Ardennes Assault is Amazing - A Campaign Done Right

I made a video explaining why I love Ardennes Assault and how it compares to the previous CoH campaigns, which I felt were too tied down by the traditional RTS campaign formula when CoH's gameplay can be so much more than 'destroy enemy base/force' without any time limit.

I mention how the AA campaign introduces player-driven agency and consequences, making each battle and each loss persistent and important in the bigger picture.

Haven't watched the vid yet, however I really enjoyed AA campaign too. The vehicle kill mission can be a bitch when you get to KT/panther stage though with M10 being your best AT...

Nice video. Agree with you but the campaign is definitively too easy, I've completed it in hard mode twice without investing a single point to improve my army. Part of it is probably because of the lack of interaction with the german forces counter-attacking and taking advanbtage from my mistakes

I think what Ardennes Assault did right was the gameplay, the varied objectives, letting the player choose how to approach a mission and which mission exactly with with Company, the upgrades, points, reinforcement system and so forth.

What it failed was the story, the characters were daft and soulless.

They were just portrait pictures with voices and sad or tragic backgrounds, not to mention that a couple of the commanders like those of Baker and Able were absolute bull.

One was a New York gang kid being thrown in the unprotected real life and burden of command which he "never asked for" while the other was that only kid in the family that wanted to "prove himself" to his father or whatever, both of which were cliches if you ask me.

Company of Heroes' campaign stories had a lot of characters each with their own visuals and backgrounds.

For example you had Captain MacKay and Sergeant Conti, 2 very experienced people who knew each other from the very beginning since boot camp as Conti said, and you played the campaign with both of them pretty much almost to the end until MacKay is killed and it's a heartbreaking moment in the story, it's not made up, it's not artificially built up, it felt natural and like a movie.

Another example linked to the American campaign I would probably say is the Tiger Ace one. It has 5 minutes of cutscenes and yet it tells so much more and relates to the other campaigns.

The Tiger's commander, Hauptmann Voss is later the commander of the Panzer Lehr in the PE campaign as "major-general".

Schultz is the Tiger Ace's commander that you have and ultimately fight in the American Campaign.

In the British campaign the Major there finds Voss' medal at the end and it's just perfectly told in my opinion.

And you don't have any of that in AA sadly.

Another thing is probably the history of the Battle of the Bulge which AA is inspired from.

There is no Sherman Jumbo, especially the "Cobra King" which was historically the first tank from Patton's Armored Divisions sent to relieve the battered paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division, a feat which many doubted Patton was able to even pull off.

Not to mention that they missed a perfect opportunity to portray the Germans as well. It could have been very well done like they did with the Dawn of War Dark Crusade campaign where you could play the Germans in the same manner as the American Army in taking the territory, then once their objectives were taken you would switch over to the US side and so forth.

Which brings me to the last bad thing probably, to little for what their asking price.

When it released it was 40 US Dollars which as you might guess it asking for a lot for a single player campaign that you can finish in less than a day.

Now don't get me wrong, like I said the gameplay side of the campaign was well crafted, a lot better than the Soviet one and close to the original campaigns, but asking that amount of money for around 6 hours of game time... yeah...

Not to mention the Fox Company pre-order DLC which was yet another spit in the customers' faces.

It basically has Rangers and very unbalanced abilities and other units which either render a few of the campaigns' mechanics obsolete or are necessary in order to progress any further in the campaign because it seemed on a few missions that they were pretty much impossible to complete without Fox.

As I mentioned about the reinforcement system earlier, it was a trade off for experience.

Each company had "strength" and accumulated experience and points, if the Company's strength went to 0 you couldn't play with them anymore, but if you want to reinforcement you needed to spend points at the expense of the company's gained experience which Fox was a perfect answer to, Rangers wouldn't die so often and were probably the most effective and cost efficient American units in the campaign.

So yeah overall I'd say that the campaign was pretty good, not the best, but it was still better than the Soviet one, however I don't think it could compare so well to the classics for the above mentioned reasons.

It had a lot of wasted potential in my opinion which could have been used had they really just wanted to.

The original campaign and Ardennes Assault are both pretty bad:
Original Campaign:
Show Spoiler

Ardennes Assault:
Show Spoiler

And all of them are just a shadow on compared to the original Company of Heroes. And this is quite expected - the original Company of Heroes copied the plots and scenes of such films as: "Saving Private Rain", "Brothers in Arms", "The Bridge is Too Far". And they did it qualitatively with an interesting continuation. And as expected, both Company of Heroes 2 campaigns turned out bad, if we take the terrible film as a basis and continue it awfully. When the game is pursued by cheapness and rush.

And all of them are just a shadow on compared to the original Company of Heroes. And this is quite expected - the original Company of Heroes copied the plots and scenes of such films as: "Saving Private Rain", "Brothers in Arms", "The Bridge is Too Far". And they did it qualitatively with an interesting continuation. And as expected, both Company of Heroes 2 campaigns turned out bad, if we take the terrible film as a basis and continue it awfully. When the game is pursued by cheapness and rush.

Band of Brothers too right? I mean the title of the game is from a quote from the guy who was the CO of Easy Company (the company depicted in Band of Brothers for those who havent seen)

Band of Brothers too right? I mean the title of the game is from a quote from the guy who was the CO of Easy Company (the company depicted in Band of Brothers for those who havent seen)

Yeah right Band of Brothers.