There is a certain fascination with World War II-based video games over the last several years: among Medal of Honor, Call of Duty and their ilk, the sheer volume of like games is beginning to make any such title have to provide something wholly original to really make it stand out. Gearbox’s and Ubisoft’s Brothers in Arms series attempts to do that by focusing less on the game as a first-person shooter and instead making you rely on squad tactics, while also trying to build a more personal story of individual courage into each game. While the latest installment of the series, Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, ups the technical prowess to take advantage of the latest console technology, the fundamental aspects of gameplay are still rather simple. An enjoyable game, it lacks the needed touches to really make it top notch.
BIA:HH puts you in the role of Staff Sergeant Matt Baker as he leads his 101st Airborne Division across the Netherlands in the days following D-Day. The small group is a close-knit group of friends that have experienced the trials and tribulations of the war to date, but the tensions are taking their toll; even as they accomplish missions, the loss of his men lead to Baker’s growing emotional tension and rising insanity. The story itself is told as a mix of in-mission scenes and cutscenes, reasonably accomplished in the game engine; but from the standpoint of story, it’s all rather predictable - maybe it’s due to the excessive number of WWII games out there, or that movies like “Saving Private Ryan” have already explored these themes over and over again, but it’s hard to get any real investment in the characters. There’s also a few points during the game where weird flashbacks, along the lines of Condemned or the like, pop up, and these feel really out of place.
The gameplay in BIA:HH is similar to its predecessors, and, at least for myself, satisfyingly similar to the Rainbow Six: Vegas games. While presented as a first-person shooter, there’s no way that, alone, you’d be able to take on most of the forces they throw at you in the game. Instead, the key element is to strategically use your given squads to lay down covering fire, flank the enemy, or simply launch a full-out assault in order to take them out. Most commonly, this is done by having a machine gun team encamp themselves behind a wall and lay down a steady stream of bullets that cause the enemy to become flustered, as indicated by a meter over the enemy’s position. While the meter is red, they are more bold, and if you step too far away from cover, you’ll likely be injured badly. However, with covering fire to wear the meter down to gray, the enemy becomes more prone to mistakes, and you can take the opportunity to move yourself or your squads forward, or rush them from the side to clear them out. Early levels basically require you to find just one dig-in point to get through each area, but as you progress, it may take a couple of “leapfrogging” steps, moving one team up while another covers them, until you get close enough to flank them.
Unlike Vegas, however, there is a penalty if you needlessly tell your squads to rush, as they can drop easily if you don’t approach each section strategically, and once down, they will stay down (at least until you get to a mid-point cutscene or the end of each level). This is emphasized early on: I found it literally impossible to proceed in early sections of the game if all of the squads I had control of were down. The game strongly stresses the need to use these teams effectively, being aware that your MG team is great for covering fire or a rush, but not great for a direct assault, and that your bazooka team may only be good for taking out explosive targets but otherwise can’t stand up well to a firefight.
However, the game does have at least one weakness in the fact that as long as you are patient, you can pretty much pick off nearly every entrenched enemy by waiting for them to pop up and hit them time and time again with any weapon that you have, as long as you have at least one squad providing covering fire. The only limitation on this is your capacity of ammo storage - but even on the Xbox 360, you can get pixel-perfect alignment of the crosshairs with your foe’s head as it pops up. I think part of the problem is that the opponents only move around if you toss a grenade at them, otherwise they stay completely entrenched, and provide no challenge to defeat. As BIA:HH includes typical regenerating health system, you do actually have to work to die in the game, further making the game a relative cakewalk once you’ve gotten the timing and patterns down. I did encounter a few pathfinding issues with the squads, but in general, they are smart enough that you only have to worry about them when moving them around; once in position, they are fairly smart about finding cover and laying down fire, making your job that much easier.
In addition to these squad-based sections, there are a handful of times that you find yourself alone. Fortunately, these sections are not difficult - they’re usually straightforward linear paths that make it hard to become ambushed. There’s also a handful of sections where you’re given control of a tank, and these themselves are rather simple as long as you watch out for yourself in the gunner seat and duck back into the tank when fired at.
The game is not terribly long - the nine missions take about 8 to 10 hours depending on how well you get used to the cover tactics. Completing the game gives you access to the “authentic” difficulty level that really punishes you for taking damage, but otherwise does not offer much more. Each level features a number of “recon points” that give you a bit of historical information about the war, and there are various “Kilroy was Here” drawings to locate for those that are completionists, but neither really help to extend gameplay. There is a multiplayer mode, but I found it really lacking when compared to other titles in the genre.
Graphics look pretty dang good - use of depth of field, lighting, and other effects really help to make the game look sharp, but there is an odd bit of texturing on some of the closeups that flicker at times. Audio is decent - my only complaint here is that the voice actors for the characters are all too close in tone and delivery that I really only got a feel for the characters once I enabled subtitles.
Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway stays pretty consistent with the previous games in the series, and makes a nice shooter/tactical challenge, but is a rather straightforward game once you’ve gotten the basic strategy down and doesn’t offer much once you complete the relatively short campaign. I felt the title lacked luster, and amid my general exhaustion of WWII games and the ways it allowed me to avoid the intended gameplay, I couldn’t put my finger on anything that made BIA:HH a top notch title.
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