"A Lackluster WWII Shooter"
"Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30" is a WWII shooter from the mid-2000's, when every shooting game wanted to cash in on the new WWII video game craze. Inspired by Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" and touting a "tactical realism" to its combat, this introductory title to the series aimed to break new ground and deliver a smart, emotional, and realistic depiction of WWII through its gameplay and story. Did this title achieve its goals? No, it did not.
Upon playing the first few levels, one of the first things that I noticed was how awful the shooting felt. This game pushes its squad-combat on the player so much that your own aim is nerfed, making it so your bullets don't really land where you're aiming. Additionally, your character can barely hold a rifle steady, so everything is hard to target, let alone actually hit. This could be forgiven if the squad system was coherent enough, but of course this game manages to screw that up as well...
The controls for squad orders are straightforward - tap a button to send a squad to a location or lay down covering fire, press another button in conjunction with this to initiate an assault maneuver, and hold a separate button to rally your squad back to your position. This is a all fine and dandy, except for the fact that the AI pathfinding is trash. Your comrades will take idiotic routes to get to locations you have marked, and will take loads of damage if not outright die trying to follow many of your orders. This completely defeats the purpose of controlling where they go, since they end up deciding what they want to do themselves anyway! With the inability to consistently provide quality shooting yourself, this leads to a situation where you are "immersed" in a game playing as a weak "stormtrooper" commanding a group of morons throughout battle - you know, "EXACTLY" what WWII was all about.
The graphics are not the prettiest, and the textures and level design are washed out and very repetitive, respectively. The sound design is barebones as well, with directional audio being pretty hit-or-miss and barely any ambient noise existing for most gunfights. Missions are structured very generically, and consists of blowing up various points of interest, taking locations into your squads control, and defeating enemies in certain areas during assault/defense sections. Pretty normal stuff for a WWII shooter, with nothing that really stands out to differentiate this title from the rest of the bunch.
Lastly, the story - its really boring. Each soldier in your squad is very one-note, and you don't really learn anything compelling about them throughout the experience that makes you care if they survive each encounter or not. The voice acting is mediocre and gives off very amateurish vibes, and the dialogue is plain and predictable. It ain't no "Saving Private Ryan", not even close.
Overall, this game is just a weak WWII shooter with nothing that separates itself from the other games of the genre besides the factors this title advertises as different - story, strategy, and realism. This game fails on all three accounts, and delivers a barely presentable, rarely cohesive, and barebones WWII squad-based strategy FPS. I would Not Recommend people to try this one unless you have both an affinity for WWII-era shooters and janky strategy mechanics, all with a generous topping of boring characters and story segments.
Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)
"Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30" is a WWII shooter from the mid-2000's, when every shooting game wanted to cash in on the new WWII video game craze. Inspired by Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" and touting a "tactical realism" to its combat, this introductory title to the series aimed to break new ground and deliver a smart, emotional, and realistic depiction of WWII through its gameplay and story. Did this title achieve its goals? No, it did not.
Upon playing the first few levels, one of the first things that I noticed was how awful the shooting felt. This game pushes its squad-combat on the player so much that your own aim is nerfed, making it so your bullets don't really land where you're aiming. Additionally, your character can barely hold a rifle steady, so everything is hard to target, let alone actually hit. This could be forgiven if the squad system was coherent enough, but of course this game manages to screw that up as well...
The controls for squad orders are straightforward - tap a button to send a squad to a location or lay down covering fire, press another button in conjunction with this to initiate an assault maneuver, and hold a separate button to rally your squad back to your position. This is a all fine and dandy, except for the fact that the AI pathfinding is trash. Your comrades will take idiotic routes to get to locations you have marked, and will take loads of damage if not outright die trying to follow many of your orders. This completely defeats the purpose of controlling where they go, since they end up deciding what they want to do themselves anyway! With the inability to consistently provide quality shooting yourself, this leads to a situation where you are "immersed" in a game playing as a weak "stormtrooper" commanding a group of morons throughout battle - you know, "EXACTLY" what WWII was all about.
The graphics are not the prettiest, and the textures and level design are washed out and very repetitive, respectively. The sound design is barebones as well, with directional audio being pretty hit-or-miss and barely any ambient noise existing for most gunfights. Missions are structured very generically, and consists of blowing up various points of interest, taking locations into your squads control, and defeating enemies in certain areas during assault/defense sections. Pretty normal stuff for a WWII shooter, with nothing that really stands out to differentiate this title from the rest of the bunch.
Lastly, the story - its really boring. Each soldier in your squad is very one-note, and you don't really learn anything compelling about them throughout the experience that makes you care if they survive each encounter or not. The voice acting is mediocre and gives off very amateurish vibes, and the dialogue is plain and predictable. It ain't no "Saving Private Ryan", not even close.
Overall, this game is just a weak WWII shooter with nothing that separates itself from the other games of the genre besides the factors this title advertises as different - story, strategy, and realism. This game fails on all three accounts, and delivers a barely presentable, rarely cohesive, and barebones WWII squad-based strategy FPS. I would Not Recommend people to try this one unless you have both an affinity for WWII-era shooters and janky strategy mechanics, all with a generous topping of boring characters and story segments.
Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)