Brothers In Arms (PS2)

This review is for Earned in Blood.

As you see from the above they have learnt nothing from the weaknesses of Hill 30. Still unplayable.

I lusted after Brothers in Arms before I got it, and I was not disappointed. The level of immersion is intense - especially when you're ducking for dear life behind cover while hot lead zips overhead and thanks into the grass beside you, throwing up mud and grass into the camera. Yes, it really does. And rain and blood hit the camera too, which is a nice touch.

The scenery is awesome, and although the explosions can seem suspect at times, you can actually see a realistic shockwave, which is cool. My only gripe would be the Nazi soldiers, who aren't half as detailed as your squad-mates, and who all appear to be clones of each other, wearing just four different uniforms. Not only does it take two shots to bring them down (sometimes more) but headshots have no effect. Gearbox missed out on an opportunity to incorporate Medal-of-Honor-Frontline-style location damage, which would have really helped realism.

Also, although there are really gory shots of your buddies' insides on their outsides, you can't replicate this in-game as you lob grenades (at least, not on the ps2). And, more worryingly, your buddies don't stay dead, but miraculously resurrect themselves for the next mission. So you don't care as much for their lives as you might, although you will still reload checkpoints if too many get killed.

Your squadmates are so darn handy. I thought if you ordered them to charge an enemy position they'd get murdered, but they seem better shots than you are, and they're useful for drawing fire while you steady your aim to plug a nazi.

Overall, though, this game is massively fun to play, especially as you get to command tanks, firing the mg from their turrets, and popping grenades inside enemy tanks. Small problems aside, this game is so far ahead of its time it's unreal. You will want to replay levels over and over again. I can't wait to see if a PS3 version will be brought out.

I reckon Brothers in Arms is a great game and worth the cost. You'll like the gripping storyline and the graphics and its smooth controlling.

One of the problems is the enemies and their health. It takes a lot to kill them and the guns don't have enough accuracy.

In general the game is great and you should buy it if you don't have it.

Ok, I admit it I bought into the hype of Brothers in Arms just as you probably did too? Yes, the critics and gamers were all crying in protest at how we do not need another WWII shooter to flood the market. Even though, deep down I agreed, I was still hopeful that this game was going to be something special, after all, Ubisoft were spending millions at telling us all that it was going to be unlike anything we'd ever played before.

So the release day comes, I rush on down to my local games store and grab a copy, eager to take on the role of the reluctant hero SGT Matt Baker, and kill as many scumbags as humanly possible.

Well, how wrong was I eh. Unfortunately this game (although a substantial WWII shooter) was no where near as "authentic" as Ubisoft would like us to believe. You may be thinking, how would I know what being in a war would actually feel like. Well, I know for a fact that if you shoot someone in the head at a range of 15 metres, they go down, quickly too. But not in Brothers In Arms, it appears that shooting the enemy takes at least three to four shots before they drop, and that's if you can get past the fact that aim and recoil are damm hard to master. Ubisoft stated that these added to the realism of the game, uh, uh I'm sorry but "frustrating" and "unrealistic" would be more appropriate words.

It's a shame too, becuase I realise that no game is perfect, every game has it's strengths and weaknesses, but BOA just ended up a cycle of repetitious levels, find enemy, flank them, move on. Sure there are tasks and orders to carry out, and tank support can be fun to manipulate at times, but overall I think the gameplay was a huge disappointment. Then there's the whole blooming thing. BOA has no shortage of detail, but the problem is, it's buggy, and blooming only makes things harder to see, almost blurry. And I've got quite a high-end graphics card and I still get some poor frame rates when the action went down, and as a result had to bump everything down to low quality.

Don't get me wrong BOA is not a bad game, it's just not as good as Call Of Duty. Quite frankly the whole "Saving Private Ryan" thing is getting old, developers need to let go of WWII and concentrate on shooters that encompass modern day warfare.

Battlefield 2 anyone?....

Brothers In Arms gets a 7/10 rating.

One expects the in Brothers in Arms map limits to have low fences etc. However you cannot get through open arches, jump over low grassy humps, ammo boxes or even a row of corpses.

Bad accuracy.

Its very hard to hit the enemy even at a scale-100 yards. You should be able to hit a body at 400 yards and a head at 100. The weapon rises with the hero's breathing: In real life you are taught to "breath in, squeeze, breath out". The sights should be even steadier in the crouch position.

Difficulty in killing enemy.

A rifle should knock a man over at close range at least and a head shot should kill. At point-blank, even a blank round to the head can stun or kill (although I survived one). The Germans take 3-4 shots even to the head.

Enemy fire-rate.

Although the Germans have bolt-action rifles they fire at the same rate as semi-automatic.

The game claims to have a military adviser - I think he has forgotten his weapons training.

Old Rifleman - 60th Rifles.

I thought the Brothers In Arms game was quite good, the graphics, sound and lighting helped to create the mood and atmosphere for combat. The terrain is meant to resemble Normandy in 1944, it is quite realistic. I found it a little repetitive but a great game overall.