Product Description

Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway brings the critically acclaimed squad-based WWII shooter into the next generation of gaming with amazing graphics and sound, new cutting-edge gameplay features and a completely redesigned online component. Delivering on the franchise's compelling story, unrivaled authenticity and intense squad-based action, Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway drops you into Operation Market-Garden, the largest airborne operation of World War II. Lead Matt Baker, Joe Hartsock and the rest of the 101st Airborne Division as they fight to open "Hell's Highway" in a daring bid for a quick end to the war.

• Next Generation. Granted with the excellence of Unreal Engine 3, the classic authentic, squad based combat series explodes on next generation hardware offering unprecedented graphics and features.
• Destroyable Cover. Keep your men moving, and choose your cover wisely - simulated with real physics, weapons will damage, dent, scorch, and destroy the world around you.
• Unprecedented Character Design. Lifelike characters look, talk, move, and think with incredible realism. Game characters interact with the player and each other like true brothers-in-arms, trading ammunition, helping wounded allies, working together to man team-operated weapons, and more.
• More open level design. Discover the enlarged given choices allowed by next-generation in wide open level design.
• Unrivaled Authenticity for a true WWII immersion. Experience the high tension of true battles from the historical Market-Garden Operation, and make your way through real locations of 1940s Holland. Fight alongside historic war heroes such as such as Lt. Colonel Robert Cole, Colonel "Bob" Sink or George Koskimaki.
• Step into the Boots of a Soldier. Hit the dirt and get prone, rip grenades from your chest and hurl them at your enemies. See and feel the blast of nearby explosion

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2360 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: UBI Soft
• Released on: 2008-10-03
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Platform: Windows XP

Amazon.co.uk Review

In a nutshell:
After a successful tour of duty on the current gen consoles Brothers in Arms returns in the ultimate WWII squad based shooter, set during the closing months of the war as you take part in the crucial Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands.

The lowdown:
Although there were many astonishing looking games at the recent E3 event this was for most people the most graphically amazing next gen game seen so far. The levels not only look near photorealistic but the game world is huge and almost completely interactive. The gameplay works in the same basic way as before, with an easy to use onscreen cursor enabling you to direct your men with a single button press. New movement types now exist though, allowing you to specify stealth or patrol postures depending on what you’re doing and how fast you need to move. The only problem is the enemy have the same abilities and their artificial intelligence is advanced enough to make proper use of them.

Most exciting moment:
Not only are the enemy intelligent but they’re also well trained, reacting just as a real German soldier would. They’ll hide in doorways, ambush at road junctions and even, in one memorable encounter, hide behind a washing line – where your only warning is from a Dutch civilian at a window above.

Since you ask:
Everything in the game is as realistic as possible with streets and house copied exactly from photos taken at the time, while all weapons and vehicles are modelled to work exactly as they did in real life.

The bottom line:
The most realistic WWII game ever – in terms of history, tactics and graphics.
HARRISON DENT

Manufacturer's Description
Brothers In Arms Hell's Highway brings the critically acclaimed squad-based WWII shooter into the next generation of gaming with amazing graphics and sound, new cutting-edge gameplay features and a completely redesigned online component. Delivering on the franchise's compelling story, unrivaled authenticity and intense squad-based action, Brothers In Arms Hell's Highway drops you into Operation Market-Garden, the largest airborne operation of World War II. Lead Matt Baker, Joe Hartsock and the rest of the 101st Airborne Division as they fight to open "Hell's Highway" in a daring bid for a quick end to the war.

Customer Reviews

Good, but no real advancement from previous versions
Hells Highway is much the same as the previous releases, and if you enjoyed those (or want something a little more cerebral than the usual run and gun shooter) then this is the one for you.

Hells highway extends the previous versions through better graphics (it now uses the Unreal 3 engine), and a better storyline, played through via nice in-game cut scenes.

