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Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

Posted 01/01/09 at 01:30:00 PM  by Norman Chan

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We’ve played plenty of World War II shooters but have yet to find one that makes us care for its characters like we did for Tom Hanks and Vin Diesel in Saving Private Ryan. Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway comes close and rekindles our love of gritty 1940s warfare with its perfect combination of nail-biting tactical shoot-outs and a gripping character-driven story—an admirable feat in modern first-person shooters.

As Matt Baker, you’ve come a long way since first leading your squad in the original game. Your men aren’t just nameless soldiers—each squad member is brought to life with a unique likeness and vocal personality. And this time around, you have additional troops at your command to relinquish the Nazis from their hold on Holland. Deployable base-of-fire, assault, machine gun, and bazooka fire teams pin down enemies while you sneak around adjacent hedgerows to flank, a reliable tactic which offers many rewarding strategic approaches on the battlefield.

In one particularly memorable mission, we tried to reclaim the city of Eindhoven from Nazi control. Firefights took place in farms, churches, and graveyards, and on the city streets, where every fence and building corner became an opportunity to take cover. We directed a machine gun team to suppress a sandbag fortification and instructed our bazooka team to blow up a nearby steeple, where a sniper was hiding. The diverse arrangement of battlefields—both indoor and outdoor—kept the action fresh.

Requisite sniping and tank-driving missions are fun breaks from the tense tactical gameplay but are a little too easy. The visuals and production values are also impressive, with plenty of cinematic details to enhance the drama. But Hell’s Highway’s greatest asset is that it never loses sight of its (often dark) story, and the gameplay is better for it.

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway
Coconut Clusters

Character-driven story, intense tactical action, and gorgeous cinematic presentation.

Cluster Bombs

Forgettable multiplayer mode and linear tank missions.

score:9
www.brothersinarmsgame.com
COMMENTS:
TAGS: games, gaming, ubisoft, reviews, brothers in arms, hell's highway
COMMENTS
avatarYou gave it a 9?

Submitted by Pixelated on Thu, 01/01/2009 - 3:04pm

Hmmmm..Another paid review from Future , nice. Just like you sister mag PC Gamer. Their Far Cry 2 review was way off and although opinion does enter into the equation when reviewing games, Far Cry 2 is not even close to being a 9.4 and it's just awful. It's just a boring, over hyped game with possibly the worst voice acting ever. Not to mention 90% of the "New" features are nothing but gimmicks. Are they aware that they just lumped FC2 with the best of the best in PC games? Are you telling me FC2 is up there with HL2 and GTA?? I don't think so.

Now BIA HH gets a 9? My buddy bought this game and after playing it for 20min it was obvious to us that this is another port job from Ubisoft with a garbage cover system and even more linear gameplay than COD:WaW (and it's not easy to top that turd, BTW to Noah Heller: Yes COD:WaW is just another crappy WW2 game). This is not a game it's a fucking movie imitating a game. If Gearbox would have spent 1/4 of the effort spent on cut scenes by adding actual modern day features and sounds then maybe this game could have succeeded. I mean they reuse the same low res textures from previous BIA games as well as the same weapon and weapon pickup sounds as the original COD. Pathetic. How about recording your own sounds or at the very least buy some that aren't 10 years old.

They kept all of the worst features of the previous BIA games including ultra linear gameplay, awful console type controls and a stupid Ubisoft Patented Check Point System®. Also it includes another Patented Ubisoft Feature, Game Breaking Bugs®. They add a few blocks and fences that you can shoot, weak gibs, stupid "sometimes" slow motion and no way to skip the cut scenes and you guys give it a 9? This is rehashed garbage not worthy of the PC. 

Keep this crap on the consoles because no one wants it on the PC's. 4/10

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avatarA shame I have it, but have

Submitted by I Jedi on Thu, 01/01/2009 - 12:24pm

A shame I have it, but have yet to really play it. 

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