Games / Game Reviews

Review: Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway

By Eli Green
October 27, 2008 - 22:00

The year is 1944. In mid-September of that year, American troops prepared for a massive airborne invasion to capture a corridor through Holland; one that would soon come to be known as Hell's Highway. As Staff Sergeant Matthew Baker, squad leader of a Recon unit of the 101 ^st Airborne, it is your duty to lead your squad through the coming missions. This is one of many stories of Operation Market-Garden.

As in previous Brothers In Arms titles, Hell's Highway puts you in the role of Sgt. Baker, a squad leader who has been through some of the worst battles of World War II, including D-Day. Based on actual missions from Operation Market-Garden, a plan to destroy the German forces by Christmas of 1944 using the largest airborne invasion in the history of the world, the game puts you on the front lines of an assault that, in the end, was a complete failure.

Gameplay

The controls for Hell's Highway are pretty basic for a first-person shooter, which makes them quite easy to pick up. The left and right sticks control movement/crouching and looking/focusing respectively, the right trigger shoots, the right button throws grenades, the X button is reload/use/pick up and the Y button switches weapons. The environments in the game are quite interactive, so you can also hop over short walls or obstacles using the A button. If you hold down the A button while moving forward, you'll lower your weapon and go into a sprint. This is very helpful when you need to run for cover, but if you don't plan you sprint carefully and an object is in your way, you'll stop running as soon as you hit it. That can leave you pretty vulnerable if you're still out in the open.

Hell's Highway also incorporates a considerable team element, because you are able to command your squad for all of their attack formations and maneuvers. The development team has even claimed that it is possible to complete the game without firing a single shot yourself, and just commanding your squad's attacks. A tap of the B button will switch between your squad's specialty teams – Assault, Base of Fire, Bazooka, etc. – while holding the B button will call them to you. Holding the left trigger will bring up a command ring for whichever team you are controlling at that time, which you can then focus on a specific area for your team to move to or attack. If that team is close enough to a target, or if the team you're using is the Bazooka team, they can do a targeted explosives assault. While in longer fire fights, targeted firing on specific enemy positions will also help suppress them, giving you, or other members of your squad the opportunity to fully flank them and take them out. The squad commands in the game are a great feature and add a lot of realism to the game, but I've got my doubts about the possibility of going through the game without firing a shot.

         

The last two parts of the main controls are extremely important to completing your missions. The first is the tactical map, which is accessed with the Back button. The tactical map shows you where your objectives are, where reconnaissance positions are and give you a basic, though oddly scaled, view of the area. The second, and probably the main thing that will keep you alive on your missions, is the left button, which controls Dig In (taking cover). Whenever under fire, your view will become increasingly darker and redder. If you don't find cover, you're going to get shot. Taking cover gives you the chance to protect yourself, plan your shots and take aim or command your squad without the worry of getting killed. Just don't rely on a wood fence as useful cover for very long.

Aside from foot missions, some of the levels include tank missions. Tank controls are quite simple. Movement and targeting are the same. The left trigger controls the tank's machine gun and the right trigger controls its cannon. Instead of taking cover by going up against a wall or ducking under a small embankment, you can close the lid on the tank and only use the cannon. Best of all, the tank missions are ridiculously fun, because you get to blow stuff up.

I found myself becoming quite obsessed with this game while playing through the missions, and I'm quite sure that, aside from the game's squad command and assault style, it is because of the story bits interspersed between the levels and different areas of various levels. You get a great feeling for the stress that Baker and his squad are under, and what they've been through in the past. Gearbox and Ubisoft also did a decent job of giving a good introduction to the franchise for first time players with the “Previously in Brothers In Arms ” scene at the beginning of the game.

You also get a good feel for how tactical gameplay should feel, as your squad doesn't just take an movement order and stand around, but they also have self preservation “in mind”, so they take cover while under fire. The game's artificial intelligence in quite good on both sides. Your own forces will work together to suppress enemy forces or protect themselves. Similarly, the German forces will switch cover if they are taking excessive fire. The only problem that arises from this sometimes, even with your squad having a self preservation system, is that they don't always set themselves up properly at their movement point. Instead of taking cover on one side of an object, they may jump in front of that object and get killed. It's rare, but it can happen, and when it does, it's annoying.

One final major gameplay component to mention is the Authentic mode. While most first person shooters increase their difficulty by throwing more enemies at you or making every hit you take more damaging, Hell's Highway turns up the heat by taking away the assisting interfaces. Say goodbye to that crosshair, the don't exist in the real world. Nope, they didn't have ammo counters back in World War II, you'll have to get by with firing with your hearing alone to know that your clip is empty. Suppression meter, what's that? Yes, it's way more difficult, and far more challenging, and well worth going through the game once just to unlock that mode.

