There's three main gameplay modes to choose from: the newly added dynamic campaign for Italy, a standard story missions set for the Africa front and your typical skirmish/multiplayer map control modes. there was a bit of dubious tone discrepancy with gameplay being us fighting for the Germans while the cutscenes tell us about the awful things the Germans are doing. Like most RTS games there is an element of RNG to combat which helps prevent instant death but can also lead to some almost comically long battles with troops metres apart missing constantly (think that Viva La Dirt League skit). With regards to the enemy AI it's not the smartest in terms of flanking but it makes up for it in aggression – even in a standard difficulty skirmish we found ourselves swamped with enemy attacks within minutes unable to break out or build up forces. The AI performs fairly well for the most part, but some of the path-finding is a bit wonky and we frequently found our tanks advancing into combat facing backwards negating any armour advantage. Infantry animations have been improved since the previous game and running, vaulting and such all looks pretty smooth and natural. The graphics by and large are decent but the main focus is the chaos of battle: Explosions kick up huge amounts of dust and debris, almost all scenery can be reduced to rubble and after a lengthy battle the ground will be mostly craters and blood stains (the game does not shy away from showing violent deaths) which unlike most games do not fade so the end of a match is a messy sight. One thing this game has going for it is that it's an exciting RTS to play by virtue of the amount of work that's gone into the visuals and environment interaction (or more aptly, destruction).

Does company of heroes controller