cut-and-dried.  Your actions consistently supported the cause of all that was good and just, with little in the way of moral ambiguity to muddy the waters.  Real life, of course, is rarely so black or white and had the player faced more challenging decisions, it might have ramped up the emotional and psychological resonance of the storylines.

The single-player campaign was broken down into three unique Acts that each had their own interesting style and flavor.  Act I, entitled Wake of the Alchemist, has you trying to catch up to the Alchemist and undo several disasters of his making, all framed by the Etherian Steppes environment which features a Northern climate of pine trees, snow, and mountainous regions with a generous helping of mammalian-based enemies and a wide variety of spiders.  Did I mention that there was a LOT of spiders?  Arachnophobes need not apply.  

Act II was set in the heat-blasted Desert environment of the Mana Wastes, where you’ll run into a lion’s share of skeletons and flying foes, primarily. 

The final Act 3 is set in the deep wooded, rainy region of Grunnheim, which features the tree-entwined ruins of an ancient Dwarven civilization and lots of ghosts and other spooktacular enemies, along with a variety of steampunk-powered foes (robots and the like). 

And this little puppy even glows in the dark!  The Axe that is...

Interestingly, if you leave an area and return, after clearing out all the zone enemies, you’ll still find yourself facing an empty zone.  This differs from classic Diablo 2 where if you left a zone and later returned, you’d find a newly populated zone.  Ostensibly, this is because the game seems tightly balanced where leveling is concerned and strictly prefers to govern exactly at what level you face certain areas and baddies.  A nifty aspect of the campaign world is that there are some special “named” dungeons that only randomly appear in any given play-through.  You may beat the entire game but never see most of them.  While some may find that a bit off-putting, I found that it gave me impetus to try another campaign run in order to hopefully discover one of these extra special dungeons.  

The only one I discovered was the special Minecraft homage entitled “Notch’s Mine” which actually featured a few of that game’s classic “creeper” enemies, textured in a 8-bit pixelated graphic design. 

What a blockhead!

Disappointingly, it was an incredibly easy mini-dungeon to defeat though it netted me one of four swords to be found from this particular special dungeon-romp.  I nabbed the Iron Sword, which also has the appearance of an old 8-bit sword (see pic below to truly appreciate this clever artistic homage), that gave my pet increased armor, damage, speed, and a much faster town travel time.  It also dealt out some solid damage and was super quick.  Truly a uniquely enjoyable weapon!

8-bits of pure, unadulterated fury (note the funky hat, too)

Therein lies Torchlight 2’s best strength compared to Diablo 3 – it features a much more generous yet balanced loot experience.  Where, in Diablo 3, I was constantly disappointed at the fairly mundane low-level magic items I was finding, in Torchlight 2 I was always getting really cool stuff!  I’m admittedly someone who enjoys the constant item comparisons and swapping in that slightly better item to make my character just that tiny little bit better than he was before.  What’s that, you say?  That “Sword of Eyeball Implosions” will buff my health by +100 compared to my current sword but doesn’t do as much damage?  Hmmm…swap ‘em out!  I love that stuff but Diablo’s drops always felt so chintzy and grudgingly doled out that I lost interest in the results of my combat, finding myself driven forward solely in the desire to see more of the story and amazing cut-scene movies.  In Torchlight 2, I was always on the lookout for that wicked piece of gear which might complete one of the many great item sets in the game and always finding other neat stuff, too.  It’s no secret that the loot system is a huge driving force in action-RPGs and Torchlight 2 actually scoops D3 in how it handles that whole carrot-stick thing. That being said, having finished the game twice now, I was disappointed at how stupidly difficult it was to get a Legendary, which in this particular game is truly uber-rare. Considering that not long after Torchlight 2 released, Diablo 3 saw many improvement and balance tweaks, including upping the ability to find desired Legendaries, this has become a failing of Torchlight 2's.

