Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway continues the epic series and is a legend in the tactical gaming community...
The game now focuses on the ambitious, but highly risky Operation:Market-Garden, which was the last strategic victory for Nazi Germany in the European Theater of Operations(E.T.O.) The game has nicely done graphics,(though not the best), the sounds are top-notch, and the characters, both new and old, are very detailed and really adds to the "Brotherhood" feeling of the game, the levels are as authentic as the previous titles were and the green and wide backdrop of the beginning of the game is an awesome sight, the tactics are the same as the other titles,(if it works, why change it?), though the "Assault" feature has gone AWOL for some reason, the basic squad implements are all still in,(Find, Fix, Flank, and Finnish), and the outcome of most of the engagements depend heavily on how you perform under fire as a squad leader, the lives of your men, are under your command. The weapons are well done, and perform nicely, but for some reason, the developers seem to have gone with a more "Call of Duty" approach to the weapons, they have significantly less recoil, ans the sights seem more arcadish than might be expected of this series, the reloading also is incorrect on a few weapons, this doesn't really effect the gameplay a whole lot, but it does make destroying the enemy much easier and you can run and gun a short ways with small enemies around, but when encountering larger, more professional enemies, teamwork IS A MUST, the game is a bit more fast-paced as it was in real life during Operation: Market-Garden.
Since Operation:Market was a race against time to capture a series of roads and bridges across Northern Holland and to create a clear path for "Garden", an armored push to the German border, directly east of Berlin, if it worked, the Allies would be over the Rhine and into Germany, and would hopefully be home to celebrate Christmas. The A.I both friendly and enemy are well done and are pretty good at fighting, but they're not tactically smart, they'll run in the line of enemy fire to get to a point you tell them to go, unlike the last games where they know whats safe and whats just plain suicide, this time, they seem to be a bit dumbed down, but they do provide excellent cover fire, and flanking maneuvers, they can now(like the player),vault over low walls, debris, and wooden fences ect., the flaws with the Germans is that they NEVER throw grenades, or even try to assault or flank you, they hold their position till you flank them and they have to fall back and displace, they do however have good shots, they can pin you down in a heartbeat, especially on harder difficulties, the cover system which is very similar to that of Rainbow 6:Vegas works rather well with the squad tactics.
Another thing missing is the "Extras, that were favorites of all BIA fans, they included, After Action Reports (AARs), behind the scenes on how level designs of games like these work, weapon briefings and lectures by Col. John Antal(Brothers in Arms Historical Adviser, also missing was the awesome Orchestral scores that were created for each level, and was viewable on the extras in the main menu, giving each level it's own unique feel and taste. So it may not seem like this game has much historical accuracy to a new comer, because theres nothing really to show off to him or her that this game is something different than the rest of the WW2 games out there, theres only a small and short history paragraph about each level located in the Tactical Map, which is nice, but isn't anything amazing like the previous titles.
In the end, Brothers in Arms:Hell's Highway is a masterpiece well worthy of the BIA name and the story leaves off with a "To Be Continued"...