Company Of Heroes: Opposing Fronts

Product Details

Company Of Heroes: Opposing Fronts From THQ List Price: $19.99 Price: $8.19 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Ships from and sold by GeeksWholesaler 26 new or used available from $4.84 Average customer review:

Product Description

The next chapter in the #1 rated RTS franchise thrusts players into a hellish war torn landscape to command two battle-hardened armies in relentless campaigns for honor and country. Players lead the tenacious British 2nd Army during the heroic World War II liberation of Caen, France, and command the German Panzer Elite as they struggle to repel the largest airborne invasion in history.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1189 in Video Games
• Brand: THQ
• Model: 49326
• Released on: 2007-09-24
• ESRB Rating: Mature
• Platform: Windows XP
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00" h x 5.50" w x 7.50" l, .30 pounds

Features

• Play as the British 2nd Army or German Panzer Elite, each with devastating command trees options and unit upgrades.
• Command the British 2nd Army to liberate the key strategic position of Caen, France. Control the German Panzer Elite to repel the Allied airborne invasion in Operation Market Garden.
• Mission Persistence, Dynamic Weather Effects, Enhanced Vehicle Tactics and more deliver a new level of realism and all new battlefield tactics.
• Combine Company of Heroes™: Opposing Fronts™ with the original Company of Heroes for a total of four playable armies online. Join British artillery with American armor to dominate the 3rd Reich.
• The highest rated RTS franchise features enhanced lighting effects and terrain details setting new standards in visual realism.