Another area where Torchlight 2 could've used improvement, compared to its bigger, more notorious ARPG brother, was how Torchlight 2 provided feedback and info on the foes you'll face.  Where Diablo 3 had the enjoyable little sound clips of history or info on various monsters, Torchlight 2 had nothing.  Without some sort of small encyclopedic entry about each enemy, players lose an opportunity to use better strategies in facing them.  Tiny status effect messages (and I mean tiny!) appear at the top above the creature's name and health-bar but just as quickly flicked off, leaving players utterly in the dark as to what effects impacted the monster and whether that effect was helpful or not.

Choices, choices...do I go with the Uncommon outfit or this snazzy Rarer ensemble?

Torchlight 2 offers magical enhancements for your items in the form of various gems that you can place into items the feature open slots.  You can also find “enhancers” who roam various map areas – some harder to discover than others – who will gladly, for a price, add magical abilities to your pre-existing items.  At your Imperial base camp, you’ll have NPCs who offer the ability to salvage already socketed gems from items (via destroying the containing magic item) OR to destroy a socketed gem thus freeing up a slot again, respectively.  One other neat twist is the availability of spell scrolls that can be used in addition to your normally granted extra abilities via a few built-in spell slots.  Even your friendly pet can be equipped with spells which it will then auto-cast at the appropriate time.  For example, my Wolf pet “Greymane” would insta-cast a Blood Zombie summoning spell at the beginning of combat, thus granting him his own little decaying pet!  

Since the newly added co-op gameplay was one of the most requested new features, I was excited to give it a spin and I was not disappointed.  It was a seamless experience with loot drops showing only for your own character, thus no bickering over the goodies.  And while I was a fairly high-level Outlander playing with my friend’s much lower-leveled character, I didn’t feel as if I was badly ruining the balance.  Granted that may have been because I was fairly cautious in how much I helped him, but it was nice to be able to play together despite the level disparities.  The game can support up to 6-player Co-op but unfortunately I didn’t get the opportunity to experience that, so I can’t speak for how well it works.  Based on my experience with our 2-member party, though, I imagine it works just fine.

Runic has added several patches to the game since launch, enhancing what was already a fairly bug-free initial experience.  They’ve finally released the GUTS editor for wanna-be modders and have added STEAM’s Workshop functionality to Torchlight 2 as well, rounding out what is an already excellent package with even more options to extend the game’s life beyond just the single-player campaign experience.   If the modding tools aren’t intriguing, there’s always the NewGame+ mode (or “N+”) to offer a truly challenging re-match with the game’s campaign – monsters are tougher and more plentiful and the difficulty levels are ramped up to match your high-level character’s potential capabilities during a second play-through. 

For players not as interested in a second campaign experience, there’s always the option to buy one of many challenge maps from a map vendor, who only appears after you’ve completely beaten the main campaign.  These maps offer intriguing and unique challenges, some with a strange mix of variables, to a standard dungeon romp.  On one map you may see rewards of three times the normal amount of Gold but also facing commensurately more wicked monsters while another map may offer a higher percentage of magical item drops but have a super tough boss at the end.  Yet another map may limit the amount of health you can heal during the dungeon or feature hit-point draining environmental challenges.  The more challenging or lucrative the map, the more it will cost, though, so save your Gold, adventurers!  

While some reviewers may be content to give Torchlight 2 a score in the high 80’s (out of 100) or what we’d know in the USA as a “B+” grade, I find myself considering it a very solid “A” or 92 out of 100.  Why would I score it so highly and above that of the average score?  Because it’s not only a high-quality product in most aspects (cutscenes, voice-work, and storyline aside) but it’s also incredibly fun with many extra features - including some we don’t see as often these days (LAN play, good Co-op modes) – AND it’s insanely inexpensive at a mere $19.99.  In my book, that qualifies it as the best gaming value of the year, all things considered.  If you’re a big fan of the Action-RPG genre, you’ll love every minute of Torchlight 2 and even if you’re not an Action-RPG fan, specifically, you’ll still find a ton of fun packed into this wonderful game.  Torchlight 2 is simply one of the sure-fire, can’t miss games of this past year.  What are you waiting for?  Get clicking!  Loot man, loot!

