Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 review:
Pros:- Attention to detail is very striking- Great atmosphere- Suppress and flank idea is clever...Cons:- ...which is sadly repetitive in practice- Scrappy graphics engine- AI isn't dynamic enough
Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 review:
Brothers in Arms delivers beautiful graphics, great gameplay, solid tactics, great music and sound, and an overall great story. I would say that Brothers in Arms is the number one FPS of 2005 so far. My suggestion is not to rent this game or borrow it from a friend, but buy this game. This game will have you at the edge of your seat the entire time.
Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 review:
When we first heard that Gearbox was going to be developing another title based on the Second World War we questioned if the gaming world needed one, well the answer is a resounding "yes". With an atmospheric single player mission mode and an addictive multiplayer mode, Brothers in Arms is so much more than just another WW2 game, it’s actually one of the finest ones to be produced yet.
Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 review:
Gearbox have pulled no punches in delivering a strictly adults only,refreshingly candid, vision of war which immerses you from the opening momentsto the final seconds of a campaign that ultimately claimed over 50,000 Alliedlives. Loadedinc salutes Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 and orders you toreport to your local store for your copy immediately. Dismissed.
Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 review:
If you are a fan of the HBO series, a fan of combat games, or even a just a fan of first person shooters, you owe it to yourself to run out immediately and grab this title. Blending gripping war action with human emotion is what makes for a fine gaming experience, and Brothers in Arms: The Road to Hill 30 has exceeded all my expectations.
Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 review:
Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 has been followed by many, ever since the game was shown off in all its glory in the form of an exciting video at last year's E3. Following that came a stream of gameplay videos, developer diaries, video interviews, television features and documentaries, all of which generated more and more interest. However, those of you who haven't heard much about the game if at all before now will be wondering what makes Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 so special - why is it any different to the likes of Medal of Honor and Call of Duty? The answer is simple: it delivers the best and most authentic World War II gaming experience yet, rolling tactical elements and explosive gameplay into one amazing shooter.Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 is set in Normandy during 1944, beginning on the 6th of June - also known as D-Day - and ending on the eighth day following it, also known as D+8. It focuses on the American paratroopers, who parachuted into Normandy, France early in the morning under fire from German artillery. Many of the gliders carrying the paratroopers, however, were brought down in flames or were running low on fuel and had to unload their passengers prematurely, leaving many of them scattered across the landscape. Unfortunately, this misadventure only foreshadowed the devastating events to follow on their mission to liberate the surrounding area from Nazi Germany. Anyone who has seen the fantastic miniseries Band of Brothers will instantly recognise many of the sequences seen in the game; while not linked, both media serve to represent the heroic actions taken by the American paratroopers of World War II.You awake to find raindrops dripping onto your face, screams and yells, thunder and lightning, gunfire and explosions gradually growing louder as your senses grow more and more conscious. Sergeant Hassay pulls you to your feet and you find yourself standing in a soggy trench lined with your comrades, some struggling to get a signal on the radio, some tending to the wounded and some firing on the Germans pouring down the hill ahead of you. Realising your only option, you begin to fire on the Germans with the M1 Garand in your hands as they move to cover or peek over fallen trees and boulders for a better look at the action. Enemy mortar rounds grow ever closer; a tree lining the trench is hit and splits into curled fronds of bark. Suddenly a tank rolls in from the right, ploughing through foliage and coming to a halt, within moments directing its long, deadly turret towards the trench - instinctively, you crouch, but the blast the shell induces as it slams into the brink of the trench topples you over onto your back, leaving you unaware, now, of whether your comrades are dead or alive. As your head rolls to the side you notice one of the soldiers next to you - overwhelmed with adrenaline - climb to his feet and scream at the tank, firing useless shots from his pistol at the machine's thick, heavy armour. Quickly, he's knocked down by the tank's second shot, blood streaming down his face within an instant ... and that's just the opening scene of the game. Herein the game plays out as a flashback up until reaching the trench scene - or Hill 30 - once again, beginning with the parachute drop into Normandy, described above, and progressing through famous locations such as St. Come du Mont and Carentan as you, Matt Baker, and your squad, commanding them as well as getting into the action yourself, take the "Road to Hill 30".Before we delve into any more of the action, though, let's take a look at how amazingly authentic and historically accurate Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 is. Developer Gearbox Software studied aerial reconnaissance photographs, after action reports, soldiers' journals and the like obtained from various war museums across the world in order to recreate the game's areas and missions in the most accurate way possible, and even spoke to war veterans to obtain the finer and more personal details surrounding World War II. Almost every little event that occurs in the game actually happened in the war, be it the famous 'breakfast table' scene - in which you storm a house and come across a dining room full of Germans having a morning