The only other WWII game that can challenge the Call of Duty series.
I had only had a few tastes of the Brothers In Arms series before, from Road to Hill 30. I'd heard alot of good things about it, but I, if I'm honest, hated it. I hated the gameplay, I hated the graphics, everything about it.
From some of the earlier videos, Hell's Highway didn't look like too greater game either, but I still wanted to play it due to the fact I am a fan of the Band of Brothers Series. Then, a month or so before release, I checked out some more videos, and it had turned into a decent looking game.
On release day, I went and picked up my copy during a break at college, went home, and played the first couple of levels. Immediately, I fell in love with it. The graphics looked surprisingly crisp, alot better than I expected, although slightly flawed. For example, the player's mouth doesn't move in third person mode when shouting orders, but as a whole, the graphics are pretty damn good.
The fighting is at times incredibly hectic, creating epic firefights that can last for surprisingly long amounts of time. The suppression system is excellent, giving you the choice to suppress the enemy, which makes them harder to kill, but lowers the chance of dying, or to let them remain un-suppressed, giving yourself a bigger target to shoot in the process.
Every now and again, with a perfectly aimed shot or grenade, the game slows down, to show your target taking a bullet right in the face, or show them being blown apart by well thrown grenade.
And one problem I had while playing through Vegas 2, was my tendency to just "Lone Wolf" some missions. Hell's Highway on the other hand, has me using my teams all the time, to help force my way through the enemies.
One thing I dislike about some of the WWII Call of Duty games, is how enemies are pretty much infinite, stopping only when you push forward to a certain point, which took away some of the realism. In BiA, you don't need to charge into oncoming bullets just to stop the flow of enemies.
The story isn't the best, but it's still pretty good. There's a fairly linear story, but there seems to be a series of flashbacks including a character known as "Kevin", which I gotta say, was fairly confusing, as the change between past and present was instant most of the time, and it failed to flow well.
The characters also seem fairly bland. From my team of men, I can probably only name about 1/3 of them, if that. When it comes up at the side of your screen that someones been shot, you don't feel at all sad that your mans down, as you just didn't know who they were in the first place. And you can be fairly sure, come the next completed objective, they'll be back on their feet anyway.
It's a brilliant game, one I highly recommend to anyone, even if your not usually a fan of WWII games, and prefer more modern shooters, I'd still give this title a try. Whether or not it will match Call of Duty 5 remains to be seen, but, in my opinion anyway, it beats Call of Duty 4 hands down.
What it lacks in story and character depth, it more than makes up for with its brilliant squad control, brilliant gameplay, and epic firefights.