FINAL SCORE:    92% 

(Special thanks to Runic Games for the review copies of Torchlight 2) 

   

 

Interview with Scott Campbell, Art Director @ Double Fine Studios

QA with Scott Campbell, Lead Art Designer of Double-Fine Studios – 1/12/07

1.  Scott, please tell us a little bit about your background, how you broke into the industry, and what your primary responsibilities are there at Double-Fine Studios?

Ok, well, I went to the Academy of Art in San Francisco, to be a comic book and children’s book illustrator. But when I got out of school I was kind of at a loss of where to go.  So I worked at a pizza place.  A friend of mine from art school started working at Lucas Arts as an animator, so she told me about an opening at Lucas Learning, the new kid’s game company.  I started working there painting backgrounds and drawing characters for 2D Star Wars games, working my way up to art lead.  I met Tim Schafer there.  He was a funny dude.  He is still a funny dude.  He left Lucas to start Double Fine.  I left soon after to join him as Art Director and we began building the look of Psychonauts.  I designed characters, backgrounds, storyboards, and oversaw the basic look and style of the game.  I am doing the same on our new game currently in production.  Oh, man, it looks so awesome.

2.  What do you recommend as a good path for someone who may be seeking to enter the graphics or artistic portion of the gaming industry?

Draw and paint a lot.  Expose yourself to as much art as you can and get inspired. Get well rounded in your skills.  Do it all!  Then later you can decide what your favorite aspects are and where you would like to go. 

3. Psychonauts was, by all accounts, a critical darling, and rightfully so as it was a wonderful game, yet fans didn’t quite snap it up (unfortunately).  Why do you think this was the case?

They snapped it up enough for me!  I love that it came out and has been getting so much critical acclaim.  Also I love fans.

4. What aspect of your artistic design work on Psychonauts was the most enjoyable for you?

Designing the characters was an exciting process.  Tim cares so much about character development and wrote such amazing back stories for all the characters.  That made the designing of them that much more enjoyable and easier.  Drawing something that makes Tim laugh is the best feeling.  When he doesn’t laugh, the feeling isn’t as awesome.  It was a huge cast, so it was fun to see it grow.  I also enjoyed drawing all the figments because those were fast and stream of consciousness style.  I was able to explore the characters further by drawing anything that might represent them in their minds.

5. What was the biggest challenge you faced as an artistic designer on Psychonauts?

The minds versus real world created a huge variety of design problems for us.  Good problems.  Each mind world had to be completely different than the one before, yet the style had to be consistent.  That was pretty daunting.  I remember reading the design document before I started and wondering how anyone was going to be able to make all this stuff.  But oh, man, I think it worked really well.  I am very relieved.

6. What portion or portions of your work on Psychonauts are you most pleased with overall?

I think the characters turned out great.  The animators were pretty amazing at building them and bringing them to life.  I like seeing them all lined up for class photos.  I don’t see that too much, but when I do I sure like it.

7.  Let’s switch gears a bit and ask you who your artistic influences have been?

That’s always changing.  In the beginning of Psychonauts, I was heavily influenced by J. Otto Seibold, Shag, Joe Sorren, Jim Flora, Paul Klee, Tim Burton, and Basquiat.  Now, I find myself influenced by so many different artists I see on art blogs.  I am so addicted to art blogs.  Comic artists, kid’s book artists..  I’m pretty involved in the comic scene as well.  

8. Along those same lines, can you tell us what other games have impressed you, artistically in the past (or present) and why?

As a kid, Star Wars’ vertex art really impressed me.  But recently, I have enjoyed Katamari Damacy, Shadow of the Colossus, Legend of Zelda Windwaker, and others I can’t think of right now.  Okami was very beautiful.

9. Where do you see the future of artistic design headed in the gaming industry?

I hope people start taking more risks with the visual design.  I don’t see it as much as I would like.  America cares so much about ultra realism in games that push the tech side of things.  They look amazing, but soon they will go as far as they can go and they will have to start pushing in other directions.  At least I hope so.  I get excited when I think about the games that Japan is making.   Japan makes me pretty happy.  It also seems like the do-it-yourself craze that’s happening right now with games and movies will pave the way for all kinds of original styles.  It is very exciting to see what people come up with in their homes. 

