Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts

The minute I heard that this was out, I had to get it. Anyone who plays Real-Time Strategies (RTSes) would have at the very least heard of Company of Heroes (CoH), though whether or not one likes it is a different matter. It's a squad-based strategy game that's set in the World War 2 era, where getting resources for your armies was done by capturing points on the battlefield itself (and they're all usually between yourself and your opponent). None of that 'build miner' 'tell miner to dig gold in my backyard' business - your soldiers are out there earning your money for you, to build more soldiers to earn more money for you, kicking opponent ass all in the meantime.

Now CoH is Axis vs Allies, Axis being German obviously (erm Italian army, anyone?? Click 'special abilities' - 'deploy reinforcements to wrong country') but the Allies being Americans (hooo yah go GIs! Hey they speak funny here in France!) - with CoH Opposing Fronts (CoHOF), it's Panzer Elites (German special forces kinda dudes) vs British. I've only played halfway but it's quite a different playstyle here, with things happening at a more micro-intensive level. Lots of little buttons to kick more butt here, be more kickass there. Less variety of infantry but more variety of vehicles - lots more smaller vehicles, and then lots more very big vehicles (each side's got a new mother artillery piece) and then some variants on the medium-sized ones.

Overall, I'm loving it so far. It adds so much to the game, and of course their original engine was so brilliant, 'more of the same' can't go wrong. I'd luuuurve to play the new armies vs the old ones just to see the new balance, but unfortunately our cyber cafes are STILL filled with the same old shit - DotA, CS, DotA, occasional WoW, and DotA. Ugh hairy bollocks.
Some technical issues though:
1. I first bought pariah at 1U for RM30 (it's 2 DVD5s) but it didn't work. I changed it but it still didn't work. So I bought original (I wanted to put it off until they had a double-set) and THAT has its own set of problems. But buy original.

2. When you first run the game, it'll go online and check for patches, then ask you to patch. The first patch is 135MB (or so). If you cannot wait for such nonsense and are dying to play (single player, since for online you MUST have the patch), disconnect your internet before starting the game. Then it'll ask you for your DVD to verify it. Note that it MUST be in your first DVD drive (yes the software is dumb) - if not, disconnect the rest to make sure it finds the right drive.

3. If you decide to patch, and decide against the in-game downloader, you can go here to get the patch. Or Google for it, there are a few games sites that hosts the patches. If you get the following problem:
(that reads Error code 10077:00000070) it really DOES mean you don't have enough space.
I had 4GB spare when I got this (multiple multiple times). Empty, clean, destroy; until you have about 8GB. I'm serious. It's a great game but the software for 1) authenticity verification and 2) patching are as dumbass as dumbassedness goes.

4. Any other problems (and from the looks of it there are some), go to the Relic forums. They tend to be very good there.

5. Problems IN the game? Well, practice! The Relic forums above are a good guide to strategies and other help. Another favourite of mine is GameFAQs.

Extras:
A. This thread is a Technical FAQ from the Relic forums, but has one bit of very useful info: if, for any reason, you install CoHOF before CoH, you can't install CoH (it'll say you've already got it). To play CoH, all you have to do it run CoHOF, click 'Add Product' and input your CoH CD-Key.

B. You can unlock another 2v2 map called Bedum by adding a registry key using regedit. The map is a special unlock available to Best Buy customers (which we don't have in Malaysia) but this adds it for anyone else to play with. Instructions:

• Open regedit
• Press Ctrl-F and search for "THQ"
• When you find the THQ entry look for Company of Heroes and select it. If you see an entry called "CoHOFProductKey" in the right pane you have the right registry entry.
• Right click and add a new "String Value" called "CoHOFRetailerContentKey" and in the data field for that key type in 4B9E-488D-B797
• The direct path in XP and Vista 32 bit is [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\THQ\C­ ompany of Heroes]

Alternatively, if you see this BEFORE installing CoHOF, you can just add the key (4B9E etc) into that funny Retailer Key box during installation.
What can I say. CoH kicks ass, CoHOF does too. Go get it!