COH2 free to play on steam this weekend

Right so after a couple of drunken games last weekend with Ben, and while this was still on offer I decided to just get it because the game felt much improved from beta. So much has been improved I’m actually quite impressed.

Paddy also got hold of it and so yesterday we had a few games against each other to try and work out how everything works, and whether or not we like it. It’s fair to say that Paddy was struggling a bit with the enjoyment part but I’m hoping that’ll change a bit when I show him a couple of replays, however I’m starting to really quite like the game.

I’m struggling at the moment to find any major differences between this current build and the original, other than changes to specific units. In terms of Micro, build orders, and teching up, each faction has it’s own unique traits, much like US vs Wehrmacht in COH1, and the way you integrate that with your play is very similar.

The command point system is slightly different, and the economy has changed a little, so that you are now quite handsomely rewarded with resources if you control a lot of territory, with the smaller munitions and fuel points removed and replaced by what were previously population control points/territory connectors, and which now provide a %age resource boost. It’s effectively the same as before I think, just with some subtle differences, but the importance of the points was not initially clear and so we had some difficulties early on. It’s good as it keeps you on your toes and rewards aggressive play.

There are some things I’ve still not seen in detail, such as commander loadouts which need to be unlocked, and we do have a concern over this as some of the commander abilities can only be unlocked via paid DLC. I’ll reserve judgement on that until I see how powerful it is. I did also have some concerns over the matchmaking in the game, as you seem to progress through XP driven levels (COD/BF style) quite quickly, and I wondered was this how the determine your skill level (in other words did they make the mistake of assuming high ranking player = good player?). It would seem that this is not the case though, as I found this article, which sounds pretty good http://www.coh2.org/topic/5485/coh-2-matchmaking.

Anyway that’s just a quick overview of what I’ve seen so far, the game was definitely worth my £10 investment, but I’m not sure whether I’d recommend it at the normal price. The game is a graphical upgrade on the original, and at first glance seems to offer the same kind of playstyle, but there are some concerns re paid DLC, and I suppose it’s fair to caution that the overall game balance is hard to assess at the noob level. If you liked the original though, and maybe just like some 2v2’s or comp stomping, then you should like this.