The standalone expansion for Company of Heroes offers some interesting novelties but nothing like a complete package.
Relic's Dawn of War II was a great departure from what fans of the original game expected. Rather than just make a bigger game with better graphics, the development team decided to go a completely different direction with success - albeit controversial - findings. Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor clearly demonstrates that its bug to "reinvent" the franchise's signature is not limited to the Warhammer 40,000 universe. The latest standalone expansion for the relic's Company of Heroes is a radical departure, turning relic's amazing World War II RTS in an entirely different action-oriented animals. Unfortunately, the results were not nearly as successful as in the previous re-do of Dawn of War.
Tales of Valor is structured around two sections. The single-player portion of the game consists of nine missions split into three mini-campaigns, which tells three personal "Tales of Valor" from the Second World War. In them, the game takes a page from World in Conflict and offers control of one or a few units and challenges players to use their special abilities to fight their way through a variety of interesting strategic scenarios. Each of these is fun in its own way (protection 10 Panzer tanks from an Allied attack in "Swatting Flies" Mission was my particular favorite), but they do not particularly keen on Company of Heroes. Indeed, it often feels like the developers try to shoehorn a classic RTS game in the sort of quick-hit action experience to download from Xbox Live Arcade.
Multiplayer features on the other hand, is considerably more successful, but even these have some questions. The best feature of the new package is easily the new series of multiplayer modes. "Assault" is a World War II-theme "Defense of the old-style battle between the two entrenched forces. Players control a" whole "unit, and try to support their AI-controlled brethren to push through the lines and destroy a specific target." Stonewall "is a co-op mode, where up to four players in the middle of the map to try to ward off 16 waves of increasingly difficult enemy assaults. Finally," Panzerkreig "is an updated version of the classic Atari 2600 game Combat. All have a single tank and trying to blow the heck out of their opponent's tank.
Company of Heroes was one of the first RTS games to really understand the beauty of cooperative activities to play and that experience really shows through in these conditions. Each of the tank heroes "in" Panzerkrieg, "for example, have different skills and capabilities that work together very well in supporting each other, making the teams that really communicate with each other and combine skills undefeatable. More than that, while it is slightly different from the classic game, the strategic depth does not prevent it from being a blast as a game. More traditional RTS stalwarts like myself will really appreciate the "Stonewall". This mode gives the player access to game the entire arsenal in a frantic last stand defense against overwhelming odds. Again, team coordination is key, and when the mode is really clicking it's just awesome.
There are also a number of new units in each of the games' four armies, and true to form they're a blast to play with. My personal favorite is easily the American M-18 Hellcat tank that replaces the M10 Tank Destroyer. This zippy Little Turtle of a tank abandon some firepower for more speed and heavier armor. This has been a godsend in the game against the Panzer Elite. It still does not allow American player to keep with them in terms of maneuverability but it does close the gap, and it becomes a very nasty surprise, when used as a rescue force for the stack infantry. On the other hand, I've learned to hate the Schwimmwagen 128 when it was used against me. This replaces the German motorcycle unit and the reverse-driving capabilities, making it even harder to catch when it is gunning down mining engineers.
The problem with these units are connected with the word "replace". The eight new units (two per army) does not add to a player's arsenal. To use them, the player must decide before the game starts to lose the other two elements. One of the hallmarks of a good Expansion Pack is it not "expand" and elaborates on core gameplay without undue obstruction of the works and make it more complex than it has to be. Tales of Valor fail to do so. As enjoyable as each of the single and multiplayer additions (and they are quite good), the whole package comes off as a collection of matched developers tool costs were around with their leisure time. The original game is as great as it always has been, and Tales of Valor certainly not take away from it, but ultimately this "expansion" pack comes out as a modestly enjoyable diversion.
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