TripleChat Review: Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

Published by: Ubisoft
Developed by: Gearbox Software
Genre: First Person Shooter
Number of Players: 1-20
ESRB: Mature
Trophy Support: No

Brothers in Arms has been a franchise that in a sense separates itself from other war shooters.  It focuses on story and team combat.  It’s nothing like Medal of Honor that focuses on solo play.  When the original Brothers in Arms debut it was something that was different to the war shooter genre when at a time we were getting tired of World War II shooters.  With Medal of Honor releasing an annual game each year that kept dragging the franchise down (’til it rebounded with MoH: Airborne), and the console versions of Call of Duty lacking the polish of the PC Call of Duty games – Brothers in Arms was a fresh franchise.  Instead of simply focusing on basic objectives about capturing this, and destroying that; it brought you into a story of a squad of soldiers who dropped on D-Day and have fought together since.

Hell’s Highway has had a long road.  It suffered delay syndrome.  Anytime when we thought the game might hit, the developers said ‘well not just yet, but soon.’  To the developers favor they only had one solid release date (which was later delayed), the rest was speculation from the publisher and media outlets.  Well after numerous years in development and several media events later, Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway is here.  And for a twist in story, the game focuses on one of the Allied failed missions of World War II.  This game is written exactly as is of the events of Operation Market Garden.  You can’t change history here; you will re-live failure.  And right off the bat I give my props to Gearbox Software for focusing on such a mission.

Operation Market Garden isn’t new to the WW2 genre, we’ve seen it before in other WW2 games – most recently in MoH: Airborne as one of the missions in the game.  It’s not just a basic mission here, you play the events leading up to Operation Market Garden and events that occurred during it.  And for fellow Brothers in Arms fans you will be happy to know this game connects the story from the previous two games together (though the focus is more set on the first game, Road to Hill 30, than the second, which was Earned in Blood).

You resume the role of Sgt. Matt Baker, who is squad leader of a unit of the 101st Airborne.  In this story Baker seems emotionally distraught about the past, most notably on fallen comrade Leggett (who plays a key role throughout the game).  This is where Brothers in Arms shines from the rest of the pack – it focuses on story and character build up.  Essentially it is the Band of Brothers of video games (if you haven’t see Band of Brothers, buy it as soon as you finish reading this review).  Call of Duty 4 may have a great multiplayer perk system and some pretty cool combat missions, but it doesn’t have any type of depth to the story that Brothers in Arms does.

Displeasing to us and fans alike, depth story telling is somewhat of a turn off to some gamers.  People would rather be wasting off Nazis than listening to a story about a Sergeant who can’t seem to outweigh his past.  This game is not for everyone who likes this genre.  It’s for those who want something more besides combat.  Don’t fret though, Hell’s Highway packs the punch when it comes to combat.  There are some instances of combat in this game that are just outstanding; where team tactics really come into play.  Early on the use of team tactics seem pointless as enemy positions are easy to flank without use of command but later on in the game you will need to use strategy in order to properly flank an enemy and keeping your teams alive.

There is room for error though.  Unlike Call of Duty, if the friendly AI runs in front of your crosshairs while you are in a firefight, they won’t die and force you to re-do the checkpoint.  Instead your gun won’t fire, which may cause for you to take a few hits but I’d rather take a few hits than have to re-do a mission objective that was the fault of the game’s artificial intelligence.  Your squadmates can be killed during a mission, and the game will allow for you to continue on.  Once you defeat your mission your squadmates will return like nothing happen.  Sure, it does take away from the realism the game provides, but what game doesn’t have its faults and obscurities?

