Brothers In Arms Hell’s Highway Hands-on Preview

I’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.

But, 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.

The 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.

It’s all about the four Fs. That is, find, fix, flank and finish, the doctrine of Allied combat throughout WWII, and to some extent modern warfare. From our time with the game’s early levels we can tell that this will be a process you’ll have to go through in almost every encounter in the game. Say you approach an enemy occupied village farm house. You’ll want to climb a windmill to get some recon on the German position so they show up on your map (find), instruct your squad to suppress them with fire (fix), work yourself into a suitable flanking position (flank) and finish them off with well-placed fire to the face (finish). Simple.

Not so. At least not at first, but perhaps that’s because Hell’s Highway is actually charging us with thinking properly about each battle before we charge forward screaming and shooting like Arnie in Commando. This is the beauty of the game – Brothers in Arms is a refreshing tonic to the sometimes brainless run and gun chaos other first-person-shooters serve up.

At times it can also be bloody hard, even on the normal difficulty level. As you progress you’ll end up commanding multiple squads, all with their own strengths and weaknesses (bazooka teams are great for blasting sandbag cover into smithereens and for making enemy machine gun turrets weep with fear, for example). Managing your squads, working out appropriate flanking positions, keeping an eye on those little red dots above the Germans’ heads, it’s all a bit bemusing at first, and more akin to an RTS than a FPS. But that just makes it all the more satisfying when you see the saving message pop up mid level.

The point to make here is that Hell’s Highway isn’t bloody hard because of its controls. You do get used to them after about half an hour’s play – as if in recognition of its controls you can pause the action and choose from pre-set Halo, CoD and RB6 control set ups. No, Hell’s Highway can be bloody hard because the enemy AI is so, well, smart. The game doesn’t want you to run and gun, and it won’t do it itself either. If you do expose the enemy by obliterating wooden cover, for example, they won’t charge at you while spitting clichéd German expletives. They’ll keep low and search out new cover. Hell’s Highway is a proper test.

It’s also a gorgeous test. Hell’s Highway might be powered by a heavily modified version of Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 technology, the same thing that powers the Gears of War franchise, and a lot more, but you won’t be left wanting in the colour stakes. The game shifts from lush greens and bright blue skies to night time offensives bathed in beautiful moonlight. The structures are wonderfully textured, grass looks healthily real and the explosions and gore (expect some slow-motion head-popping when you land a head shot) are immensely satisfying. I’ve never been, but I’m willing to guess that Holland has never looked so good.

But, despite how impressed I am with the game, there’s still something gnawing at the back of my mind, and it’s got nothing to do with technical failings or fiddly controls. It’s more a moral issue. What the two veterans of Operation Market Garden I’ve just listened to must think of Hell’s Highway is beyond me. After all, it’s a game based on the most terrible experience they’ve ever known. For this reason playing it makes me feel slightly uncomfortable (especially when the slow-motion head shots kick in). But then that’s not what this is all about. This is about finding out if Gearbox has done the subject matter justice. With the game due for release in only a few weeks, we can tell it’s mission accomplished in this respect.

There’s always concern, of course. We’ve played a healthy amount of the game and didn’t find the constant FFFF combat repetitive, but this might become a factor after 10 hours or so (the tactical shooting will be sporadically interrupted by lone wolf interior sections and some vehicle combat). We also know next to nothing about the multiplayer. It’s hard to make a judgement here, but this close to release, when we don’t know much about a game’s feature, it’s usually because the publisher doesn’t want to shout about it.

Interestingly, given recent rumours about Gearbox developing Halo 4, Hell’s Highway takes on even more significance. Could the game provide a glimpse into the future of the most popular shooter franchise in the world? Could we see Master Chief commanding squads in Halo 4? Might he be snapping to cover? Could he go back in time and fight in World War II? The mind boggles. Until then, do yourself a favour and pre-order what’s looking like Gearbox’s best game to date.

Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway is due out for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on September 26.