Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor

Although the strongest part of an strategy game is usually the campaign mode, this is precisely the weakest side in Tales of Valor. It’s low cost should not distract us from the fact that this package is repetitive and certainly short, but the talent of Relic is present, and this is enough reason to pay attention to its proposal.

What’s the difference between Relic Entertainment and a large dairy farm in the neighborhood of Vancouver? Relic is better at milking its cows. Tales of Valor feels like a crisis management by-product, as if its design document was written by a marketing executive, edited by the chief financial officer, and polished by PR staff.

The game packs an engaging multiplayer mode, but seeing as you won't spend more than a couple of hours with the clearly meager single-player campaigns, it really doesn't deserve your attention; nor does it justify the slightly steep price tag ($30).

The target audience for Tales of Valor is the completest, the sort of person who's been jonesing for a fix. The problem is that this particular hit of RTS goodness isn't all that great because there's so very little to it once you get down to the actual gameplay.

Tales of Valour just doesn't add enough new content and what it does add is pretty much useless. This one is only for the die hard COH fans.

Tales of Valor falls short in terms of the volume of new content most players will expect in a standalone expansion priced at $30. What's there is great, but it's just not enough.

On the other hand, Tales of Valor’s main argument for purchase is that it grants access to all the factions in multiplayer, with no need to purchase the previous titles of the series, so those who just want to see what Company of Heroes has to offer in the online mode can consider this an interesting option.

You really need a lot of practice in order to be good at it (multiplayer).

A combination of cooperative gameplay and ferocious versus modes keeps things fresh in the game’s online multiplayer.

It just doesn't hang together as a coherent package in its own right, and while the gameplay certainly doesn't sully the memory of the original, the thin spread of content is cause for concern.

From a presentation standpoint, graphically and in the sound effects department, ToV doesn’t seem to have changed much from the previous incarnations.

Tales of Valor has some decent content, though there’s not much, all things considered. The previous expansion brought two complete factions, with two complete campaigns, whereas Tales of Valor brings just over five hours of single-player fun and a few imbalanced multiplayer modes to the table.

In the end the price of this mission pack will turn away those players who want much more bang for their buck and I cannot recommend the game to those who just play single player games, but just those who play multiplayer only or both multiplayer and single player games.

Tales of Valor improves the popular CoH-Gameplay with minor changes, but the quantity of content leaves a lot to be desired.

The problem isn’t that Tales of Valor lacks any quality features or commendable traits, but that it doesn’t really do anything with them.

This short expansion is only for Company of Heroes completionists.

As enjoyable as each of the single and multiplayer additions are (and they're quite good), the whole package comes off like a collection of mods the developers were tooling around with in their spare time. The original game is as great as it ever was and Tales of Valor certainly doesn't take away from that, but ultimately this "expansion" pack comes off as a modestly enjoyable diversion.

The second add-on to Company of Heroes offers new campaigns, new multi-play modes and new units - but not enough of anything: only one small episode instead of a new campaign, only one map for each multi-player mode and just a few alternative units instead of new factions.

For experienced players, though, Tales of Valor offers enough distractions to fill your need for something new. Just don't be surprised if you find yourself returning to the original campaign and multiplayer modes the next time you need a fix.

The new campaigns are over before you know it, the new units have a limited impact, and direct fire is largely ineffective. The real attractions here are the three new multiplayer modes.

Queen of WWII RT strategies come with an add-on. Fantastic visuals and good scenarios are flawed by overall shortness of added campaigns and lack of anything new. [May 2009]

Fun but slight real-time strategy expansion that's rather short on strategy and value for money.

After the wonderful Opposing Fronts, CoH: Tales of Valor leaves the player with a bad taste in his mouth. The good multiplayer can't compensate for the short and weak single player aspect of the game so we can suggest it only to the true fans of the series.

Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor is a fun addition to the series, but ultimately it falls short of bringing the quality and quantity of gameplay provided by its predecessors.

ToV's singleplayer campaigns will do nothing for CoH vets, but the MP extras might just keep its head above water. [June 2009, p.90]