Let’s first get into what is wrong with Hell’s Highway.  In the modern age of gaming, destruction of the game world has become popular (see Mercenaries 2 and Battlefield Bad Company).  Cover systems have also emerged as a must in shooting games, as it provides the player some room for strategy, but for most a place to heal.  For a first in the franchise there is both a cover system and destructible cover.  Let’s say you hide behind a fence… if you stay there too long the enemy will destroy that fence leaving you vulnerable to their attacks.  Seems like a good concept, and the execution of such system is well done.  However that’s where the destruction ends.  Unfortunately the world itself is not destructible.  This becomes noticeable in the tank missions.  Let me point out that controlling a tank in this game is a workout.  Zig-zagging from object to object is a pain in the rear and you just want to be able to shoot your way through the path.  Understandably some objects in real life cannot be blown to bits by a tank so easily, but objects like a telephone pole should be destructible.  To my displeasure objects like that are not.  It’s a minor fault, but a noticeable one at that, especially if you play a lot of shooters these days that do feature destructible environments.

Another letdown for me where the sound effects.  They all seemed to generic to me.  Perhaps it was the fault of my headphones or quality of TV but I did expect better from a game that lasted such a long time in development and emphasized realism.  It’s not to say they are bad by any means, just not high quality as I expected.  They are acceptable and don’t ruin the experience, just some more of my nitpicking.  To make up for this though the game does include a fantastic soundtrack that just reminisces that of the Michael Kamen score for Band of Brothers and John Williams for Saving Private Ryan.

However something that seems unacceptable to me given the amount of development time is the game’s story length.  In a matter of two sittings I was able to beat the campaign.  They were about four hour sittings each time, but an eight hour campaign just doesn’t thrill me given the technology we have today.  There is some replayability in the game in the form of finding “killroys” and using all Recon areas, but its not one of those games you would want to play over and over.  Going through each mission is rather linear; there is no alternate paths you can take nor any different endings that can come out of it.  Like I emphasize here; I buy games for its single player campaign.  Now we won’t put the blame on the focus of multiplayer, because the multiplayer in Hell’s Highway seems more like a late addition than something like Call of Duty 4 where it seemed the developers focused more on MP than SP.  As stated though having an eight to ten hour campaign is just not acceptable to me, especially when a game like Brothers in Arms pushes story and character development, not just “Go blow this up Sargeant.”  To its defense, most shooters these days don’t last the ten hour mark which is a shame considering we pay full price for a game that is shorter than a PlayStation 1 title.

Which leads to what is good about this game.  For what it is the story to this game is told brilliantly, and has superb voice acting to boot.  If you have followed the series up til now you get most of your questions answered about how this happened and why.  It’s not just about Operation Market Garden, but also the characters involved.  This game also features some of the best weather effects seen in a video game to date.  When its raining, you will have distorted vision at times because of the rain in your eyes, and its a challenge to find your enemy in the distance and hidden in the environment because of the distortion.  The cinematics are well presented but has framerate jitters especially in heavy action sequences.  During actual gameplay you will run into a few framerate hiccups here and there but they won’t disrupt your experience to an extent where you stop playing.  Looking past these though it’s as if you were watching a movie when viewing a cinematic.  High production values have obviously been set for the quality of telling the story here.

I want to reference Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway as a sleeper hit of 2008, but in all actuality this game was not hidden in the agenda.  It was a mainstream title that just got caught up in the delay process.  Time was not on the game’s side as it hit during a time where other hits such as Resistance 2, Little Big Planet, and Gears of War 2 were hitting the streets.  Luckily for you (the gamer), most retailers have already dropped the game to clearance level pricing.  I got it for full price during a Toys’R'Us Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale, but have no regrets on picking it up then.  Was it worth $60?  I would have to say no simply because of the single player campaign length.  If it was a longer game, sure, but that is not the case.  However is it worth the price now?  You bet your war torn behind it is.  Grab it on the cheap as it is a worthy game to play through as long as you don’t mind a little bit of story to your trigger fingers.  Heck some of the cinematics feel like its a page out of Hideo Kojima’s mind.

The Highway to Hell was a solid effort, but we expected just a little more polish to a game that spent such a great deal in development.  Overall though, a solid game that few will play.  We hope and look forward to a fourth installment.  Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait till the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 hit the market to even get a teaser.  Don’t rush development, but give us something before we age too much fellas.

For those looking for a more realistic, more deep telling story in a WW2 setting, we recommend you…

Current MSRP: $39.99 || Worth-It Value: It’s worth it baby! Because most stores carry it for $20.

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