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The Brothers in Arms series gained a strong following—despite being another World War II shooter—by delivering epic fights and a compelling story. Hell’s Highway continues the series’ legacy in both regards.
In Hell’s Highway, you’ll play as Sergeant Matt Baker and you’ll begin by meeting the new soldiers that will join your squad. Gearbox Studios did a great job with the game’s story. It isn’t particularly plot-oriented but more focused on simply exploring the relationships that soldiers have with each other and how that relationship evolves over the course of a war. The game boasts great writing that comes to life in both battlefield chatter, as well as the cutscenes.
If there’s one drawback to the story is that it leans a bit too heavily on the previous Brothers in Arms titles. Hell’s Highway tries to address this by summarizing what happened in the first games—and you’ll gain more information as you play—but it would have been better to get the information up-front, especially since the story relies on your understanding of the relationship between the soldiers. Indeed Sergeant Baker’s struggle with the fact that he is responsible for the lives of so many people powers one of the most compelling narratives we’ve seen in a long time.
As Sgt. Baker, you’ll have to lead your troops to victory. The game begins with a tutorial to familiarize yourself with the squad system, which works extremely well. The AI characters are very smart: they’ll shoot enemies, follow orders, and even give advice if you’re taking too long to do something. You’ll begin with just a few troops under your command but eventually you’ll be responsible for even more squads. Later on, you’ll also control the machine gun unit (which is very useful as suppressing fire) and the bazooka unit (which lets you take down enemies hidden or behind cover. That’s not to say that all you’re doing is managing. You need to make sure your own skills are up to par since you’ll have sections where you’re alone or other times you’ll just have a team providing suppressing fire.
Visually, Hell’s Highway looks great. The different levels that you’ll visit are quite large and allow for epic battles. Everything from the foliage in the countryside to the architecture in the urban zones look great. The level of detail—on seemingly every item—is very impressive. Truly great texture work from Gearbox. The same can be said of the characters that fight alongside you. They are very detailed with great animation and textures. When you pull off a particularly great shot the game will zoom in on the enemy—sometimes in quite gory detail.
In terms of audio, the game succeeds admirably. The voice acting in the game is superb in both the cutscenes—you can hear how worried Sgt. Baker is that these men are under his guidance—as well as in the actual battles. Soldiers will scream, grunt, and yell out advice, which helps bring the game to life. The sound effects, especially with surround sound, are stellar. You’ll hear bullets barely missing you, explosions going off near you, and different sound effects for the various guns. All very impressive.
Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway is an intense and powerful shooter. On top of that, it features a story that is genuinely engaging, especially once you begin to get to know the characters and start to care about them. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Oct 27, 2008
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