Brother in Arms : Hell's Highway Review

Hell's Highway's combat and squad mechanics really sell it -- allowing you to accept several of the game's shortcomings

I've always had a soft spot for shooters that rely on the size of your brain rather than your bullet caliber. The Rainbow Six franchise, the Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter series, and the horribly overlooked Star Wars: Republic Commando always appealed to me because they required precision, care, and player/A.I. teamwork. Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 held this same charm, and that's what made me anxious to finally get my hands on Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway -- the series' long-awaited, oft-delayed third main installment.


Brothers In Arms' first appearance in early 2005 was a shot in the arm for the battle-weary World War II genre. By putting a first-person spin on Full Spectrum Warrior's excellent 'cover and suppress' gameplay, it helped steer the genre in a more intelligent, strategic direction. Within each level were, essentially, a bunch of set-piece puzzles to solve: you'd face clusters of entrenched enemies and have to try and suss out ways in which to pick them off through cunning squad placement, and a mixture of suppression and flanking tactics. Running headlong towards the enemy was a one-way ticket to death.

Which is just as well really, because once you peel away the rain-coarsened skin textures, destructible picket fences and ever so slightly shrewder Nazi AI, Matt Baker's latest outing reveals itself to be a four-year-old World War II shooter. Fortunately for Ubisoft, it also happens to be a decent four-year-old World War II shooter - long past its prime, but still good for the odd blood-curdling Christmas yarn.

On paper, you can't argue with all the new features. The 'Big Thing' for Hell's Highway is without doubt destructible cover. It's not simply about suppressing the enemy anymore, it's about identifying weaknesses in their cover points and taking maximum advantage. If your enemy is behind a metal barricade, tough luck, but if they're stupid enough to think that a rickety wooden fence or a pile of sandbags are going to provide adequate cover, tell the men with bazookas to rain death down upon it and see just how long it lasts.




With this extra layer of strategy built in to the game, it's no longer a case of getting your squad to suppress while you merrily outflank them. It's evident right from the word go that Gearbox has expanded the battlefields sufficiently that you're almost always outnumbered. While you might have two or three squadrons of men to position around the environment, the chances are you'll be facing maybe five or six pockets of enemies. You really have to consider your priorities a lot more. Generally, you might figure out the weak links first, destroy their cover, pick off the stragglers, and then when the odds have been evened out, suppress the enemies which give you, Sgt. Matt Baker, the chance to slip in down the flanks and pick enemies off when you've got an appropriate angle.

When you do take your character into the fray (and you will, as some less-engaging missions force you to play without squads for a time), you'll find that he's a surprisingly capable fighter. I remember having immense trouble killing enemies by myself in the original game, but Hell's Highway's new cover mechanic improves accuracy while also offering ample opportunity to protect yourself from incoming enemy fire. Just like Rainbow Six: Vegas, Hell's Highway does a splendid job at changing your viewpoint, shifting from first- to third-person perspective when you take cover. This not only keeps you safe, but it also gives you a better camera with which to issue subsequent commands (though it doesn't make up for the inability to command troops via an overhead map, à la the first Brothers in Arms).





Aside from the odd, feeble tank escapade or solo interior jaunt, the entire game is structured around progressively tougher variations on this theme: once you've mastered the basics, Gearbox has you repeat the trick under distant sniper fire, or head-to-head with a light artillery piece. The default first person controls go against convention somewhat - you slip into iron-sights view by clicking right stick rather than holding a trigger - but once you've acclimatised they're solid enough. Less flexible players will be glad to know that Gearbox has stirred in alternative control schemes corresponding to popular templates. We found the "Tour of Duty" and "Ring World" layouts most intuitive.

You won't get far without the tactical map, defaulted to the back button, which furnishes you with a terrain overview together with the locations of allies, visible enemies, your next objective and "reconnaissance points." (The latter are essentially very bookish Easter Eggs - stand on one and hold X to unlock a real-life WWII recon report.) Hell's Highway makes definite strides over its predecessors in this regard: enemies and allies are hot-keyed to the face buttons, saving you the necessity of scrolling to find them, clutter is minimised, and the icons themselves are more conspicuous.



After a few missions, the game's invisible tutorial schools you seamlessly in all aspects of the game, and you cannot argue with the solid fundamentals. Everything which made the original compelling returns in a bigger, better, more technically accomplished fashion, and the battlefields offer a more expansive challenge on the whole. But does it go far enough?

In a word, no. The game's biggest problem is a crushing lack of variety. Set over ten chapters, by the time you're four or five in, the sense of grinding repetition has settled. With the enemy permanently set up in predictable formation, it really does become a case of picking off the cannon fodder, blasting through weak defenses, flanking and repeating until bored. Admittedly, some of the later chapters amp up the number of enemies you face at once, but the formula remains stubbornly repetitive. Why didn't Gearbox experiment with enemy behaviour, and get them to try and outflank you, or put you in situations where enemies are coming at you from unpredictable directions? Constantly facing enemies that only appear in front of you just feels incredibly old for a game which prides itself on strategy and authenticity.



As a technical entity, the game impresses at first with an opulent corridor crawl through a ruined hospital, moonlight spilling onto crumbling plaster, but just as you're letting your jaw drop it snatches you away to banal two-tone countryside. Gearbox's engine is not at its best rendering wide open spaces - the background blurs conspicuously at times to save on texture detail - and we noticed a fair few pathfinding problems among enemy and friendly troops alike. While some authentically leathery design work has been lavished on the character models, Hell's Highway doesn't hold a candle to the likes of Resistance 2.

To rehearse, then, this game's greatest enemy is context. There have been too many advances in the field of tactical action for Gearbox's antiquated follow-up to earn more than passing recognition. What about voice commands, a la the upcoming Tom Clancy's EndWar? What about the option to store or queue orders, set up windows of fire, or toggle soldier behaviours, as in the criminally overlooked SOCOM US Navy Seals: Tactical Strike? Couple this shortfall of ambition with some niggling mechanical hiccups and you're looking at a game which will owe its inevitable top-ten retail showing to timely marketing rather than genuine worth.

At this point, Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway represents little more than a solid evolution of the original, as opposed to being the game which takes strategic World War II action to dizzy new heights. With an engaging but ultimately repetitive play mechanic at its core, it deserves a decent amount of respect, but its charms wane rather than grow as it progresses. With little more than a rooftop sniper interlude and a trio of tank driving segments to break up the flow, Hell's Highway is short on surprises after the first few hours. It's by no means a failure, but simply lacks the inspiration to make it a must-have.



Hell's Highway's single-player battles are addictive and satisfying, and I'm looking forward to playing through them again. Hopefully, future entries -- and the ending certainly alludes to a follow-up -- will bring the story and action back on equal terms, engaging both our hearts and our minds.




GAME GEEK SCORE: 7/10