feast, surprising them with a shower of bullets or a grenade or two - or the very enjoyable mission towards the end of the game, entitled 'Tom and Jerry', in which you're perched atop the cathedral in Carentan, sniping Germans while yelling orders to your men on the ground below.The missions in the game take place - as the game's subtitle suggest - over the course of the likely route the paratroopers took to Hill 30. Each mission usually requires you to simply reach the end of the area, while the game throws small objectives at you along the way. For example, you may need to take out a mortar team or defend a certain area. While a lot of what occurs during missions is realistic as it should be, there are some unrealistic features. In the mission titled 'Rommel's Asparagus', for example, Germans will respawn until you complete your objective. Despite their structural shortcomings, the game's missions are, fortunately, packed with atmospheric detail that draws you so far into the action that your heart rate will increase while crouched behind a horse cart, roaring MG42 fire piercing the wood repeatedly.Each mission is preceded by voiceovers by your character, Matt Baker, as he tells in the form of a diary entry of his and his men's progress. Despite his entries being a bit too philosophical, they help to bring you closer to Baker and what he and his men - and, of course, the real-life paratroopers - were feeling as the war continued.Due to the fact that Gearbox Software endeavored to make the game as authentic as possible, a focus on the American paratroopers' military tactic is present throughout the game, that being the four F's: Find, Fix, Flank and Finish. While some encounters with the enemy in the game can be handled head on, allowing you to pick off small groups of soldiers from a distance, others, particularly those involving more than three or so Germans, are better handled using this tactic. First, you must find the enemy, then you must fix or suppress them with fire, flank them by moving around their flank or behind them as they're busy fending off suppressing fire, and finally finish them by taking them down. Solving firefights as you would in similar games, Medal of Honor in particular, is useless here; it only takes five or so shots to bring you down, forcing you to utilise cover - such as tree trunks, vehicles, barrels, buildings and the like - and to make use of your squads.Commanding your two squads of three men - and occasionally the odd tank or two - initially seems daunting, but after a couple of hours of play you'll be running off orders one after the other on the fly. The context sensitive command system is very well executed and therefore prevents the game from becoming too strategy-oriented; simply holding the Left Trigger and aiming the command ring which will pop up in doing so at an area or enemy is as heavy as the system gets. The thick blue ring reacts to every object in the environment; it won't travel through buildings or even small objects such as fallen livestock, and transforms into a red reticule when aimed at an enemy. Releasing the Left Trigger anywhere on the ground will command your squad to move to that position, at which point their advanced artificial intelligence will kick in. Telling your men to move to a lone barrel, for example, will see one of them take position behind it while the others, realising there's no more room, will move to another form of cover close to the barrel and automatically fire upon any surrounding enemies. Aiming the command ring at an enemy at this point will see your squad provide even heavier fire, and on one concentrated position according to which singular or group of enemies you told them to suppress. In addition, aiming the command ring at an enemy and pressing the Right Trigger, or fire button, will see your squad charge and assault them at close range, concentrating on taking them down quickly.Your two squads and, if applicable, tanks, are separate entities, meaning commands issued need not be given to all of the men under your command. Each squad and tank is divided, and can be easily switched between by tapping the White button, the selected squad or tank indicated on the handy combined compass and radar in the corner of the screen by a white outline around their symbol. For example, tap the White button until your assault squad - which carries machine guns and grenades and is ideal for assaulting the enemy - is selected and tell them to move to cover, and your Fire squad - which carries rifles and is ideal for suppressing the enemy at long range - and tanks, if applicable, will stay put. Holding down the white button for a second or two tells the selected squad to regroup or withdraw from cover and action and stay close to yourself, which comes in handy very often. Fortunately the game builds up the number of men, squads and artillery under your command so that you can learn the basics of the system without becoming overwhelmed, though the most you'll ever be required to take under your wing is an assault squad, a fire squad and one tank.Helping with the suppression of enemies is what is known as a suppression icon above every enemy's head, appearing as a large circle that is, initially, red, draining to a grey colour as you or the men under your command fire at or near them - while the icon is grey, the enemy is unlikely to return fire, preferring to remain hidden behind cover and providing the perfect flanking opportunity. Those such as myself conscious of maintaining the game's realism will be disappointed to learn of these, but fortunately the icons can be turned off in the game's options, and I completed the game without them with no problems.Similarly unrealistic is the Situational Awareness View, accessed at any time during the game with a tap of the Back button; the camera will zoom out to an overhead view, giving you limited camera control to take a peek at the overall area and enemy positions. Gearbox Software included this as the paratroopers had access to aerial reconnaissance photos before parachuting into Normandy, but I'm sure they weren't detailed and in colour, updating miniscule enemy movements and providing enemy unit names and information on objectives - therefore, like the suppression icons, I opted not to use this feature and, as above, completed