I spent only 10 minutes with Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway at E3, hardly enough time to fully evaluate the game, but that doesn’t stop me from passing judgment on its hellacious, horrible, broken, annoying, impossible, and out-of-place control scheme for the PS3. Excruciating details, post-jump.

Imagine if someone took the controls for Call of Duty 4 and Command & Conquer, put them in a blender, and then randomly assigned every function to an arbitrary button. That’s kind of how it felt to play this game. While I have long admired the feel of the PS3 controller, this game left my hands aching. There wasn’t anything about the controls that felt intuitive.

Because BIA:HH concentrates heavily on squad interaction, there are several functions present in the control scheme, not found in other games. In addition to trying to wage normal FPS combat, you’re also responsible for the actions and movements of up to 2 squads of troops, who you direct using a combination of crosshairs, direction pad, and contextual commands. There is a serious shortage of real estate on the controller to get this all done.

I’ve played several FPS games where you were to direct your squad, most recently Rainbow Six Vegas 2, but in that game you’re only responsible for one entity, meaning your squad. You tell them where to go and THEN what to do once they arrive. In Brothers in Arms you must watch the lower right corner to ensure you’re talking to the right squad and that they are in the right “mode.” This involves, at times using the direction pad, moving the crosshairs to a location, and squeezing a trigger button, all while being shot at and trying to return fire.

The result, for me, was a lot of grenades being mistakenly chucked at hostile dirt, and a lot of frustration. The guy who was showing the game actually asked me if I wanted him to play so I could watch. I felt pitiful and inept. At least I did until I walked by a few minutes later and overheard the exact same exchange with another attendee who was struggling to grasp the controls.

I’m sure it grows on you, but there’s obviously a control approachability problem here. If people demo this game out of the PSN and can’t figure out the controls in a couple of minutes, I can’t see them PAYING for that kind of torture when the time comes to make a purchase.

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