Gearbox Software did a lot of porting before it achieved the status of a classic AAA first person shooter developer. Their first in-house franchise, Brother’s In Arms: Road to Hill 30 combined the grittiness of the second world war with a storyline that managed to find coherence in an age where alien invasions were the best suited form of entertainment.Hell’s Highway continues on this epic journey providing players with action, adventure and sufficient drama that clenches the best soap opera award in 2008.
Brother’s In Arms: Hell’s Highway begins with a flashback covering the previous missions. The third iteration set in timeline of “Operation Market Garden”, Sergeant Baker and his squads are ordered to infiltrate Holland and fight the Nazis.
Players might find nothing unique about revisiting the Second World War using outdated weapons and fighting in claustrophobic environments but Brother’s in Arms pushes all those notions of familiarity to the edge by presenting a wonderful executed storyline which gives the notion of unity and oneness rarely found in shooters in any generation.
The basic gameplay mechanics are carried forward from the previous iterations with a barrage of new additions these include the bazooka and machine gun teams. The cover and health options for the player have been dramatically improved to give a better tactical advantage during combat.
The cumbersome situational awareness of the previous game has been replaced by a simple tactical map that allows players to ascertain positions along the map for a vantage advantage over the enemy.
There is also an action camera that has been implemented to keep the action in lieu with most violent shooters this generation, which pans in to get a closer look at the action and damage caused by the player. This feature is particularly worthy to look at when the player is flushing enemy forces with the help of grenades.
The tactical situations of combat, which include utilization of cover, work in a similar fashion as in the previous iteration. The player is required to command his squad to the nearest position of cover to suppress the enemy positions on the map.
The next step of combat in Brother’s In Arms: Hell’s Highway involves the rest of the squad to flank the suppressed enemy and wipe his existence off the map. This feature can become quite addictive and provides a change from other games that extensively use the cover mechanic since it actually makes a whole lot of sense since your character cannot endure more than five to six bullets at any given point in time.
Once in the cover mode, the player might shift to a third person mode and use the thumbsticks to keep the firing in the required direction. The story mode also incorporates a “Sherman tank” that kicks the game into an overdrive.
The visuals in Brother’s In Arms comes a far cry from your regular bunch of shooting games which have the excessive utilization of a monochromatic color palette. The game soaks in the bustling atmosphere of the lush green meadows of Holland to war torn pictures of German occupied villages.
Brother’s In Arms gives a sense of devastation mixed with tranquility. The best bits of the game however lie in the extensively detailed character models that go in line with the actions. It’s almost a pleasure to witness that the player is not some alpha male running high on testosterone but your average next door guy.
The game does have a multiplayer component which has not been created by Gearbox, instead it was outsourced Rockstar New England, because of this mish mash between developers the game multiplayer has been significantly transformed into a slow and buggy experience.
Brother’s In Arms: Hell’s Highway aces its presentation like very few games from 2008, but it does have its share of discrepancies that make this a slightly hitched game. These hitches barring the multiplayer include polygon tearing, faults in draw distances, irregular enemy actions. These somehow detract from the otherwise stupendous visual experience the game sorts out to provide.
The game’s controls also falter when they come along to pass along the lines of the tank mission. Although this may not rank as a negative in my books but the game is designed to cater a certain audience, fans “run-reload-shoot-esque” games may find the action slightly constrained and slow.
The Final Word: Brother’s In Arms: Hell’s Highway provides an excellent single player campaign with a terrific and emotional storyline that ensures chaos, conflict and sensitivity fall in the same line. This gives players a chance to analyze and decipher their actions. The game overall is a must have for a single player addict but multiplayer enthusiast may keep a distance from the entire title. Barring a few glitches here and there, this game provides sufficient satisfaction to keep players engrossed for quite some time.
Graphics: 8/10.
Gameplay: 9/10.
Sound: 8/10.
Budget Pocket: 7.5/10.
Overall (not on an average): 8/10.
- By Neelesh Mukherjee