Company of Heroes for iPad Review - The Best RTS for tablet?.

- The iconic, real-time strategy, Company of Heroes has arrived on the App Store. Originally developed for Windows by Relic Entertainment, Company of Heroes has been designed and developed for tablet by Feral Interactive. You may remember their prior catalog of iPad strategy games, from Tropico and Rome Total War.

Today, I'm going to present my initial thoughts on the game and showcase how it performs on a 2018 11-inch iPad Pro and a 2018 iPad. - Wake up people, counter attack. - For Company of Heroes, the core game play is the same as the original with the user interface, being adjusted for a touch screen and somewhat smaller display.

Feral have already proved that RTS games can work really well on tablets with just your fingers alone. However, Company of Heroes takes it up a notch, bringing an even bigger strategy experience to the palm of your hands. Everything from enforcing commands, selecting multiple units, drawing sand bags directly onto the map, changing camera controls to using a more accessible tactical map.

It all works wonderfully, and you won't be missing your mouse and keyboard. Gamers can now use either a familiar desktop RTS command panel or a brand new command wheel, which should be more acquainted to mobile players. All that said, if you're new to the strategy genre on a desktop, or even mobile you could get a little bit confused here.

I wouldn't say the game is very overwhelming. It's pretty simple to understand. But I would highly suggest going through the training levels initially before moving to the campaign, or skirmish modes. Once you finish those training levels, you should have the basics down on how the advance tactics work here.

I also enjoyed playing the game with my Apple Pencil. I know that might sound weird but it just, it's fantastic. It works best if you have the command wheel enabled though. The only issue that I faced with this, was that you'd have to put the pencil down if you wanted to rotate the camera.

But still the game was almost completely playable, with just the Apple Pencil alone. That's what I played it with, it was great. To add on I absolutely loved the cut scenes throughout the campaign, they may have aged graphically by today's standards as this is a 2006 game after all.

But the voice acting and story is still truly compelling to me. Plus I love how the game transitioned from the cinematic cut scenes to game play, and you would just instantly be set into the action. It was just, really good. It's a shame the multiplayer mode is missing on initial release, as it's a favorite part of the game for many.

Thankfully this feature will come in a future update. For now, I guess you can enjoy the skirmish mode instead. Okay, now let's go over the requirements for the game. Company of Heroes requires, iOS 13.1 or later to run. It also requires 5.2 GB of storage, but you can customize installed data to save space.

Company of Heroes is supported on the following iPad's, iPad mini 5th generation, iPad Air 3rd generation, iPad 5th generation, iPad 6th generation, iPad 7th generation, iPad Pro 1st generation 9.7 inch and 12.9 inch, iPad Pro 2nd generation 10.5 inch and 12.9 inch, and iPad Pro 3rd generation 11 inch and 12.9 inch.

How does the game perform across my two iPad's? First, my iPad Pro. Feral have optimized Company of Heroes, very well for iPad's and their Hi-res retina displays. My iPad Pro has the A12X Bionic chip, which allows for the game to run at higher graphical settings by default, and a higher frame rate than older iPad's.

In fact, Feral have told me all supported devices maintain at least 30 frames, with the newer devices capable of higher FPS. It's also worth noting that there are no custom graphic options here. When you launch the game, it will automatically detect your hardware, and enable the best settings for smooth performance.

You can, however enable battery saver mode. This will only limits the game's performance, to extend battery life. Buildings and units look quite sharp, on my iPad Pro and other effects such as shadows, fog, light water effects and lighting are also decent looking.

I did notice some dropped frames during cut scenes, but this isn't really a bother, as in no way did this affect general game play, I mean it can't. I can say the game can see its age from time to time, especially during the cut scenes. But then again as I've said, it's a 14 year old game.

So this is to be expected. I imagine some people who buy the game, and are not familiar with Company of Heroes will get a surprise though. Not being aware of the game's actual age. I also noticed the iPad Pro would get quite hot after long play times.

So maybe Feral will put out a stabability update, to address this in the future. Up next we have my 6th gen iPad. This iPad has the Apple A10 Fusion chip. Which is still a good little chip, but has nowhere near the graphical potential of the A12X Bionic.

Because of this Feral have most likely, had to reduce the game's graphical render quality, and they have limited the frame rate, to maintain 30. While this iPad has a fairly large display, it is still small when comparing it to most desktop monitors.

So the lower graphical fidelity, can be somewhat hidden I suppose. No performance issues were noticed, and the device didn't get nearly as hot as my iPad Pro. Which I thought was pretty interesting. The game is very playable here, albeit running at lower graphical settings and frame rates.

If I had only this device to play the game on, I would still be very happy. Company of Heroes is an iPad exclusive for now, but Feral might look into other platforms in the future. This initial release also only includes the base camp, Feral may look into adding opposing fronts and Tales of Valor expansions at a later stage.

Are you going to play Company of Heroes on your iPad? Do you think it's the best RTS on iPad now? What do you just think of the game overall? Let me know in the comments. Leave a like if you enjoy the video, and subscribe and turn on notifications to be alerted about future uploads.