World War 2. First Person Shooters. Does this seem to be a familiar trend lately? How many of your online friends have been moaning and groaning about WW2 shooters lately, especially with the newest Call of Duty yet again reverting to it’s roots and going back to the 40’s for another go at this historic war? I know I can say on my end, it’s been a lot and i’ve been one of those people complaining. Call of Duty, COD2, COD3, COD: World at War, the entire Medal of Honor series, Battlefield, this just names a small amount of releases within the last handful of years that have visited and revisited Germany, and recreated it in every way imaginable. Haven’t we had our fill for a while? When do we say enough, let’s maybe develop a solid Vietnam War titles which still has yet to be done. Why not World War 1? When Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway hit the shelves, I took a skeptical step into what was seemingly another dead horse.

My first question about this title was the quality, how was it going to stack up against other WW2 shooters out there? My second question was if it was different enough to make itself stand out from the others, or is it just another run of the mill title that we’ve all played ten times before. With a few suprises, and a variety of good and bad, I was actually reasonably pleased with Hell’s Highway and did enjoy the game through it’s entirety. It’s not without it’s faults, which as a lesser known and underselling title, this was to be expected.

To begin with the good, this game plays out like a film. A good film. It’s cinematic that tells a great story that grips you in and gets you eager to reach the next clip so it can continue. The cut scenes are from in-game graphics, and at times look just downright ugly. Think Saving Private Ryan that focuses more on telling the story than the gore and killing. It’s entertaining, makes this game hold your interest for hours on end, and sticks in your mind as one of the better video game stories told to date.

The gameplay is a solid combination of pinpoint accurate shooting with squad tactics. Much like Gears of War, not taking cover will be your demise in a matter of seconds. It captures a certain amount of realism on how precise you actually have to be, poking your head out and taking a shot, just to duck back down to avoid catching a bullet to your head. Staying up and firing off a few shots back to back later in the game isn’t an option. This results in extended battles, not like other games when you can plow through a battlefield in a matter of ten minutes, in Hell’s Highway, it can take you ten minutes to kill five enemies hiding deep in cover at a distance. You do have up to three squads to command at once, you can place them into certain places of your preference, and order them to either hold the position or spray an enemy area so you may run to a new point of cover. Indicators above the enemies head tells you how overwhelmed they feel with the fire coming in their direction, a red globe indicates they are going to stay behind those sandbags for a good few seconds giving you the okay to push forward. It’s fun, and I haven’t quite seen a game work in this manner of tactics before.

Graphics leave much to be desired. Points of the game, especially in cut scenes, show texture tearing or a complete lack of rendered textures at all. At rare moments, the grass looks like flat light green construction paper with large darker green pixels scattered on it. It’s pretty awful. The character models are okay at best, but the fire effects, explosions, gunfire, and blood spatter looks pretty great. There is also a slow motion camera that kicks into play at times, if you lob a grenade at a bunker and send two or three germans flying, the camera will zoom in and slow it down so you can witness those limbs fly. Any headshot will also slow down and reward you with a skull cracking splatterfest. Headshots are a little less common than you’d think, but it makes it so rewarding when you do nail one, especially looking down iron sights and hitting your target at 300+ meters. Good stuff.

The game itself isn’t extremely long, it depends on your approach to it. If you want to run around and spray with a SMG or a LMG, have at it. You will die a lot, but good luck trying. I could see where with practice this would become a possible tactic, but I perfer hanging back in cover with a single shot and deadly accurate rifle picking off enemies at a distance. It makes it feel more authentic and intense. There are a few extras, including locating numerous “Killroy” sketches on the walls indicating american soldiers had previously occupied that particular house or barn. There are also Recon zones, which tend to be just random areas you walk into at points of levels and stumble upon on accident. It adds a level of replayabiliy, but probably not enough to inspire you to go through the game twice. A fun experience that will take you anywhere from six to ten hours to complete. There is no online community to speak of anymore, so I’ve unforunately been unable to form an opinion of it.

If you want a good cinematic World War 2 title for a good price, you can’t go wrong with Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway. It’s different enough to entertain you through one playthrough, has some good moments and tells a great story during the Operation Market Garden event of WW2. Give it a look, it’s far from perfect and doesn’t stack up to other titles available as far as quality and online population, but it’s a good single player experience at least worth a rental.

Gameplay: 9.25

A good amount of tactics and gunplay, but not for the impatient shooter fan. Run from cover to cover and plan your attacks with precision and intelligence to be successful. Great approach to a war game.

Graphics: 6.5

Average to not so great at times. Parts seem to have been overlooked by the developers, some cut scenes are distracting by the tearing and skipping.

Replayability: 6.0

One and done title. Some unlockables that you will probably find most of during the first stretch. With no online community, this is probably a better rental than a purchase.

Overall: 7.5

It was a fun experience, don’t get me wrong. There’s just not much left when you finish it, if you are attracted to visually stunning titles, this isn’t one of them. What it does do is some of the best tactical shooting in a war game that requires precision and patience. I thought it was great, some might find it fustrating.