Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway
Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway from Ubisoft is the continuation of the Brothers in Arms story with some great squad based first person shooter action on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.
Ratings: Graphics & Audio: 18/25, Gameplay: 20/25, Creativity 18/25, Fun 23/25
Total: 79/100
Hells Highway is the latest addition or actually story continuation of the Brothers in Arms game from Ubisoft and Gearbox Software. Hells Highway takes over for the 101st Airborne Division led by Sergeant Matt Baker through Operation Market Garden in Holland.
While the game runs through much of Operation Market Garden you get the same disjointed feeling that you are moving from one skirmish to another instead of gaining any ground in a war. This feeling of not being able to win is not really a bad point of the game but must be how some soldiers felt, after all the real Market Garden operation was an overall failure.
Hells Highway also continues to go into the feelings and much of the torments of battle and the seemingly endless war from the standpoint of Matt Baker who has lost so many squad mates. The feelings and obvious stress Sergeant Baker is undergoing is hitting hard and he seems to be going toward a mental breakdown.
The cut scenes and in game story go through this shell shock and stress very well and Gearbox has done a great job of handling the obvious mental stresses and emotional torture of losing so many of his men. Matt Baker takes a lot of the loses to heart but they have done a nice job with the game and story so you don’t really need to have played the previous games to get caught up in this story.
For those of you trying to decide between the Xbox 360 version and the PS3 you have no worries as both seem to be identical down to the last detail, but I did not play the PC version. The graphics and appearance may be slightly better on the PS3 but it kind of makes a moot point when everything else is the same and the controls actually handle better for the Xbox 360 version in my opinion.
But I do not actually have the standard controls on my console system; my Xbox 360 has the XCM XFPS 3.0 Sniper Plus using a Wolf King Warrior XXtreme Gaming Keyboard and a Razer Deathadder mouse. My PlayStation 3 has the Splitfish FragFX but the controls work the best with the Xbox 360 setup so I played that the most while reviewing the game.
The gameplay ranges from up close and personal close quarters battles with German troops to wide open and war torn fields of Holland complete with windmills. You often control one to three teams of assault, machine gun and bazooka troops but a few missions find yourself dealing with objectives on your own.
Some of the objectives and missions need more troops when trying to flank or outwit the mass of enemies but at times it is nice to leave your sometimes AI dead squad mates behind. The AI is good but at times can be frustratingly annoying or just lame with its obvious problems.
At times you can have the squads do exactly what you want like covering you as you flank the enemy or pour fire on their positions but other times they just get dead. Moving the men of your squads is an exercise in careful positioning so they don’t run in front of cover instead of behind or right through an enemy position.
The enemies positioning and movements are well scripted but your squad mates that you can order into position at any time may often take the wrong route to your destination. You need to be careful to pick choose positions and ones that you are sure they will not have to go around obstacles because often they will go the long way around.
Many times in ordering my squads I would try to have them move to a position not near me and they would go the way I thought they would not take or right into the enemies line of fire. They sometimes would go in front of barriers or obstacles instead of taking the fastest or most direct route and put themselves in the middle of the firefight instead of safely behind barriers.
This coupled with the squads lack of sharpshooting skills and inability to hit the broad side of a barn when you can easily pick off guys one after another make for some interesting missions. Another key feature of the squad use is being able to use your squads as decoys while you do the flanking but sometimes the enemy is not fooled by this and will ignore them while concentrating on you.