Before I type anything, I must first say that I have never, before a week ago, played a single Brothers in Arms game. I think the main reason is because when the first in the series came out, there was already a large influx of WWII games out (Medal of Honor, Call of Duty… Wolfenstein) so it kind of got put into the generic stack. Playing this game, though, makes me feel very, very awful for not taking a deeper look into this game. I am a huge WWII buff, so I can say the authenticity of this game is verging on erotic. So, without further adieu, let’s cut the bullshit and get to Nazi slaughter.

You’d like to think that a trip to Holland would be peaceful, but in the iron grip of Nazi Germany, a stroll through the park was liable to get you hung. The Dutch countryside is absolutely vibrant, the houses detailed and very war torn in some cases. Gearbox did a phenomenal job on recreating the small farms and mills dotting the landscape. When pressed into cities later, the detail does not let up. Cracked sills, broken dining equipment, decimated homes are all part of the visual tour in wait for you. Of course, some of the textures are reused, but show me a game that doesn’t redo some odds and ends and I’ll show you a game where the creators probably did blow the whole way through. Comical drug references aside, you really don’t notice any texture redux while capping Der Nazis. The rest of the game is just as gorgeous as the landscapes – mechanical textures have very nice lighting effects of the metal, faces are human and very weathered, you can see the pain and dirt etched into every crevasse. This level of detail continues again into the firearms used – everyone sounds and looks like it’s real life counterpart. If you ever wondered what it might sounds like to have an MG42 provide suppressing fire right next to your head, this is the game to find out. Strangely, they provide realism in some aspects, and not in others. For example, you can fire a gun at a window and it won’t crack, but mortar shells and bazookas leave craters in the ground.

Sadly, I really think Brothers in Arms falters in its repetitive nature of its gaming. Usually, and by that I mean every time, you have support fire to pin opponents then outflank them and pick them off. The strange thing is that somehow Nazis have Democracy vision, because even when pinned and I am moving around to flank undetected, they know I’m there and fire. This is every time too, not just some sort of isolated incident. The game really frowns upon bum rushing up to a pinned enemy, even though the same son of a bitch NPC whines about no one moving. Maybe I should just sit back and command troops, but it just doesn’t feel right, I shouldn’t be left out of the action. More annoyingly, my job seems to be completing the objective then picking people off with a Mauser from cover. One other annoying thing is NPC’s are pretty much just target practice. They dash to one area, wait, then pop up long enough for you to obliterate the thing they once called a face.

The controls are solid WASD configuration, and the squad commands are easily integrated into the keys. There’s really not much to screw up here, you just hunker down next to terrain and pop up and fire. There’s certainly a Gears of War element in that regard, but with more emphasis on the group dynamic rather than a single gun-totting muscle-bound psychopath. Multiplayer suffers from this same effect, it’s very much like Gears of War, just hiding then popping out and shooting. It’s viable, sure, but there is certainly a better multiplayer game out there (Call of Duty 4 comes to mind.)

What Brothers in Arms might lack in game play, the story makes up for a hundred times over. In comparison to games like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, this game bends them over a pole and just violates them repeatedly. The story plays out very, very much like an episode of Band of Brothers (a HBO mini-series based on Easy Company) and does an excellent job fleshing out characters. Each one has small quirks that just make them seem lifelike and believable, and their emotions to situations vary completely. There’s an actual plot in the backdrop of all this patriotism, very well thought out and draws from older games to make fluid, transitional plot from game to game. I really don’t want to discuss the plot too much, because disclosing anything would be an awful way of ruining the emotional impact of every scene.

While the graphics and story really shine out like a gay man in southern Georgia, the game play really bogs down the rest of the game. Granted, it’s just the way they designed squad based combat – and in no way is it bad – I just feel it to get rather repetitive. All in all, Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway is an amazing WWII shooter, and should certainly be in your collection if you are an avid war buff, or general game enthusiast.

Overall: 8 out of 10

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