Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

What is it:
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway is the third entry in the Brothers in Arms series of video games which follows the men of the 101st Airborne Division (502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment [PIR]).

He looks fat in this screenie.

In this uh. entry. You follow Staff Sergeant Matt Baker [As in the first game] through the events of Operation Market Garden: The largest airborne operation of all time. it also happened to fail quite badly. The game sticks to history really closely, so you might think spoilers aren't an issue. we'll get to that later.

You, and characters from the previous game are reassigned to the unit before the drop into the Holland. The game follows the 101st's assault and securing of Eindhoven, and the subsequent defense of the surrounding area from German counterattacks, which in turn leads to the countless deaths of your squad, since you know the plan to end the war by christmas didn't go so well.

Why Its Great:
Okay i want to point out this thing. Many people think most WW2 shooters don't have much of a narrative because its a retelling. thats not true. this is especially the case in this game. BIA:HH is awesome on account of an excellent narrative. It maintains a very good balance of historical detail and character development.

The main characters are fictional, though you take orders from a few notable historical figures, including Lieutenant General Robert Sink.

The game tells a very very good narrative. with some drawbacks i'll mention later.

Point 2: The game is really fun. the formula is no different from its predecessors: you have a gun, you can shoot nazis. you also have 1-3 squads of 2-3 soldiers who also have guns. you can tell them to shoot nazis. some squads have bazookas to blow nazis to bits, and some squads have Machine Guns to shred nazis to bits.

Some Squads have Bazookas to blow nazis to bits.

Point 3: New squad types, i cannot stress the awesomeness — bazooka and MG teams — both ratchet up the carnage and make things feel more realistic. After all, the war was not won with the M1 Garand alone, especially when the Allies had tanks and bunkers to eliminate. The new destructible-cover system also makes these battles more authentic, as you can mow down Nazis behind wooden cover…or get dropped yourself if you tuck into the wrong spot.

You can cut these fences [and the nazis behind it] with a M1919A4 L.M.G like a hot knife cuts through butter.

The A.I. enemies seem more evolved, too, repositioning in response to your actions and generally not sitting around like target-practice dummies. The AI has been improved. it glitches though sometimes.

Why It Sucks:
Glitches. Bugs. Checkpoint Save Shenanigans. So many times i had to have my playing interrupted because some of my team mates decided to fall through the floor and get stuck. this level written in stone also had a checkpoint saves a checkpoint before you reach it, making it unreachable. its hard to explain. it only happens sometimes. but yeah.

sometimes the AI glitches. i dropped quite some motionless Germans who might as well have been holding up a “Shoot Here” sign. But even worse were the times your bazooka squad fired anywhere but where you told them.

I couldn't find a motionless german. here's a not so motionless american. =p

what else... oh right the story. its really confusing at the beginning, and if you never played the previous few, you will have no idea at all wtf is going on. until really late into the game. i think. well it depends on how retarded the player is. you won't get alot of the flashback scenes that reference the previous games but you'll get the gist of the story. and its a good story.

last thing. replayability. this is a big factor for me, because i don't like finishing a game in like 2 days then leaving it to rot somewhere until the sequel is released. after i finished the campaign, there was just nothing left to do. nada. zilch. okay well there's multiplayer. lets face it. the new BIA multiplayer is horrible. its okay. i don't know. i never tried it.

This isn't exciting a second time. or third. or fourth.

Either way, they took out the much loved 'skirmish' mode, a single player or cooperative mission whereby you tackle an objective not necessarily related to the main story. it could be capturing a bunker and holding it, or etc. really good fun in Earned in Blood, [i never played hill 30], completely non-existent in Hell's Highway. the main story isn't much fun to replay either. the game dynamic means that the same nazis appear at the same time in the same place. so its boring a second, maybe third playthrough.

Should You Get It:
hmm. Depends. I wouldn't recomment buying it, but borrowing it from someone who has it, or renting it, if you're outside my country of residence. i don't know a game rental service in singapore. Its just not worth 70 bucks. or 60. i can't remember how much i paid. but yeah. you have to try it at least. blowing up nazis is fun.

Oh so fun, especially in a TANK.

My Rating:

Thats it. 2.5. its fun to play. once. it really disappoints me that after 3 years there are so many bugs in it, i appreciate the work done on the destructible cover and new squads, but the removal of skirmish is just sad. and co-op!

There are pretty good graphics, though thats kinda standard in this day and age of gaming.

Where You Can Get It:
Any Video Game Store. not the internet. stay legal. lol. I'm leaving you with this image. click to enlarge goodness.