10. Tell us a little bit about working at Double-Fine Studios, is it really like working in the ‘Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory’ or is that all just hear-say?

Sometimes people bring in chocolate to eat.  And cookies.  So yeah, I guess we have some of that.  And sometimes we laugh.  But most of the time we wear suits and do push-ups. 

11. Can you tell us what it’s like working with Tim Schafer as far as his approach to game design and methodology?

It’s the best.  I have crazy respect for Tim.  For Tim, everything has to have a reason.  Tim is very into a completely immersive game experience.  The story is very important to him and the creating of the world is a very collaborative and enjoyable experience for everyone.

12. Alright, the kid gloves are off, can you give us some funny dirt on Tim?

Tim’s a pretty clean guy.  He never does anything that would make him “funny dirty”.

 

13. What games are you playing right now, when you’re not working on Double-Fine’s current project?

I’ve been playing Wii sports.  And Guitar Hero II, when I can.  Oh, and the new Zelda a little bit.

14. What forthcoming games are you eagerly anticipating and why?

I am very excited to see how the new Team Fortress turns out.  The style looks super great.

 15. Can you tell us anything at all about your current project there at Double-Fine?

Nope.  I would get whipped.

 

16. Finally, though many may be unaware of this, you produce an online comic strip in the ‘Comics’ section of the Double-Fine website, called ‘DFAC’.  It’s absolutely hilarious, weird, and brilliant all at the same time.  Do you have any plans to release this online comic in a book format down the road?  What was your inspiration to create this web-strip?

Yes, we are hoping to have the comics published soon.  Just need to work out the “logistics”.  The “logistics” are hard.  Also, I procrastinate sometimes.  I got into doing the web comics because I wanted to get loose and creative every day.  I have been doing comics for awhile with friends from Lucas in a book called Hickee.  We do comics together in cafes where one person does a panel and passes it around, those are the funniest I think, because we have to ‘out funny’ each other.  The DFAC doesn’t really have any pressure.  It just happens and then the next day you do another one, so it’s never a big deal.

17. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to speak with us.  We look forward to seeing Double-Fine’s next game!

You are totally welcome.  I look forward to you seeing the next game as well.  You’ll freak out, I’ll bet.

COH

Author: Anthony DuLac  
Publisher: Relic Entertainment  
Platform: PC  
Website: http://www.companyofheroesgame.com/ 
Posted: Sat, Oct. 14^th, 2006

Those who say that ‘War is hell’ haven’t played Company of Heroes (CoH) the recently released WW2 Real-Time Strategy game from Relic Entertainment, creators of ‘Homeworld, Impossible Creatures, The Outfit and Dawn of War’.  It’s no great surprise that most RTS fans emitted a collective groan of indifference about a year ago when Relic announced that the setting of their next ‘big’ RTS game was going to be World War 2.  ‘The Big One’ (WW2) has been the focus of more games than Britney Spear’s parenting faux pas tabloid appearances and while Relic has certainly established no small amount of street cred for it’s amazing string of high-quality Real-Time Strategy games (Impossible Creatures notwithstanding), some worried that perhaps the creativity had finally run dry at Relic’s Vancouver game development studios.  As it turns out we didn’t have much to worry about.  Read on to find out why!

Starting with the obligatory 1944 D-Day mission, the single-player campaign in Company of Heroes follows the exploits of Able Company as they fight every inch of their way into Hitler’s Fortress Europe.  While it’s all the rage these days to pooh-pooh exceptional graphics as unimportant to gameplay, in CoH they provide a visceral thrill that is unequaled by any other game in this genre and integral to the total experience.  Soldiers, vehicles, buildings, trees, and even telephone wires are blown to smithereens with some of the best and most realistic explosions ever seen in any game.  The art direction is pure Band of Brothers with army green, steel grey, and mahogany-colored mud all lovingly depicted in the French countryside.  Most games make it a point to give their players a color-coded unit cue for which troops are theirs and this colored banding is often over-the-top or too distracting but such isn’t the case with CoH’s units.  The colored coding is so subtly handled that you barely notice it’s there which is, of course, the way it should be.  It’s a testimony to just how amazing the overall graphics are in the game, that even the User Interface (UI) is aesthetically pleasing.

