-snip-CoH 2 has a bad story-snip-
-snip-Same thing-snip-
I'm going to have to disagree with you both there. While the story certainly doesn't carry the same core that the first game and its expansions did, the story certainly isn't as bad as you two make it out to be, and that's said as having completed the entire campaign.
Yeah, it uses 'stereotypes'. Commissars being hard-asses willing to shoot their own countrymen and ordering others to shoot them. Men being sent in without weapons. People dying for not having the same political ideology. People being executed for not following orders. Penal battalions. Yeah, those are 'stereotypes'. Why are they stereotypes?
Because they happened. CoH2 just emphasizes them all at once, and for that it can be said it goes over-the-top.
The message here isn't "Russians are bad." The message is "This is what happens when you mix politics and war" and could have been done just as easily as portraying Hitler managing to make every fuck-up possible to ruin every advantage Germany had and lose them the war as it was done showing the atrocities of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. The message is also "Morality is not completely lost in war" mixed with "Atrocities committed with the best of intentions are still atrocities."
The Russian soldiers are all portrayed in the same light as the Americans, Brits and even the Germans from the first CoH. The difference between these cases is that the Americans were under leaders who were very similar to them (being volunteers) and the British and German militaries are both very professional and removed, or at least try to be removed, from much political influence. Instead, the Russians were often commanded by or at least had attachments of political officers. This would be very similar if instead the story were portrayed by normal German soldiers being commanded by officers of the SS, but that's not how Germany set up its forces. The NKVD look like assholes, because they were, just as Joseph Stalin was a megalomaniacal, murderous fuck-off, just like the SS would look like assholes, because they were (except for the ones whose hearts were never in it, and it's likely the NKVD had similar cases), just as Adolf Hitler was also a megalomaniacal, muderous fuck-off. The Russian soldiers and the German soldiers, though? The everyday guys forced into extraordinary circumstances? The countrymen who are fighting for their country? They are still portrayed as good guys, just like the Yanks and the Brits.
I think anyone who's played Men of War or Wargame will have a very difficult time coming back to Company of Heroes. It's just so... weird. It's like tasting $10,000 scotch. You can't really go back to the cheapo Walmart brand any more after that.
I also totally disagree. Men of War and CoH are different beasts. MoW is a much more complex and detail-oriented game, but it pays the price of not being nearly as streamlined as CoH. You never actually feel like you're ordering your forces around in MoW because everything is broken down to the individual level and you need to play on that level to get anywhere, so it's like every single soldier you've got is some sort of important super-soldier that needs your explicit attention, and if you just box-select them and send them off you feel like you're doing something wrong. Company of Heroes sacrifices the simulation and the realism that make the MoW series such a great series in favor of making it feel more like you're actually actually commanding entire forces and not a small group (or a large group) of special forces.
I think the Close Combat series is the one that strikes the best balance. Tons of realism, individual soldiers do matter, but everything is still at the group stage and not the individual.
EDIT: Missed your mention of Wargame initially. I'm actually downloading AirLand Battle right now. Very much looking forward to it, and considering the scale I might be more agreeable with you that Wargame outplays CoH at its own game. I still have yet to play it, though, so I'll have to say so or not afterwards.
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