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Dom Robinson reviews
Ubisoft 
- Price: £39.99
- Players: 1
- Widescreen: Yes
- Dolby Digital 5.1: Yes
- Xbox Live-enabled: Yes
- Downloadable content: Yes
Standard Edition:
Limited Edition:
In my gaming life, I haven’t played as many war games as I’d like to have done, butBrothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 is a fantastic effort and well worth the time spent on it.
In recent years, I’ve been impressed by the AI in Medal of Honour: Allied Assault on the PC, but notso much withMedal of Honour: Frontline,which had its good points but became far too linear in places. However, until the sci-fi bit I had a damnsight more fun withReturn To Castle Wolfenstein.
With so many games out there, the last time I remember dodging bullets was with tactical titles such asThe Sum of All Fears andTom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Island Thunder,both of which were very enjoyable but longevity is always in question.
The game is set from D-Day, June 6th, 1944, onwards, but starting with everything one week on from thatmomentous juncture. However, I thought I’d done really crap at first when my character, Sgt. Matt Baker,who gets to control a squad of up to four men, was killed in action not long after starting, and I thoughtit was time to reload. But no… that must be the man’s fate as we then went back to D-Day and everyone hadto put their best foot forward.
Following the brief tutorial that tells you the basics of moving and flanking, you’ll begin the game proper,traversing across historically accurate and detailed battlefields of Normandy, using real US military tactics fromWorld War II and, largely, relatively easy to use controls. And yes, you will visit one primary locationbut no, you don’t get to visit the beach from the direction you’d expect. Oh well, I’ve done that inthe aforementioned ‘Frontline’.
The first thing you’ll spot is that this title has fantastic graphics except for the lack of sharpnessof detail as you get up close to anything that doesn’t bear great importance to your mission, such aswalls as you crouch behind them. However, there are some great little touches such as lush grassswaying in the breeze, and as I approached a dead cow, from which birds were feasting, they all flewaway the closer I got.
With even a reasonable Dolby Digital 5.1 sound system, there are heart-stopping explosions all aroundto be heard and ones that, literally, make you jump as you head through your mission. Such is theexcellent attention paid to sonic placement here, if you spin round while someone else is talking, youcan hear the voice go round your speakers in turn. In fact, the same goes for all directional soundsfrom speech to gunfire, the latter being incredible to witness aurally as you can hear bullets flyingpast your face.
The gameplay is superb as you’re made to feel a real part of the action as you engage the Nazis andfend off their advances, either with careful planning or a fair amount of luck. However, I found ita bit weird getting used to a combination of crouching and zooming in with the rifle at first.
The best aspects of the game come in manoeuvering your men so that they provide cover while you flank roundand kill the enemy, or get them to flank instead. Once they’re in position, use the situational awarenessview to find a way to get round. I love the way the sound goes all quiet as you go into this mode thenrushes back as you exit from the mode, sounding like someone coming back to life!
While your men are in position, there’s a clever method used to keep you aware of which baddies are coweringin fear of getting shot, and those which are about to unleash hell – suppression-indicator circles appear above the heads of anyindividual ones, plus one (with a symbol above it) when they’re in a group. Covering fire from your squadwill make the circle go increasingly grey, but then make sure you’re ready to blast away as they turn from greyto a deep red, in a style not too dissimilar to the Countdown clock. The controls also allow you toforce your men to follow you, or storm in and take the enemy out without you getting so much as a flesh wound.
Don’t worry if some of your men cark it, though. They’re allowed to die along the way in a mission, sincethey’ll regenerate in time for the next one. One of the downsides to the game, though, is in the loadingtimes. They’re not terrible but it’s a real pain that the game has to reload in the last checkpoint youjust went past, despite being there already(!)
Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 covers 18 chapters, which take you through D-Day and thefollowing week, and you won’t get to recouperate until completing each one, although there are checkpointstops along the way. Do a number of reloads and it’ll state, “War isn’t fair, but sometimes video gamesshould be. Would you like to heal your team before reloading?”
Overall, I’m not sure if I’ll go through all 18 chapters as, while it is an entertaining game with farbetter AI than most previous war games that have gone before, you’re taken on a linear path to completeyour mission, so in that respect, along with the lack of detail in anything close-up that’s not overlyimportant, it’s not come massively far since Medal of Honour: Frontline.
Finally, as you complete each stage you’ll unlock a variety of token extras relating to the time andperiod. For those who want to go further, you can take your battle experience online with Xbox Live,controlling your guys for the world to see, as opposed to going it alone like most online multiplayertitles.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.