Road to Hill 30 managed to find, fix, and finish its way directly into my cerebral cortex...
Enter Brothers in Arms and a four-day weekend all to myself, and my spotless record for self-control was torn to shreds.
My wife and son left for Florida to hang out with some old friends. I reckoned that I would relax, catch up on my reading and some TIVO’d shows, perhaps work in the yard or pal around with my own coterie. I installed Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood back-to-back – the former fresh from Gamestop’s bargain bin, the latter hot off the presses – and immediately, without conscious thought, forsook any activity that didn’t pertain to giving Jerry the what for.
I read through the manual as I installed the games, pondering over just why I should care so much about the in-depth bios for nearly every ally in the game. Over the next few hours, I understood: every character in RtH30 is distinct, and even though their personality has no overall effect on each individual’s combat prowess, my fellow soldiers’ peculiarities lent much to the “band of brothers” vibe that was one of Gearbox’s primary intentions. Again, every soldier’s skills are universally above-board and essential, their effectiveness modulated only by the power of the weapon in their hands; the hotheads among them will not hang back or refuse an order, in other words, so once the designers convinced me to care about my crew, they devoted all of their other resources toward dropping us, as a coordinated unit, into some amazing combat situations.
Assigning stations and targets to my fire and assault teams was so easy I was almost giddy every time I enacted a strategic solution in a number of relatively freeform scenarios. The “Find, Fix, and Finish” method of advancing on each intelligent group of enemies often played out like a particularly beautiful and violent ballet, with plenty of wriggle room for the inevitable change of plan as new contacts appeared. Sending a tank forward to stamp out each little pocket of resistance while my fire team kept a supporting eye out for Panzerfausts or cannons was immensely gratifying.
RtH30 is appropriately grisly and gritty, as it pulls no punches in representing the physical damage and impracticality of polite manners experienced by a group of hard-nosed soldiers as they clawed their way into Europe. In addition, the game’s engine does an amazing job with a nearly photo-realistic depiction of northern France’s pastoral charms. Every area is dotted with helpful berms and broken walls, the better to edge forward while keeping under cover. Each character’s appearance and facial animation, while not perfect, is good enough to ensure that the player never feels like he’s heading into battle alone. Aside from a few uncomfortably earnest patches of narration, RtH30’s voice work was amazing.
After two complete playthroughs of both Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood, I looked up to find that three days of my life were gone. During that time, I ate only when hungry and slept only when exhausted. Yes, I did shower regularly, which is more than I might expect from a truly hardcore PC gearhead with such a thoroughly entertaining FPS title in hand. However, I’m not exaggerating when I say that I was taken hook, line, and sinker with RtH30’s brilliant hybrid of tactical and run-and-gun shooters. I’ve since returned to a normal life complete with a balanced measure of work and play, but the Brothers in Arms monkey is still around, just waiting for the release of Hell’s Highway to saddle me up for another euphoric lost weekend.