the game without ever needing it in the slightest.Don't be scared that you'll barely be part of the action due to the game's strategic elements, though - if so, this would be a Real-Time Strategy game rather than a First-Person Shooter. You'll need to use the two weapons that you can hold at a time extensively, and you'll run out of ammo on quite a few occasions, leaving you scouring fallen enemies for their own. Whilst your squads carry out their orders, you're free to either sit back and watch the action, fire on enemies as they scamper behind cover, lob a few grenades at them, flank them and take them out or issue new orders to your men - basically, anything you can do in any other First-Person Shooter.Throughout the course of Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 you'll have access to a variety of weapons, including the M1911 pistol, the M1 Carbine, the M1 Garand, the MP40 sub-machine gun, the Mauser K98 rifle, the M1918 Browning automatic rifle and more, some of the previous belonging to the Germans and only being able to be obtained - as touched upon above - from dead enemies by holding down the X button. MG42 machine gun emplacements can also be manned, very useful for mowing down hordes of Germans. By default, crosshairs are turned off but can be turned on in the game's options. However, those such as myself who want to preserve the experience will leave them off, using, instead, the excellent 'iron sights' view that the game features. Clicking the Right Control Stick with any weapon sees it brought up to eye level, providing a realistic view down the barrel of the gun through the sights, allowing you to aim as the paratroopers had to over fifty years ago. Due to the fact that the weapons are old, they require some mastering - quite a few shots will miss their target, but towards the end of the game you'll find yourself - as I did - hitting the enemy very often, even being able to pull off a few kills by firing from the hip. Finally, a game that doesn't attempt to censor blood and gore. Firing at enemies results in puffs of blood, and if they're in front of something or crouched, blood will often splatter through onto the surfaces beyond. Grenades and other explosives take off arms and legs, leaving dead bodies with bloodied stumps. A fair bit of swearing is also present throughout the game, but nowhere near as much as in The Getaway; you'll hear the "f word" up to approximately ten times.The game's controls overall are excellent, though the Black button is, strangely, used for throwing grenades, often leading to problems - I occasionally found myself accidentally pressing the black button instead of the white button when commanding my squads, leading to wasted grenades and a unnecessary loss of health. On another note, I came across an annoying occurrence in the game regarding the weapons, that being the fact that whenever you flank an enemy without them aware, your first shot will always miss even at close range; for some reason, the enemy will only take the hit if they are 'alert', so to speak - unless, of course, you throw a grenade at them, in which case they'll be splashed with an unavoidable blast of shrapnel.Gearbox Software obviously took extra time to properly research the German soldiers that you'll fight throughout the game. While other games based on World War II send streams of troops at you or randomly throw them into areas on patrols, those in Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 - from the poorly-trained conscripts to the elite Fallschirmjager - are properly organised into squads of the correct number of men, including a sergeant or two who carries their weapon of choice, the MP40 sub-machine gun, and are set up in strategic areas such as around cover, ambush points or towns. Also contributing to their realism is the enemy soldiers' artificial intelligence, which is just as good as that of your squad members; they'll take cover where they find it, stick together for extra firepower, lay down suppressing fire, transfer to new cover if in danger and even lob your grenades back at you if they get the chance - heck, I was even flanked myself by a lone German soldier who sneaked up behind me and whacked me in the head with the butt of his weapon; fortunately, though, I managed to turn around in time to whack him back even harder, knocking him to the ground. Enemy artillery is also very intelligent despite being less mobile. Tanks, for example, will maneuver to new positions and make use of all of their weaponry, from their forward-firing machine guns to their turrets. They're not much of a match for you, though, while alone and without covering fire; run around the back of one, too slow to turn around and fire at you, and you're able to drop a grenade into the hatch for a very satisfying kill. Good points aside, the enemy artificial intelligence is occasionally unfair in the sense that, often, you'll stand up from cover to survey the area and the millisecond your head is exposed it'll be hit by a flurry of bullets. Enemies also tend to magically detect you when you sneak up on them, turning and firing before you get a chance to react.As you progress through the game you'll unlock a plethora of great extras, including weapon and artillery analyses, authentic aerial reconnaissance photos, journals and after action reports, as well as the game's E3 demonstration video and an interesting pre-production storyboard of the opening scenes on Hill 30. Each extra is unlocked according to the difficulty the mission was completed on, but doing so on higher difficulties unlocks those under it. For example, finish the first mission on the Difficult setting and you'll unlock the extras for the Easy and Normal settings as well.MultiplayerIf, like me, you've had enough of all the worn-out modes present in multiplayer components of games these days, such as Deathmatch and Capture the Flag, you'll want to delve into that found in Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30. Approximately ten different maps are available, each with an objective for both the Americans and Germans. For example, the Americans may have to deliver a code book to the edge of the map while the Germans attempt to stop them, or the Americans may need to defend a bridge while the Germans collect explosives, take the bridge and