I played a ton of games at PAX.  As soon as I get my previews of each done, I’ll be posting them here.  Check back all week for previews of games like Mirror’s Edge, Demigod, Guitar Hero World Tour, Skate It for the Wii and others.

Today, I’ve got a preview of Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway. Check it out, after the jump.

Our PAX 2008 coverage was sponsored by:

Besides Left 4 Dead, I probably played this game the longest.  I had not played it before and loved the original Brothers in Arms for the PC, so I thought I’d try it out at the Ubisoft booth.

The Ubisoft booth was quite the site.  There was a stage set up where people, for some reason that I cannot fathom, would humiliate themselves by playing the new Rayman Raving Rabbids game and dance with their Wii motes… On stage… On the other hand, Ubisoft’s triple A titles were on display including Far Cry 2, HAWX, and EndWar.

Overall, I liked the game, but honestly, it felt like just another World War II shooter with some squad based tactics in it. I know that this game has been hyped and was supposed to “change WWII shooters,” but dang if it didn’t just feel like another WWII shooter.

See, it's totally different from those other WWII shooters...

In the game, you’ll be able to command your squad and tell them to move here, shoot this, shoot that. Whatever. For the most part, the squad commands worked about 75% of the time. For instance, entering a farm guarded by Nazi’s, for some reason, I was tasked to clear them out. There was a grain silo or something with a nice area to climb up onto that gave you a great view of the entirety of the Nazi force guarding the Farmhouse. I thought it was a great spot to set up my squad, which consisted of a heavy machine gunner carrying a .50 caliber machine gun and a rifleman. I climbed to the top and attempted to tell my squadmates to move to the window. I clicked and nothing happened. I tried again, and again and again. I climbed back down to find my squadmates standing at the bottom, doing nothing. So, instead, I sat up in the window and sniped while ordering my men forward.  It wasn’t ideal, and hell if it wouldn’t have been pretty sweet to have that .50 caliber machine gun raining lead on my foes while I advance…

By the way, according to the dev, I was the only person that played that level that made it all the way through… Yep, I’m a bragger…

Anyway, I know that the game wasn’t finished, I hope that gets fixed before it releases in a couple of weeks, but hell, the game comes out in a few weeks… I dunno.  Also, I noticed sound issues that just took away from the experience.  I know this is going to sound a bit geeky, but as a US soldier, one of my weapons was the M1 Garand, one of the most recognized rifles in the world.  It fires seven bullets, fed into the rifle from the top with an exposed magazine.  After the seventh bullet is fired, at least in real life, the gun makes an audible PING! sound when the gun ejects the magazine.  That sound was nowhere to be found in the game.  I know, it’s geeky, but that kind of stuff kind of takes you out of the game.  I shouldn’t have noticed it, but I did.  I asked the dev about it and she looked at me like I was crazy for asking about it… Maybe that’s another thing that gets a final pass and get fixed before it hits retail… My inner “WWII geek” can only hope.

Overall, it wasn’t bad, but pretty samey. Not a buy for me at this point.

Tweet This Post