German artillery vainly tries to take out my Sherman Crocodile

But the graphics aren’t the sole owners of center stage; Company of Heroes sports an impressive integration of in-game physics to round out the presentation package.  When you call in an off-map artillery strike to clear out a pesky nest of Nazis, the building that they’re bunkered in will explode in an extremely realistic fashion and (seemingly) never the same way twice.  Vehicles sway wildly when hit hard by an enemy tank’s shell and in one instance, when I’d loaded a half-track full of soldiers that then promptly hit a mine, it flipped over, spilling my grunts onto the muddy road in disarray.  I’ve also seen telephone wires cut in two and trees uprooted if caught in particularly heavy bombardment.  It would be one thing for CoH to have tacked on the physics as an extra aesthetically-pleasing element but in this game the physics affect gameplay in nifty ways as well.  That wiped out building you destroyed with your arty strike can suddenly prove lifesaving for your infantry squad when an enemy division rolls into town.  Your troops will dive for cover into the ruins, dynamically using the terrain to their advantage.

The green dots on the left of the picture show my unit a great place to take cover

This leads to another fantastic aspect of CoH – your unit’s AI and pathfinding.  You’ve seen it all too often in a RTS game - you click your unit, carefully choosing a smart path that takes advantage of the terrain so they’ll arrive at their destination safely, only to find them either stuck on a rock or meandering aimlessly like near-sighted penguins. Those days are (mostly) gone with CoH.  Your squads not only take the smart route towards their goal, they do it in a way that takes maximum advantage of cover along the way.  If they come under fire they’ll drop to a prone position and immediately crawl towards the best cover locally available while returning fire.  It bears mentioning, however, that vehicle pathfinding is a bit less stellar.  Specifically, tanks seem to have the most trouble getting to their destinations if more than one is selected.  The issue seems to be that they both attempt to take the best path and occasionally end up bumping and jostling each other in a bizarre metal parody of the Three Stooges as they both roll towards their respective destinations.  Thankfully, this is a fairly rare occurrence and the game provides you with the ability to give a facing command which helps to partially alleviate this issue.

Sound and music are both spot on and further add to the immersion factor in what is already a wildly immersive experience.  Bullets whiz and flame-throwers crackle with manic glee as the stirring orchestral score ramps up the gravitas and provides an aural experience rivaling even big-screen epics like ‘Saving Private Ryan’ or ‘Pearl Harbor’.  Famed PC game musician Jeremy Soule provides a perfectly suited soundtrack for this war-torn setting.  Teeth-rattling explosions lend even the smallest mortar strike serious credibility and if you have a high-quality set of speakers and/or headphones you’re in for a real treat.

Relic seems to have made all the right gameplay design choices and these decisions push CoH past the tired RTS genre and into a more exciting realm of possibility.  Gone are the days of simply lassoing the largest group of units and throwing them into the fray, knowing that your superior numbers will win the day.  In Company of Heroes, the concepts of cover, flanking, and combined arms genuinely make a huge difference.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in Relic’s design decision regarding tanks vs. infantry.  In a standard RTS you could leave your infantry squads to plink away at a tank with their rifles until it was eventually defeated but not so in CoH.  In the classic WW2 match-up between infantry and tank, the tank is impregnable to bullets; no amount of prolonged small-arms fire will ever take down any tank in the game.  Instead, as a ground-pounder you’ll have to rely on (historically inaccurate) Sticky Bombs to wipe out your steel-encased foes – rest assured you’ll need more than one to get the job done. 

