I
will admit I'm an RTS snob. Along with an engaging theme, I require real
time strategies to flow well or else I lose interest. While fun, games
like Total Annihilation, Rise of Nations,
and Command and Conquer: Red Alert
stagnated, as is the common pitfall of the RTS. It is difficult to
obtain the perfect balance of base production, resource economy, and combat in
a game. Without a doubt, my snobbish preferences came from growing up on a main
diet of Starcraft: Broodwar. This
classic game, and the subsequent Starcraft
2, set the standard of RTS quality for my gaming experience, leaving me
wanting on many others I've tried.
With
this established, you can understand me when I say I've found an
RTS that competes with Starcraft: Company
of Heroes 2. I received it as Steam gift from a buddy and I absolutely loved
it on my first playthrough. From the innovative twist on resource economy to
the high level of unit micro, COH2 offers unique and intense mechanics for
gamers. However, this WW2 reenactment failed to beat Starcraft as my number 1
game because of one key feature: no swear filter.
While
I have a strong opinion on swearing in video games, the purpose of this article
is not to be a persuasive essay on the issue. Rather than attempting to lay
down such an argument, the kind of which I've seen beaten to death on the
internet, I wish to offer a solution: Company of Heroes 2 doesn't need a swear filter because it doesn't need voice acting.
To
clarify, I don't mean that Company of Heroes 2 shouldn't have voice acting. In
fact, the voices in the game are some of the best I've ever heard. From the
passion of the actors to the spot-on use of colloquial phrases of the time, the
voice acting adds a rich depth to the game and its theme. When I say that COH2 doesn't need voice
acting, I mean that you can mute voice volume in the options and still be able
to play. This is a rare feature to be had in an RTS. For example, if I lost
sound during a Starcraft match, I would be dead in the water. Apart from a
small ping on the mini-map, the only alerts Starcraft gives is auditory prompts.
Company
of Heroes 2 has the same auditory prompts and mini-map pings but it also has
two other alert-type features. First, there is a news reel above the mini-map. Not
only does it give you textual feedback on the state of your units, it also
gives you heads-up when commander abilities are used. This is useful for
staying aware of the overall battle, as well as differentiating between simultaneous
map pings.
This
allows us to remove some redundancy without losing too much information. After
I got the idea to mute voice volume, I tried it in a custom game and found that
it worked quite well. I would compare it to driving a car: both need a certain
level of focus and require you to check your surroundings every few seconds. I
also found that I had been relying too much on auditory prompts and, once I got
over it, developed my skill of micromanaging units.
Thus
is my solution to the lack of swear filter. While it is sad for me to miss out
on the beautiful voice acting, muting voice volume allows me to continue to
play the game because, honestly, I would have stopped solely from the amount of
swearing in the game. I would not go so far as to advise using this shortcut during
competitive PVP games, but it works just fine in casual games with friends and
CPUs. I hope this helped anyone looking for an answer, and I wish the best of
luck to you out on the battlefield.
