A great shooter in its own right, but it won't topple Call of Duty just yet..
It is still a great game, and it sits proud in my PS2 collection, but it is in no way better than COD. A great deal of detail has gone into this game, including maps that have been painstakingly recreated to be like how it was 62 years ago.
A feature that Gearbox software had been boasting about was the 3 F's. Find the enemy, Fix the enemy, and Flank the enemy. I was fascinated to see how this was going to work, and its a bit of a let down. Sometimes when I want to move my men behind cover, they will stand the other side of the cover, right into the direction of incoming fire. Supressing the enemy with fire is the best thing about this feature as it allows you to command your men to open heavy fire on your opponents and they will duck behind cover to try not to get shot, and to be honest who wouldn't.
An icon is above the enemies head when you engage them, to show their level of supression. If the icon is fully red, it means they will try to fix you with fire. if the icon is grey when you shoot at them, it means they're supressed and you can move onto the next step, the flank. After a few levels into the game you are given control of two teams of about 3 men each. The fire team, in which your men will carry long range weapons such as the M1 Garand or the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR). The assault team will carry close combat weapons such as the paratrooper M1 Carbine (smaller version of the Garand, and with less punch) or the Thompson Sub-Machinegun. They will also carry some grenades to throw at enemies behind heavy cover. To flank the enemy, you need to use your fire team to supress and use your assault team to move around the side. I find when I attempt this that my men will die extremely easily and at least one of my men will get seriously wounded or get killed. Its a shame this feature wasnt properly intergrated into the game, as this is one of the games supposed selling points.
The graphics could have been better, but the amount of detail put into the maps you play on is outstanding. The Gearbox team spent a lot of time in Normandy to recreate the surroundings and they have done a great job, and they prove it with game vs real pictures in the extras section.
There are four difficulty levels, easy, normal, hard and authentic. For each time you complete one of the missions on a different difficulty, you unlock something in the extra section. This can be like a photo vs real slideshow like I described before, or my personal favourite extras, Col. Antol Briefings.
Col. Antol is Gearbox's military advisor on the BiA series and in these briefings he will teach you a bit about the allied or German armies, tank or a weapon.
Overall this is a great game, that could have been so much better. But if you do decide to buy it, you will still have an enjoyable experience finding out what brave soldiers did 60 years ago.