Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 Review

Reviewed by: Akuaho

Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30

The Dire Enterprise of War

War is hell. General Sherman’s succinct declaration on the brute nature of war has become ensconced in our national lexicon as an offhand way of acknowledging the true horror of war without actually having to think on it. Trying to comprehend the utter violence of war is something most people try to avoid, but throughout Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 , Team Gearbox continually keeps us mindful of the savage endeavor we engage in when we pick up the controller. With grimly emotive voice acting set in a realistic re-creation of wartime Normandy, this game never stops reminding us that, though we may be having a lot of fun with this game, war is distinctly not fun.

The Strong Foundations

You're put in a plane over Normandy on D-Day as Sgt. Matthew Baker, a reluctant squad leader about to make a hellish drop into combat through flak-filled skies. Your plane takes the inevitable hit, and you end up landing away from your squad. As you progress through the first levels, you are incrementally introduced to the core mechanic of the game, a solid squad command system that allows you to actively maneuver any units under your command. This mechanic is further elucidated by a Tutorial video, accessible from the main menu, but it is in the first few levels that you really acquire the skills that will (hopefully) keep you and your squad alive.

At first, the responsibility for maneuvering your men around may seem daunting, but this game does an excellent job of pacing your transition from going it alone to commanding up to six other soldiers. This is not to say that the first levels are like slow-pitch softball compared to the major league heat of later levels. The game ups your command duties slowly enough that you have time to grasp the core concepts, but quickly enough to keep you a little unnerved. The resulting adrenal edge is visceral and rewarding, and keeps you in tune with the uneasy mix of reluctance and determination stewing in Sgt. Matt Baker’s psyche.

Once you’ve earned your chops, you will regularly have two teams under you: usually a fire team, ideal for suppressing the enemy, and an assault team, ideal for, well, you get it. Some levels allow you to command a tank as one of your teams, which, in addition to being an awesome way to blast the crap out of the Nazi infantry, functions as moving cover for your squad. Still, even having an armored escort doesn’t free you from the need for some real strategy. Leaving your squad and trying to Wolfenstein your way through Hitler’s hordes is a really good way to ensure your quick demise, so you’ll want to stick with your men.

The developers of Brothers in Arms went through actual military training to gain first-hand knowledge of real fire team tactics, and this is reflected in the gameplay. To survive and succeed you are told to stick to the four F’s: Find ‘em, Fix ‘em, Flank ‘em, and Finish ‘em.

The Implementation of Strategy

To enable you to really embrace the strategic element, Brothers in Arms employs two features to aid you in your planning. The first is a pie-shaped suppression meter which lets you know when you have your foe pinned down and can reposition your squad in relative safety. This indicator disappears on harder modes, or you can toggle it off in the menu to give yourself an extra challenge. The other feature is the Situational Awareness view. Going into this mode pauses the game and gives you an overhead shot of the action, allowing you to scout out terrain and find possible flanking routes. Oddly, the camera movement is limited and you can only move it between your men, enemy units you’ve spotted, and the location you’re trying to reach. This means that I could focus on the terrain around German units still out of my firing range, but I couldn’t get a good look at the territory in between my squad and the enemy. It would be more intuitive, I feel, to offer a full range of camera movement within a certain radius around my squad; but despite this oddity, this feature is enormously helpful in planning attacks.

And plan you must. The emphasis on strategy means you’ll have to do some real thinking if you want to wipe out an enemy unit. Moving your squad(s) around and instructing them where to fire is fairly easy, once you get the hang of it, and your men generally do a good job of avoiding enemy fire. Generally. There were some times when I would instruct my fire team to take cover behind a wall or a truck and some of them would, instead, take cover in front of said wall or truck. Brothers in Arms is not so forgiving as to let gaffes like that go unpunished, so invariably the Nazis would fill that soldier with German-engineered ordnance post-haste.

Throughout the game my men would occasionally have these suicidal episodes; and though they did not occur too often (to the developer’s credit), when it did it made things much more frustrating. The loss of members of your squad makes completing missions significantly harder, and many of the levels took more than one try to complete on the Normal difficulty setting. Overall, though, I was able to get past tough sections after a reasonable amount of tries, sometimes aided by the optional squad healing (and resurrection) the game offers if you become stuck on a particularly tough bit.

Beyond Story Mode

I completed the story mode after logging some solid hours, and experienced gamers will likely be able to do so in the period of a rental. I found that higher difficulty modes (Difficult and Authentic) were fun if I felt like revisiting past levels with more fragile soldiers, but didn’t offer much beyond that. Brothers in Arms also has a fairly deep multiplayer mode which offers split-screen and online play (on Xbox Live). You play objective-based missions as either Americans or Germans, one team usually trying to prevent the other from achieving preset goals. The maps are specifically designed for multiplayer use and offer a fun way to continue using your finely honed tactical sensibilities after you’ve exhausted the story mode content.

The Raw, Beating Heart

In addition to the superbly crafted squad command system, the element that really makes Brothers in Arms a great game is the focus on realism. Much the content that you unlock as you complete levels chronicles the extensive research done by the development team towards making this game as realistic as possible, revealing the staggering level of attention to detail. Photographic overlays reveal just how accurate the beautifully rendered scenery is. Complementing this striking visual realism are the excellent voice-overs between levels. It is your voice, the voice of Sgt. Matt Baker, that we hear chronicling his own emotional state throughout the game. His narration, sometimes grim and sometimes raging, is a gritty contrast to the real satisfaction you feel after clearing Germans out of a town, or blasting away obstacles so your reinforcements can land safely. These gripping monologues, combined with solid in-game voice acting, imbue Brothers in Arms with an emotional depth that makes the gameplay experience much richer, and therefore more rewarding. The emotional satisfaction of completing the game is more profound, knowing that you have not only endured the physical, but the emotional rigors of war.

The Final Word

Team Gearbox did a fantastic job in creating this game. It is certainly one of the best WWII titles available on Xbox and PS2. The gameplay is fun, challenging, and rewarding, and the carefully crafted authenticity adds a level of depth that makes this a truly excellent title. Do yourself a favor. Rent Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 and experience the triumph and anguish of being a WWII squad leader. You'll have a great time with this game, but it won’t be easy. After all, war is hell.