destroy it. Up to only four players can play in one game at any time on Xbox Live, two in split-screen offline, but each player controls a squad of three computer-controlled soldiers, bringing the maximum total to the usual sixteen players. Personally I only found half of the maps enjoyable, though; the other half are terribly dark, truly affecting gameplay and inducing frustration.Fortunately the game's multiplayer mode retains the feel of the Campaign mode in the sense that you have the same amount of health and therefore must plan your attacks strategically, setting up your squad behind cover and the like. This factor is also beneficial to the voice support over Xbox Live; you'll encounter very little irrelevant chatter as you will, almost the whole time, need to discuss your objectives and concoct strategies with your human team mate if applicable.The game's multiplayer isn't free of bugs, though. The most prominent sees voice through the headset echo, even in games without lag, jeopardising your ability to communicate with your team mate. I also found myself getting stuck in crouch mode or falling halfway through the ground on the odd occasion.GraphicsOverall, the game's graphics are excellent; character models in particular are very convincing, their eyes moving to look at you and bearing very detailed if a tad flat uniforms, accompanied by realistic animation. The screen is often abundant with colour, if a little too much for a game of its context, and the explosions look excellent with realistic-looking smoke and dirt and debris flying all over the place in a radial arc. In addition, the game features some very immersive effects; blood, dirt, water and grass will splatter across the screen during battle in time with hits, nearby explosions and the like, and being hit by an enemy's weapon sees the screen turn black and white and blurry for a few seconds while you recover. The game's textures are a little bit below par, though, some looking a bit drab and lacking detail, and the sky in most missions looks terrible, being pixelated, static and blurred. The game also suffers from frame rate drops in areas plagued by foliage and whenever enemies spawn, which is disappointing but rarely obstructs gameplay.SoundBrothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 features an excellent orchestral soundtrack very reminiscent of the music in Band of Brothers, mentioned earlier, and the movie Saving Private Ryan. This music plays at the title screen and on loading screens according to the mood and setting of the upcoming mission; for example, on the loading screen of the mission 'Tom and Jerry', the music is composed heavily of church bells considering the mission takes place within a church tower.The voice acting in the game is generally spot on, most prominently in the case of your own character and the lines he dishes out to accompany the orders you give to your squads. There's a very large variety of lines, many recorded two or three times, preventing them from ever becoming repetitive. You'll hear those such as "Set up there!", "Shoot those bastards!" and "Fire on that MG!", many, as you can see, featuring colloquial language that coincides with Baker's tone of voice to convey an authentic feeling.The weapons themselves sound excellent, the M1 Garand in particular, which sounds very 'meaty' and makes kills satisfying. Mortar, satchel charge and grenade explosions sound more realistic than those in any other game, with a convincing piercing and explosive sound. Gearbox Software has, in addition, included many ambient sounds such as distant artillery fire or aeroplane engines, and the way bullets whiz past your ears and slam into various surfaces really helps to immerse you in the action.OverallBrothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 is definitely the most authentic and arguably the best World War II based game out there. It bears few faults and those that are present are far outweighed by the immersive and action-packed experience that the game delivers. The game's ending lacks excitement and closure, but rest assured this is due to the fact that the story is to be continued when the next game in the series - currently in development and only recently announced - is released.Thumbs UpAuthentic and immersive experienceVery accessible command systemFantastic music and soundPlenty of blood and goreUnique multiplayer modeThumbs DownLinear and scripted missionsSome glitches and bugsUnpredictable frame rate full size >>
Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 review:
Set during the famous airdrop before the invasion at Normandy, Sgt. Matt Baker and his squad of 101st Airborne paratroopers were scattered over the French countryside. As the story unfolds, the player (Baker) must choose between the success of his mission and the lives of his men – his brothers in arms.
Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 review:
Brothers in Arms: The Road to Hill 30 doesn't just paste a WWII backdrop behind a stock shooting game, it lives and breaths in that backdrop...
Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 review:
Plain and simple this is one of the best games in the first quarter of 2005, and that is because of its addictive gameplay, great storyline, and the combination of fun and strategy. If you are in the market for a new squad-based shooter for your Xbox this game would be perfect for you!
Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 review:
And unlike other war games, Brothers in Arms adds a tactical element to the traditional action-packed battle plan. Rather than playing as one man in a larger squad, here you take on the responsibility of leading a small team through the madness of WWII. After a few introductory solo-missions, you’ll be put in command of three other A.I.
Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 review:
Desola doesn’t seem to be the sharpest tool in the shed, and sometimes you’ll find him or another directly in the line of enemy fire with adequate cover only feet away. There was one account where an underling ran between the cross-fire of an American tank and a German machine gun, instead of using the tank as cover and maneuvering around it; as you might have guessed, he was killed in action.
Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 review: