I was reading a promotional booklet about Company of Heroes (sublime game) and it starts with this (approximate translation):
A new point of view
In Company of Heroes you have to learn to see things from a military point of view. There aren’t anymore houses, walls, city squares, towers. But refuges, covers, zones of fire, sniper spots.
[…]
When you see an opening or a crossroad you have to evaluate from where the enemy is going to approach and set your positions to intersect the zones of fire, so that it is impossible for the enemy to come near without suffering severe losses.
That pretty much summarizes why CoH feels great. Nothing in its concept makes it really stand out. It’s yet another RTS, set in the WWII.
How it can be special? Because it feels great and plays in a way absolutely unique, as that excerpt demonstrates. It is great in the measure it moves AWAY from classic RTS gamey mechanics and TOWARD an immersive experience that doesn’t delude expectations.
Not the absolute, faithful simulation. But selecting those few mechanics that “matter” more and are faithful to an immersive and yet fun experience. It is fun not because it simulates everything. But because what it simulates is a few “core” mechanics (covers, arcs of fire) that feel right and that you can approach from a “fresh” point of view (the military one, opposed to the classic RTS gamey strategies).
This pretty much summarizes again all my critics (and hundreds of posts on Grimwell) to SWG combat. Both before and after the New Genesis Evangelion.
Please notice that CoH is FAR from twitch. Which is what I tried to explain restlessly. You don’t need twitch to get ranged combat “right”. CoH is a demonstration of this.
Linking back to past comments:
The basic critics I was making is that when we “simulate” something in a game we surely cannot replicate every other element. But we should choose the elements and rules that we are going to use to “make sense” in the game world. So, even if choosing a few elements, they must be drawn from a reality. If there are going to be five basic mechanics, those five should be “life-like”. Immersive. They should tell something concrete that matches the expectations.