Brothers in Arms Hells Highway Singleplayer Review

User Rating: 10 | Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway PS3
Looking for a unique FPS with added strategy? Look no further, Hells Highway is the game for you. I finished this game twice before moving onto my next game. I don't usually do that. Its a different kind of shooter to World at War etc in the sense that its not a run and gun game. Moving up through enemy territory is sometimes a slow and strategic process. You and your men cannot take clips of worth of fire. You have enough health to withstand a few shots though, just run and dig in to cover when the screen goes red. Your health regenerates while you are not taking fire. Some battles can become tough, and you might find yourself using trial and error as far as strategies go. Your character is Sgt Baker. An American soldier in charge of an airborne unit, fighting in Holland against the Germans during WW2. You will command different teams as the game goes along. The bazooka team is under your command in certain missions. I loved commanding them, they can take out mg42's and groups of enemies effortlessly. Just be sure to have them out of arms way because obviously close quarter combat is not their strength. A couple of bazooka men are armed with submachine guns though, so theyre not totally defenseless against close quarter enemies. Another team under your command is Base of fire. These men are armed with mid to long range weapons mainly consisting of M1 Garand rifles. They can be positioned further back than your other teams given the range of their weapons. Another team under your command in certain missions is the MG (machinegun) team.
This team is very useful and provides excellent covering fire. A team you will use in a lot of missions is the Assault team. These men are quicker than your other teams and are best used for flanking manoeuvres. Commanding them to follow you can also be useful in close quarters battles like entering buildings and bunkers etc. They are equipped mainly with short to mid range weapons like submachine guns. Certain missions will place up to three teams under your command, each time has vital roles to play in completing the missions. The main plan of attack and most effective method of beating the enemy is to have your teams provide covering fire from the front while you and sometimes the assault team flank the enemy. Simply approaching head on will cost you alot of men. I loved this aspect of the game which provided an intense realistic combat experience. I would love to see a sniper team in future installments of the series. Maybe also an engineering team who could repair bridges and set explosives/mines etc. Incorporating a few medics to patch up your incapacitated men would also be a good addition in my opinion. Their is a good storyline to this game. Its not the best but more than adequate for the WW2 setting. Good voice acting and cut scenes. They were also not too frequent, which is good because it doesn't halt the momentum of the game. Now, next i go onto the blood and gore. Simply brilliant. I hope this becomes a feature used more often in shooters. Every now and then when you land a head shot or hit a group of enemies with a grenade, slow motion will kick in and zoom in on the enemy. So you get a great look at your handy work. During the slow motion of a headshot, the enemies helmet will fly off amongst a splatter of blood. Head shots with the higher calibre weapons will remove part of the head. When this happens chunks of flesh and bone will be airborne along with the blood splatter. Awesome. A slow motion of a grenade attack will show men flung into the air in different directions with dismembered limbs and sometimes even bodies cut in half by the explosion. These moments make the combat so much more satisfying. Even when there isn't slow motion, the gore is still present, you'll see dead enemies with missing limbs in pools of blood and occasionally the odd corpse with half its head missing. Brilliant. I hope this element never dissappears from the series. The campaign was definitely a decent length. I don't recall any particular glitches. Your men will go into cover as long as they are near it. However if command a team to your position and there isn't enough room behind cover for all the men, a soldier or two will not be adequately covered. This can lead to unnecessary losses. A good thing to remember when playing the game is to keep your men advancing as you do. Don't let yourself become isolated. I;m going to buy this game when it hits platinum. The best WW2 FPS ive ever played, highly recommended. 10/10.