[ 1 | 2 | Next Page » ]
The fight for Hell's Highway is about to beginI'm sitting in a room high up in the Union Jack Club, a private members club for serving and ex-serving military personnel mere metres from London's Waterloo station, listening to a man who must be in his seventies tell us what camaraderie is. He says it's difficult to describe. I'm not surprised.
Publisher Ubisoft has drafted in a military historian and two veterans of Operation Market Garden, the failed September 1944 Allied World War II offensive in Holland, to give us context to the setting of Gearbox Software's Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. I'm treated to a brief history lesson, complete with 64-year-old black and white footage of soldiers barely able to stand and maps with arrows showing how the famous highway was intended to provide a launch pad for the march to Berlin. It's uncomfortably grim viewing, and makes me feel ashamed to be waiting to play something as silly as a video game.
AdvertisementBut, at the end of the day, that's what I'm here for. I'm here to play a video game, something that, while grounded in authenticity, is still just a video game. You're reading this because you're looking forward to playing a kick ass shooter from a developer famed for its kick ass shooters. You're not here for a history lesson.
And yet that's what playing Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway feels like to play. It feels like a history lesson viewed with a target reticule fixed squarely on a German helmet. But this is no boring, snooze-fest of a history lesson. This is a unique, at times gory, often fiddly, but always strangely compelling history lesson. And anyone who fancies exorcising a few of their little grey cells at the same time as their trigger finger will do well to flash their nearest retailer a pre-order.
The game also hopes to tug on your heart strings with a character-driven story more akin to Band of Brothers than Call of Duty 4. You play Staff-Sergeant Matthew "Matt" Baker, who we've already seen in Gearbox's previous BiA games. Here, he's in command of a squad from 101st Airborne Division of the US army. Operation Market Garden saw airborne squads from both the US and British army attempt to secure a number of strategic bridges in Holland, allowing a ground force to move quickly up a protected highway towards Arnhem and provide a front from which the Allies could push on to Berlin. The offensive failed mere days after it began as the airborne troops suffered attack after attack while protecting their positions, leading to the term Hell's Highway. This desperate defence and ultimate failure is what you'll experience in the game.
There's more emphasis on characters and story than in most shootersThe game's story, which centres around the bravery of Baker and his men in the face of such inconceivable difficulty, is told through impressive cut scenes which feature good quality and authentic dialogue. It's not quite Hollywood standards, and it might be a tad sentimental for some, but it's good enough to stop us skipping them.
After a brief level set three days into the operation, culminating in the apparent death of Baker himself, Hell's Highway jumps back three days and begins properly with a lengthy cut scene which shows us Baker and his squad mates preparing to enter battle. The soldiers talk of being home in time for Christmas. They play poker, engage in friendly banter, shout, scrap, everything you would expect to see and happening the way you imagine it did. It's not Hollywood quality, but it's better than almost everything we've seen in WWII shooters to date.
It's not long before the talking stops and the shooting starts. Baker and his assault team are charged with clearing the Germans out from a small nearby area. Anyone used to other popular first-person shooters like Halo 3, CoD4 or RB6V2 will initially find the controls fiddly. Gearbox has implemented a new snap to cover system which rekindles memories of Ubisoft's hugely successful Rainbow Six Vegas 2. Popping out of cover is a case of subtly moving the left thumb stick rather than pressing another button, which takes some getting used to. As does squad control, Hell's Highway's key control component. With the left trigger held down the left thumb stick moves about a small squad symbol on the battlefield - release to send your squad running for that position, or release it over an enemy position to instruct them to fire. Skilful squad management will be essential to your survival in the game. Running and gunning ala Halo or CoD will get you killed very, very quickly in Hell's Highway.
[ 1 | 2 | Next Page » ]
