Company of Heroes Preview

New on GameSpot today is a preview of Company of Heroes, the new World War 2 strategy game from Relic. The article offers impressions, several screenshots, and there's a developer video interview as well.

Among other things, the game models small-scale tactical encounters on the ground between individual soldiers, jeeps, and tanks, as well as aerial runs from bombers overhead. And everything is rendered with remarkable detail. We took a close-up look at an individual American soldier, whose shiny helmet and rumpled uniform got convincingly muddied with use. All infantry units in the game will move using a skeletal animation that is context-sensitive; that is, depending on where your soldiers are, they'll automatically move differently. We watched the soldier adopt several different stances, including a standard forward march, a dashing forced march, a cautious advance in which he continuously looked from side to side, and, finally, a dive to a prone position, from which the soldier sidled forward on his belly.