By: Don 'Donster' Miller
Date: 2005-03-22
After viewing countless screenshots, trailers, & previews of Brothers in Arms (BIA) in my daily search for "Da Gaming Newz" content for COMBATSIM.COM, that little voice in my head kept telling me "BIA is out March 17th on PC...go get it!" And it didn't help to see the countless repeat of the commercial for the game on Discovery Wings Channel or The History Channel. My guess the voice is similar to the voice that my wife hears everyday to tell her to go shopping for another pair of shoes, even though she probably has more than Imelda Marcos.
So after picking the game up and arriving at home, I cut the tape on both ends of the sleeve and removed it, exposing the DVD-ROM case. Now I will tell you all right now, if you want this game, you need a DVD-ROM drive on your system! CD-ROM drives won't work. Just to be sure, I checked on my wife's PC. (She spends too much on shoes for a nicer PC than mine remember?) Nope, nada. Guess this games all mine! Heh heh heh!
Ok, so let’s do a quick overview of what Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 is all about. This first person shooter reflects around a 13 man squad in the 101st Airborne Division's "Screaming' Eagles". The missions cover eight days of battle that these men endured during D-Day: The Invasion of Normandy. Playing as Sgt. Matt Baker, you fight the war thru his eyes.
Now a lot of FPS fans will be comparing this game to Medal of Honor (MoH) and Call of Duty (CoD). Both very fine games indeed. There are some differences between those two titles and BIA. Let me try to cover them here.
It seems Gearbox Software wanted this game to be as authentic as possible, right down to the maps, buildings etc. They also worked on BIA to have a more human side to war than the other titles mentioned. You hear Sgt. Baker speak from I presume his diary, talking about the loss of his best friend, and what is he going to tell the man's mother when he returns home. He also conveys that he didn't ask to lead men into battle, it was thrust on him. And you see this as the game goes on, he receives more responsibility with each mission, and seems to gain confidence too.
The big difference in BIA is the execution of the real time strategy element. You must order your men to follow, find cover, give covering fire on a target you designate, and then order others to try and flank the enemy so you can eliminate them. You won't last long if you try to play BIA like MoH, running around like a super hero Rambo type, killing the enemy, taking hits, knowing you can get a medic or pick up a first aid kit to extend your health. Here you only get one life, so to continue on to the next mission, you have to survive, and to do so you need to use your squad mates to complete the objective. Just like in real war. Oh and you aren't going to shoot down an enemy plane with a Thompson either like in MoH: Pacific Assault.
Now these German troops you are going up against must be some of the Reich’s best soldiers, because they know how and when to find cover, attack your position, and try to outflank YOU! You will encounter everything from the basic, minimally trained German conscript troops, which are the easiest to defeat, all the way up to the elite Fallschirmjager infantry (Insert Bad Boys theme music here).
I also noticed while playing BIA is that even though I think of myself as a pretty darn good shot in MoH and CoD, at first I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Again, Gearbox injected more realism here. Looking down the site you can see the weapon move as you breathe, there seems to be more recoil too.
BIA, for me anyway, seemed to be the most chaotic game at times that I have ever played. Having to order your fire team, assault team and or tank all at once while being fired upon, and with all the different sounds in your ears, gets pretty unnerving at times! This is what really adds to this game's quality! Yes, the sound in this game is tops! If you have a 5.1 speaker system, you'll be in for a treat my friend!
Graphics are very good. I ran the game with everything maxed out with no problems. And I don't even have the latest and greatest video card either. I'm running a GeForce FX5900 video card with the latest nVidia drivers (71.84). I do have an Athlon XP64 3200 CPU, which I am sure helps, and 1GB of RAM. The foliage is second to none, the towns look very real, and the uniforms too. Graphics aren't as good as FarCry or a few others out there, but I am not that nit picky.
There of course is blood. But can I say, tastefully done? Not sprayed everywhere is what I mean. Some gore, like some poor chap that has had a run in with a Stuka. Also quite a bit of foul language, and for the first time I have noticed, use of the "F" word. Because of that, I won't recommend this game to youngsters. I am no prude, as most of the readers here probably know, but Gearbox could have left it out without changing one bit of the games realism. In fact, it may be even more realistic without that one word. IMHO.
I think it goes without saying that I highly recommend this game to anybody who enjoys a good FPS. I only hope they decide to put together a similar title, based on a squad of United States Marines, battling it out with the Japanese on Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima or maybe even Okinawa!
Interact: Comment