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Yet another first person shooter set amongst the hedgerows and villages of German occupied France …

Over the last few years, it cannot have escaped o­nes’ notice that World War 2 themed shooters have been pouring out of development houses at an ever accelerating rate. The spate of Medal of Honor and Call of Duty games has graced first person shooter (FPS) players with a bevy of releases that all seem to appear pretty much the same as each other apart from the combat environments. Sure they’re all beautifully crafted and faithful to the period being represented but, ultimately, when you take your shiny new purchase home and break it out of the shrink-wrap, after a few hours play, you’re invariably left with the feeling that you’ve been here and done this before. When the dust settles at the end of each game you can rest assured that Hitler’s ass has been soundly smacked, take a long drag o­n your stogie of choice, and then sit back and wait for the next release to hit the stores.

In early 2005, Gearbox Software came out with their contribution to the war effort in the form of Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (BiA). To their credit, their creation focuses less o­n you as an individual participant in the conflict and more o­n the team camaraderie and squad tactics used by U.S. forces during the war. So, how does BiA measure up against its brethren and is the game’s departure from the tried and true FPS recipe as innovative and successful as the developers hoped?

Role call
The game is set during the first 9 days of D-Day where you take o­n the role of Sgt. Matt Baker as he and his squad battle through the French countryside against the usual German suspects. While there is a story linking the campaign together which develops through introductory voice-overs and cut-scenes between each mission, it’s melodramatic at best and darn painful at the worst of times. The game doesn’t encourage you to “bond” with your comrades as they reincarnate between each mission unless the overall plot decrees otherwise. I’ve often wondered if it’s the periods between battles that actively bond units together rather than the frenetic fire-fights that may o­nly last 10-15 minutes at any o­ne time. The confusion of battle makes it hard to concern yourself with individuals when all you want is for your support element to suppress the enemy while your assault team flanks them from the side. Then again, perhaps I’m approaching the game in too clinical a fashion. In any case, the game provides you with a heterogeneous group of soldiers who will do what they’re told
and provide the o­nly means by which you can win each mission as you will see shortly.

Command and Control
Your squad is broken down into two elements: a support team that is equipped to suppress the enemy by direct fire and an assault element that is copiously equipped with grenades and sub-machineguns with which to come to grips with the enemy. You control your team-mates by pointing your targeting reticule at a suitable terrain feature or enemy unit. Depending o­n your choice your controlled element will either fire to suppress the enemy or move to the indicated spot. Suppression is a concept that should be fully understood by prospective squad leaders. In essence, a suppressed target will hunker down and not return fire allowing your assault element to move to a flanking position to kill the enemy. Failing to suppress an enemy position and running a bunch of your lads in front of them is a sure fire way of losing ½ your squad in a matter of seconds!

To help you figure out the lay of the land, you’ve been provided with a WW2 version of JSTARS, a situational awareness overhead map of the battlefield that shows your units, any enemy positions you have spotted and key terrain features. Using this tool, you can quickly find the bits of cover available to your men to allow you to achieve your mission objectives. While it is pretty useful during the tutorial part of the game, it’s a pretty disposable asset as you will rapidly develop the skills to manoeuvre your team without it.

There are a few chinks with this interface however. First off, your squad has absolutely NO initiative to speak off. While this is great when you are meticulously ordering your men to move from cover to cover, if a heretofore unseen enemy unit appears, your soldiers will keep carrying o­n with their orders regardless. Throw in the fact that the targeting reticule has a rather nebulous accuracy at times (especially when directing tanks) and you have a potential recipe for disaster o­n your hands. Units also have a tendency to get stuck at various points o­n the map necessitating a quick run back to their position so that you can order them around the obstacle and back into the fray. Even the tanks you are occasionally graced with to provide some additional firepower have trouble manoeuvring around the battlefield and routinely get bogged down by the game engine. Keep your troops and tanks o­n a tight leash and you’ll limit these occurrences during the game.

To Arms!
The standard U.S. arsenal is available to your squad within each mission and you can lug around a couple of weapons at any o­ne time. They even keep track of individual rounds in magazines, should you decide to reload when the clip isn’t empty. The iron sights and “aiming down the weapon” options made popular by the Call of Duty series makes a return, however you will often find it difficult to hit an opponent unless you are at close range. o­n the flipside, the Germans seem to have no trouble picking you off at greater distances resulting in your alter-ego keeping his head down more often than not (which is undoubtedly what the developers were trying for.). The best method of dealing with the enemy is to let your comrades do the dirty work for you, with you orchestrating the action from your virtual perspective.

Field of Engagement
The missions provided are mainly set in the French countryside with the occasional excursion into Carentan and other built up areas for variety. Using the Unreal Tournament 2004 engine, the player is graced with all the bells and whistles a current generation 3D engine has to offer. High definition lighting, environmental effects (including mud splattering your face) and other visual candy are abundantly evident within each scenario. My o­nly minor complaint is the rather extensive use of that sickly light green used for grass and hedgerows; while it looks ok during overcast missions, when the sun is out, you begin to contemplate turning the brightness down.

The maps are quite linear in nature, but this is more a product of the FPS genre than a failing of this game per se. When you look at the situational awareness view, you can see that there is invariably o­nly o­ne or two suitable ways to progress through the scenario. Indeed, the main challenge facing the player is trying to figure out how to go about neutralizing each enemy position in turn without losing any of your men. The developer also decided to use save points (presumably as part of the console version of the game) and then arbitrarily used as few of them as possible in each mission! This can result in a frustrating experience for gamers as the save system does not encourage experimentation. Some missions can take quite a while to complete necessitating numerous replays of the same game sequences. When you do finally beat the system, you can allow yourself a brief moment of self-congratulation … until you realise that you will undoubtedly have to repeat the same “trial and error” exercise later o­n. With experience you will gain that instinctive knowledge of what will and won’t work during combat but acquiring that knowledge will require the patience of a saint. It should also be noted that you o­nly have o­ne checkpoint in the game and if you ever want to replay earlier missions, you will lose your progress in the game past that point.

Stand down
To conclude, BiA provides a different spin to the genre of WW2 squad level shooters and manages to pull off these innovative changes with some aplomb. The minor issues with the interface and game play are nothing that a little player persistence cannot overcome. If you’re looking for something beyond what the “run of the mill” WW2 first person shooter has to offer, BiA will provide a refreshing look at how a tiny bit of innovation can add a new layer of game play to a milieu that has remained unchanged for so long.

The next instalment in the series, Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood was released late last year (roughly six months after the original) and focuses o­n urban combat instead of the excessively green countryside that this game exposed us to. We’ll take a look at that in the coming weeks to see if the notable shortcomings of this title were addressed in the follow up.

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