Game Review: Company of Heroes

CyberRealm with Ranga Kamaladasa

Most of you have probably been waiting for this release for a long time. Well, the so-rumored "best all time strategy game ever" developed is finally here. And what do you know; it's back to World War II, the game industry's (and Hollywood's) favourite franchise. From classic games like Red Alert: Command & Conquer to legendary films like Saving Private Ryan World War II has been used over and over again to express sheer brutality as well has hilariously depicting the utter irrationality of human behaviour. (Anyway more on that in future CyberRealm issues...)

Company of Heroes is a visually stunning real-time strategy game that depicts all the violent chaos of World War II with uncommon intensity. It takes a detailed look at WWII-era ground combat and also tries to bring out the humanity of its combatants (something not usually seen in RTS games).

Company of Heroes is actually developed by the same guys who came up with Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. So you can expect a fast paced RTS game especially aimed at the experienced gamer with quick reflexes. And the graphics are as good as it gets; of course the only drawback is, you will need a powerful-enough system and fair enough graphics card to even think of playing this.

But we tried this on an Intel Centrino 1.8 Ghz notebook, with 512MB RAM and a GeForce 6600 Go graphics card, and the game was functional (at least most of the time), even though the graphics were set to the lowest option.

If you get past the graphic issues, Company of Heroes is an unbearably realistic and visually stunning game. Infantry move in teams, darting from cover to cover while vehicles are shown to scale, so tanks and other armoured vehicles look big and imposing. Infantry are helpless against tanks and you can actually hear the men screaming when near one. (Kind of makes the good old games where a rifleman could run around and destroy a tank seem stupid...)

But don't get us wrong, your infantry squads are highly resourceful, acting as single units that can be effective down to the last man. They'll last much longer when attacking from behind cover, such as a row of sandbags or the bell tower of an abandoned church.

As mentioned earlier, this game is only for the experienced RTS gamer. It's more of fast paced and action filled frontline combat strategy where you have to quickly explore the map and waste no time in grabbing the resources.

Maps are divided up into territories that all have a resource point in them, and the resources you'll need are manpower, munitions, and fuel. All your territories must be connected for the resource flow to continue unabated; if an enemy takes a key territory, this may cut off your supply lines.

The audio in Company of Heroes is fantastic, units will acknowledge you in a hushed whisper during night time operations, panic in the voices of your tank commanders when their vehicles are badly damaged is way too creepy and sound effects for gunfire, cannons, and other weapons on the battlefield are loud and clear. To top it off, the excellent symphonic score that's filled with foreboding strings and brass adds grandeur and brings out the heroisms in these ordinary men (well, computer generated men at least).

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Wikipad ~ Download of the Day

How do you manage all of the random bits of information in your personal and professional life? Word documents, text files, Microsoft Outlook folders/notes. If you're an expert user maybe you have a weblog, or a personal database, or possibly an outlining application. Where do you track your wife's favourite food, your bosses kids names, your personal to-do list, the name of the movie you just read a review of, the name of the book a friend recommended. WikidPad was created to address this issue of personal information management. It provides a place to manage the massive amounts of information you have stuffed in your head, on stickies, or on your computer.

What makes WikidPad different from other notepad applications is the ease with which you can cross-link your information. Links in a wiki are created by typing in WikiWords. A WikiWord is any case word (also called CamelCase) typed into the editor.

Aopen DSW1812P - Fastest DVD burner

It seems that the world's fastest DVD burner is available in Sri Lanka. The guys at Kobian are offering an optical disc drive that can read and write DVDñR/RW, DVDñR DL, DVD-RAM, and CD-R/RW formats at speeds up to 18X. (Not much of a speed difference when you think about the 16x burners, but the speed is only half of the story...)

The Aopen DSW1812P also has Auto Balance System (ABS) for decreasing the vibration of disc caused by high speed burning and ensuring the burning quality; Noise-control System (NCS) for dropping noise by unique tray design; and Running Optimum Power Control (ROPC) for high precession of LASER power control.

We are quite sure that even if the common consumers don't jump into buying one of these, there'll be a lot of pirates downtown and in Kandy who'll be waiting to get their hands on one of these treasure ships. :-)