Product Description

Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor is the expansion to the Game of the Year winner and highest rated real time strategy franchise Company of Heroes. Featuring new campaigns to overcome, units to command, and battlefields to conquer, Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor delivers evolved gameplay mechanics and 3 episodic adventures including 9 new missions, and new abilities to master.

• 3 Immersive Storylines Embark on the definitive WWII experience from all sides of the war. Each episode contains new missions and objectives in a persistent environment
• Episode 1: Tiger Ace: Control Tiger Tank Ace Hauptmann Voss's highly decorated Tigergruppen against the British 7th Armoured Division on D-Day in one of the most famous tank battles of WWII
• Episode 2: Causeway: Command and American Paratrooper Company in the hours following the initial D-Day landings
• Episode 3: Falaise Picket: Command the Wehrmacht Army as your soldiers try and hold off the advancing Allied army
• Direct Fire Control Not only can the player's tactical and strategic decisions influence the battle, but players also directly control units on the battlefield. Players will aim, fire, and manoeuvre in real-time to capitalize on the changing battle conditions
• Command New Units New infantry and vehicles such as the Schwimmwagen and Staghound will be available. The Schwimmwagen is an amphibious, all-wheel drive off-road vehicle while the Staghound is a highly manoeuvrable 4x4 Armoured Car
• Conquer New Territory New maps based on famous battles such as Villers-Bocage will be available for competitive players in the online battlefield

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2752 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: THQ
• Released on: 2009-04-09
• Platform: Windows XP
• Format: Unknown format

Manufacturer's Description
Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor is the expansion to the Game of the Year winner and highest rated real time strategy franchise Company of Heroes. Featuring new campaigns to overcome, units to command, and battlefields to conquer, Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor delivers evolved gameplay mechanics and 3 episodic adventures including 9 new missions, and new abilities to master.

Customer Reviews

Same great COH experience, new multiplayer, but dissappointing single player
Whilst I like Tales of Valour, and would definitely recommend it to existing COH fans, I can't deny that as an expansion pack, it left me a bit disappointed, mostly with regards to single player.
I was excited about this new style of single player, in which you focus on controlling a small group of squads rather than a huge army (much like Relic's other RTS, Dawn of War 2). Whilst this new style is definitely present in single player, the campaigns are so short it barely gets a chance to be appreciated. This is because each of the campaigns is only a pathetic three missions long! You can probably imagine how taken aback I was when I was presented with the game credits after completing the third mission of the first campaign! The campaigns are definitely good whilst they last. I particularly liked the final American mission, where you control your two or three squads, whilst many more AI troops join in with the fighting (allowing you to focus on your squads, yet feel like part of a larger conflict). But as I said, with only 9 missions between all the campaigns, you barely have time to get into the swing of things before it's all over! Compare this with Opposing Fronts, the other COH 'expansion', in which you not only get two entirely new armies, but also two new FULL campaigns, and you can see why I was disappointed this time around.
Another new aspect of single player is the 'direct fire mode' which lets you choose which target certain units shoot at. To be honest I didn't find this mechanic too useful. The only time I used it was in the Tiger Ace campaign. Your squads are smart enough to know which targets to shoot at anyway, and Direct fire actually makes infantry far LESS effective.
Where Tales of Valour redeems itself is the multiplayer. It introduces a "operations" tab to your main menu. These are basically three unique multiplayer modes, all of which are particularly fun when played with friends. After playing each once or twice here's roughly what each mode is like:
PANZERKRIEG: Each player controls one tank. You go around the map capturing control points that grant you certain abilities. You can also call in AI infantry squads to defend certain points. Co-operation with your team mates seems to be the key to winning this mode.
ASSAULT: A very unusual but fun mode. You basically control one single "hero". The map basically features two heavily fortified bases, with a bit of no-man's land in the middle. Constant streams of AI troops charge out of the bases towards the other ones (usually getting mown down by machine guns). You can position yourself with AI troops for an advantage. You have to gradually wear down the enemies' defences.
STONEWALL: This is a co-op mode. You and your team mates have to defend a bit of town from increasingly strong waves of AI Germans. It's quite tricky, and you can find yourself in peril during the first few waves if you don't spend your limited resources effectively!
The standard multiplayer modes also feature a few new vehicles which you can swap with existing ones.

In conclusion, I would say that Tales of Valour is definitely worth getting if you consider yourself a big COH fan, and enjoy the multiplayer (but who doesn't?!). On the other hand, if you don't own Opposing Fronts already, I personally think it's a better value expansion pack than this one.

Hugely Disappointing.....
If you are like me, and don't play online, then this is certainly one game to avoid. There are three single player campaigns, each lasting just three missions! Total gameplay from these missions is exceptionally limited due to the narrow way in which you can achieve the mission objectives. The resources at your disposal are small in number and also predetermined, limiting your choices even further, although they have attempted to offset this by allowing you to tailor your squads/equipment using experience points to a far greater level. I just cannot believe how easy, and short, all the missions are, there are simply no challenges in this game. What a massive disappointment compared to the standards set by the two previous games in this series.........

Typical COH but very short
I was really looking forward to this game and love the predecessors. It was a bit of a let down. It says three full campaigns are available. Yet each campaign only consists of three missions. It's lifespan as a single player strategy is immensely short. The graphics are good, I haven't tried the multiplayer yet, however based on the single player alone, it leaves much to be desired.

Nothing new, and way too short.