Multiplayer and Online

There is a small multiplayer element to Hell's Highway and, unfortunately, it is only online. I feel this game would have really benefited from a cooperative two player campaign mode or, at the very least, an in-house versus mutliplayer death match free-for-all/team or something. I understand that squad controls or solo levels can get a bit complicated with two players, but the game feels like it was made for a co-op campaign. Instead, the multiplayer mode is a squad capture the flag for up to ten players on each side. The fact that you can have so many players is cool, but the limitations of having only that mode to play make it feel like the multiplayer was a complete afterthought.

There are a total of six locations to play in, and the teams are split as one squad leader and three men on each of the fire teams – Assault, Specialist and Tank Crew. Each team has to command their squad in the assault or defence of one of two flags. The defenders simply have to kill the assault team, flag carrier or run out the clock. The assaulting team has to either kill the defenders or replace the defender's flag with their own.

The multiplayer mode is decently fun for a bit, and can be a lot of fun for a few hours if there are a lot of players, but it could be so much more. There is one other problem with this mode, and it's that the tank controls for switching weapons are different from the single player campaign. Instead of being controlled by the left button, players have to press the X button to switch between driving, using the machine gun or using the cannon. Holding the X button can also get you in or out of the tank. While I understand that there can now be three people controlling the gun/cannon/driving of the tank, that doesn't mean that the controls should change. If it was necessary, the least they could have done was to mark it in the instruction book so new players would know that the left button doesn't control the entry/exit of the tank or opening and closing its lid.

Environment and Graphics

The environments in Hell's Highway are astounding. There are many different destructible environments, everything can take at least a small amount of damage, and the locations all seem very real. I suppose it helped that the team created a large portion of the game's location from actual documents and maps. Every place in the game looks like it was designed with a purpose, and each location has a very involving, war zone feeling. That feeling is especially enhanced in the solo levels, where you have to control Baker through tight spaces, without any backup, and it's just you and his thoughts.

Graphically speaking though, the game is a bit of a let down. Simply explained, it looks at least three years old – as old as the franchise itself. It just doesn't appear that the game was developed to take full graphical advantage of the next generation consoles. Everything is in high definition, but doesn't look as refined as games on these consoles, or high performance PCs should look. The exceptions to this are the explosions, fire and torn limbs. While the character models and faces look like they come from a three year old game, the explosions and fire effects are quite good. The game's gore system also makes flying limbs and exploding heads look pretty cool.

The biggest graphical issue is lighting, and, thankfully, this issue only affects the cutscenes. During the cutscenes, it always appears as if the light source(s) are moving ever so slightly. This leaves thousands of tiny dots across the environment and characters, as if you're watching classic newsprint in action. This problem is particularly noticeable during scenes where Baker is talking to a squad mate under or near a tree and the camera is close up. While it isn't a major detriment to the gameplay, it is pretty annoying. Thankfully, none of these graphical issues are big enough to hurt the strong gameplay.

Sound

All of the sounds within Hell's Highway feel very authentic. The weapons don't have the kind of “ crunch ” that you'll get from Gears of War 2 , but that's a good thing. The guns in the game sound like they come from the right era. The single shot rifles have that “pop”, while machine guns have that “chink, chink, chink” sound. Explosions from mortars, grenades and tank shells all sound very realistic as well, which enriches the experience. When you run out of ammo, you know. The gun makes a distinctive high pitch metal on metal “clink”.

Almost all of the game's voice acting is superb. The only exception to that is the cutscene with the introduction to the tank squad, in which the voice of the “Irish?” tank commander becomes a British accent in the middle. I guess switching between different voices and accents can get to some voice actors every once in a while. Aside from that one little mess up, the voice actors did a great job of giving each of the characters their own personalities and feelings, which, once again, enriched the experience. Hearing their voices is cool for the cutscenes, but things can get a bit annoying if you're in a long fire fight and you keep hearing them say the same things over again. The developers could have made good use of a larger library of phrases or, at the very least, a library of phrases that changes each level, so you don't hear the same things over and over again.

The game's music went from intense to scary to light on a dime. Whoever scored the music for Hell's Highway deserves applause, and whoever mixed it within the game does too, because it fits in perfectly and doesn't overpower the gameplay or have an odd effect on the atmosphere.

Conclusion

Aside from graphical issues that make it look like a far older game than it is, Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway is a great World War II first person shooter and impressive game period. It has a fun team gameplay element and would have been even better had it had a co-op campaign. A highly recommend Hell's Highway to anyone looking for a solid single player gameplay experience.

After playing Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway I'm interested in checking out the franchise's original games. Even better, I think Gearbox Software and Ubisoft should remake all three of the games – Brothers In Arms: Road to Hill 30, Brothers In Arms: Earned In Blood and Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway – with up-to-date high definition graphics and re-release them in a pack together.

Gameplay: 8.5
Environment and Graphics: 6.5
Sound: 10
Story: 9
Fun: 9

Verdict: Buy It

 

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12