During each battle your troops earn experience points which can be used to purchase unit upgrades or special events (such as artillery strikes or bombing runs) along one of three specific Command paths: Infantry, Armor, or Air.  Each path is tailored to a particular style of gameplay though they’re all very useful regardless of your strategy.  Dirt farming is nowhere to be found in CoH, instead (in a nod to Relic’s ‘Dawn of War’ series) you must capture a series of victory point locations that are divided into three categories: manpower (for soldiers), munitions (for weaponry upgrades or arty strikes), and fuel (for vehicles).  If a captured victory point is not surrounded by your territories on a least one side, it will not yield its bounty to your totals.  This is how Relic seamlessly represents the effects of being ‘out of supply’.  Victory conditions come in two flavors during a match: by the utter Annihilation of your foes or success by Victory Point Acquisition (i.e. whoever can reach a set number of victory points will cause their opponent’s tickets to start counting down toward defeat, similar to the Battlefield series Conquest mode). 

An example of a captured and fortified munitions victory point

Also, as mentioned previously, the game allows you to set the facing of your units and this, combined with the use of cover, provides for even more strategic gameplay.  Should I setup my ambush here along the hedgerows but with an exposed flank or do I attempt a less risky advance from the high ground into the village?  Should I place this mortar team behind the cover of these building (answer: yes) or put them closer to the front under less cover so they’ll have a more effective range?  Choices like these drastically change the way you’ll approach each battle and these choices make the game much more enjoyable.  Even tanks offer more tactical opportunities as the game engine effectively simulates positional vehicle damage meaning that even the Germans’ ridiculously powerful King Tiger tank is susceptible to a bazooka up the tailpipe.  In fact, tank vs. tank battles nearly become a mini-game unto themselves as players micromanage both the facing and movement of their tanks in a desperate effort to get that all-powerful rear armor shot.

Here a German Panzer IV is nailed in the flank armor by the powerful American Pershing tank - note the Panzer IV's tank shell speeding towards my Pershing!

Micromanagement itself accounts for the game’s sole weakness.  In the heat of any particularly frenetic battle it can become almost ridiculously difficult to keep your war machine operating at peak efficiency.  Though your units’ AI is stronger than that found in any other RTS they still need tough love from time to time and giving it to them while three different fronts have opened up on the map can prove frustrating for newcomers to handle.  Thankfully Relic seems to have been aware of this difficulty and has kindly given players the ability to pause the game while still issuing orders.  Using this feature can help alleviate most of the micromanagement headaches you’ll face or at least diminish the difficulty level of all but the most hectic conflicts.  A tactical map giving you an overview of each scenario’s battlefield also provides some welcome relief for the strategically-challenged among us.

The length and quality of the single-player campaign in CoH bears mentioning as Relic could have easily mailed in a standard by-the-books campaign but even here you can see the delineation between the industry’s finest RTS developers and the bush leagues.  Missions are varied and range from all-out frontal assaults to cat and mouse style tank hunts.  Particularly noteworthy are Missions 8 (St. Fromond) - you’re tasked with holding a town square for a set period of time while under a furious counter-assault, Mission 9 (Hill 192) – where you must capture a well-defended hill in under forty minutes, and finally Mission 14 – in which you must defeat a German tank ace driving the dreaded King Tiger tank.  Though there is a small story (of sorts) tacked onto the whole campaign, it’s perfunctory at best.  The scenarios themselves are the bread and butter here.

The Tactical Map for Mission 9, taking Hill 192

Multiplayer is handled adroitly by Relic’s newly created Relic Online game service.  While there are some initial issues with invisible players in the game lobbies and a few other minor glitches, as a game-matching feature it’s quite serviceable.  The only real concern right now involves a bug where your opponents can drop from the game which then in turn gives you the loss.  For those who are extremely devoted to their ranking on the Relic CoH ladder, this is a very frustrating bug and one that Tranj (THQ’s Senior Creative Manager) has said is “a very high priority for us.”  Relic has recently revealed that a patch is on the way (ETA: 2-3 weeks) to fix this drop bug and several other small issues.

Relic appears to have achieved the impossible with Company of Heroes – they’ve created a RTS in the trite World War 2 setting that is simultaneously beautiful, visceral, and exciting and yet revolutionary to the genre.  Newsflash to other RTS designers: the bar has been set and it’s way up there.  It’s been a long time since the ‘S’ in RTS meant something - it does now.