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Customer Reviews

Great Game with the Worst Patching Scheme I've Seen First of all, there are a lot to like about the CoH series. The graphics, the physics and the unit strategy elements of the CoH series of games are by far among the best in the RTS games I have played, and I have played RTS games for almost 20 years starting from a very young age. This series of games present campaigns in managable segments and load them with tons of strategic elements to make them fun and refreshing. The opposing fronts game adds two more armies: Britsh 3rd Army and the German Panther Elite to which you can command (in addition to the original CoH's US Army's 101 air born able company and the German troops). My interest in the WWII history made this game even more fascinating to me personally as I can engage my computer units in some historically signifcant WWII campaigns. The game does a good job of including bits of actual WWII history to further engage the players. The representation of the units and equipment is also quite authentic, true to the real life. However, this can be somewhat problematic as the Panther Elite troops tend to be very strong (true to real life). In a small skirmish setting, this in-balance leads to some game play problems, as in a multiplayer game, a player commanding Panther Elite units can quite easily over power other players due to the high fire power and the great mobility of the Panther Elite units. Panther Elite units are heavily armored, fast moving, and the basic grenadier units are good in both fighting and vehicle repair. The Panther Elite also has the best troop carriers, best armor protection and incredible mobility and mobile fire support to provide fast recharge to mobile units. This make the Panther Elite a force that is very difficult to defend against in games against actual human players. The problem with balance is not significant in playing against the computer in campaigns as the balance is well tuned in those missions. But in playing against human opponents on an even play field, a player playing Panther Elite has significant advantage in the game play. With British units, the mode of play is more concentrated in defense and longe range barrage, as the British tanks are slow, the engineering units are also slow and expensive. The British troops need more leadership guidance, and has relatively weak weaponry in comparison to the German and even the Americans. The artillery units of British is where the action is for this faction, so I guess depends on your prefence in gameplay, the British could be fun. But for me, I prefer a quick and efficient run of armored units, so Panther Elite units are far more entertaining, much to my dismay (as my historitical learning, and dispise of Nazis always tugs at me whenever I play the Panther Elite and lay waste to allied units). The intallation process was a huge pain however, which is why the game gets 4 instead of 5 stars, the intall from the Opposing Fronts game DVD reverted my patched intallation of CoH to an earlier version, so upon login I had to download patches AGAIN!! What's so insane is that the patches are not cumulative. In order to get to version 2.2 let's say, one has to download and install version 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5... INDIVIDUALLY!! This is the most insane patching scheme I have ever seen. Every other game can handle patching any previous version to the latest patch with just one install, but not CoH series, this just drives you nuts. It tooks over 3 hours overall to install CoH: OF then having to download and install all the patches. Stability is overall great on my system, with a Dual core proecssor with a Nvidia 8800GT video card on 2 GB of RAM. I did not experience crashing problem many others experienced, but I also didn't get the game until patch 2.2 is released which seemed to fixed a great deal of issues. Overall, this game is lots of fun to play and a big pain to install and patch. But if you can stand the wait (give you self 3 hours on a fast internet connection) it takes to install, you will be rewarded with an execellent RTS experience as long as you have the right hardware to handle the game (fast video card and lots of RAM for all the eye candy). Make sure to patch the game to the latest version. What a buggy POS this is.... I have never seen a more buggy game. Patch after patch after patch. On # 4 now and it won't launch. Finally had it working after extensive emails to customer suupport then, today, it decided it needed another 112MB patch. After downloading it, it supposedly patched but on relaunch still wants the patch. ARRRGGHHH! Who is writing this crappy code and who is checking it? I just want to come home from work and play a little game...instead its sheer frustration. I understand their desire for copyright protection, but their requirements for you to jump through so many hoops is ridiculous. THQ you should be ashamed.... Patches...Patches...More Patches I usually disregard Amazon reviews of video games because they always seem overly negative and repetitive about bugs I never find in the game... that is not the case with COH OF. I played the first COH by disconnecting my internet whenever I played the game in order to avoide the online fiasco; however, this time I decided I wanted to play the game online(I did try my hand at disconnecting my internet to skip to single-player and the game read: "No Validated media" or something along those lines, so I thought I had no choice but to go through the online madness.) Essentially, I started out by not being able to get past the install menu. After scanning through forums, I found out you had to turn off user account control(computer protection measure) and go through a process of right clicking on the icon, clicking explore, going into files bla bla bla... basically, it was much harder than it should be to install a game. Anyway, I got to the first page and it requried a patch. I clicked to download the patch... 3 hours later and with the patch harldy at half-way, I went to the internet to find a more effective method. After a long search through forums, I found an employee from relic that explicitly recommended file planet(a site that has nothing to do with relic)... So I went through the meticulous process of downloading all the patches from fileplanet(which requried me to install a download manager unique to the site) and I canceled the patch I had downloaded straight from the game(for some reason it only goes 1 kb/s when you click it on the game... employees on forums were saying you need to turn off your fire wall[I did this later with little avail]) Anyway, I got a bunch of versions and thought I was done... to find out that I had to apply it to the game. So I went through every single one and applied it to the game. Then the game wanted more: It said I still required patches. But this time, when I clicked download patch, the browser exited and brought up a unique relic downloader that had not been mentioned ONCE on any relic forum I had scanned. Well, it took forever. It took forever and one of the patches stalled and stopped at 63%... I applied the rest and tried re-booting COH again. Nope, I need a patch(it wasn't even the same one, this patch only had 1.38 mb whereas the other was much, much larger). Okay, download the patch. The patch is downloaded and now the game needs to restart. Okay, restart the game. You need a 1.38 patch! Again, and again, and again... Oh my god, relic... really? Could you not have just tested this game a bit more before making me download half the godd*mn game!? Not to mention the fact that all your employees on forums had nothing substantial to say but "maybe", "possibly", "try"... I could speculate myself, I'm looking for answers so I can just play the game! If every game operated like COH, I would stop buying video games... its the most tedious process I have ever gone through. A relic employee claimed that many companies use the patch company that relic does, but not many companies have customers download half their product AFTER spending a bunch of money buying the game! One word for this game: Fubar. I'm never buying a game from relic again--even if the gameplay is great--until relic stops concentrating on getting the game sold and instead concentrates on providing decent service for its customers. Oh, and I'm still dumb and trying to figure it out... I got the patch from another site and am downloainding 2.40 to 2.50.... 20 bucks for 20 hours of frustration? Waste of money... Maybe Tales of Valor is configured differently(The game had lower rates so I got this one) BUT I HIGHLY DOUBT IT If your looking for quick enjoyment(ie you want to play a game now), do not want to spend several hours downloading patches and surpassing bugs, or your looking for a quick online RTS: DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME. I WOULD HIGHLY, HIGHLY DISCOURAGE BUYING THIS OR ANY RELIC PRODUCT.