My only real issues with the game are perhaps a series of personal points -


1. Maps are still linear
The game doesnt utilize the new engine in anything other than better eye candy and physics. The earlier games were criticized for not allowing free roaming - you have to take a town using a set direction and can't (for example) skirt and attach from another direction that the enemy don't expect. You are stopped from doing things like this via really odd obstacles - a gate that looks like you should be able to jump over, or a corn field with a little stream running through it that you don't seem to be able to wade through. The U3 engine should be able to handle larger maps with multiple forking paths, but this is never developed.... So although you have an authentic squad based system, you cannot define an overall attack strategy (direction of attack, working out the enemy weak point, etc). the best the game offers is flanking paths (run down the back side street to catch the enemy from the side, rather than attack the whole town from an unexpected direction).

2. The game doesn't simulate true fog of war.
Every map feels like a series of puzzles rather than a battlefield. You HAVE to suppress particular enemy in a particular sequence to win, and you HAVE to move to certain positions to advance. This just feels wrong when compared to authentic squad simulations (such as Armed Assault), or even other shooters shuch as Medal of Honor: Airborne (where, although the squad based system doesnt exist, the enemy do actually respond to your tactics a little better, and there is a real sense of fog of war - mainly because there are larger sized squads). Hells highway is still a heavily scripted shooter rather than a sandbox military simulation that it pretends to be.

3. The enemy AI feels scripted rather than responsive.
The enemy never have their own goals, and this means that they rarely do anything other than try to maintain their positions and kill you. They do occasionally flank, but this is scripted - they always do the same thing. What they don't have is any real predefined goals that conflict with yours, so the battles can feel a little flat.

4. Simplified tactics.
Although the game uses what purports to be true squad tactics (suppress. flank), it only simulates a very cut down version of it. The squads do not know about other important military doctrines such as combined arms for example(tanks and troops never act as a team), and as mentioned earlier, you cannot impose an overall strategy, particularly direction and time of attack, and neither can you define squad loadouts.

So given all that, why do I still give high marks? Well, once you realize the limitations and take Hells highway as what it is (a thinking mans FPS rather than a fully featured squad simulation) it's actually a lot of fun... and I had a lot of fun playing through it. Perhaps the coolest new feature is deformable cover. Shooting a fence away with a high calibre machine gun to kill the soldier hiding behind it has to be cool! Behind that fun is the feeling that the game mechanics could have advanced a whole lot more, particulalry when the technology certainly allows it.


Disclaimers and setup:
I have played through the full game before review. I used version 1.0.0 (unpatched initial release) of the game.
I used a Radeon 4850 (1GB video ram) Q6600 (quad core) processor, 2GB system ram. I experienced no crashes or glitches (and I saw good framerates throughout) at 1920x1200. All graphics set to full except anti-aliasing.

A triumph
Like many people, I've been waiting for this game for a long time, and it definitely doesn't disappoint!

In many respects it's like playing an episode of Band of Brothers. It's story driven, and missions don't feel repetitive. Authenticity has always been one of the key principles of the series - sound effects and clothing are accurate and the squad tactics make you feel like you're part of the action (not fighting the war on your own).

Graphics are definitely improved, but fall well short of Crysis and Far Cry 2. The biggest treat is the cutscenes, which are much longer this time round, and benefit from a surprisingly high standard of voice acting. In terms of performance I can run it maxed out on a mid-highend computer with great frame rates, so it shouldn't be too demanding for most people.

My only criticism is it could have been longer, but it definitely paves the way for episode 4!

Execellent!
Some Xbox ports are really poor, like SBK08, others like this one are just awesome!

I'm only around 3 or 4 missions in, but I'm really getting into this game. Unlike other FPS's one has to stop and think about the situation before running in.

Suppressive fire actually works and you get to command various squad elements.

Game saving is by checkpoint, but I think this enhances this particular game as it forces the player to think about the risks he is taking.

Overall a great gaming experience that I would recomend to anyone.

RobP