Brothers In Arms Hell’s Highway First Look Preview

The first time Mike Neumann from Gearbox Software said “Bro-Mo,” I replied by saying “bless you.” As it turns out, Mike wasn’t sneezing after all; in fact, he was explaining one of the coolest new features in Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway: Brotherly moments. A feature that looks like it will immerse you into the game world like no game has managed before.

Say you’re on the run; you order one of your mates to hop over a nearby wall and proceed forward. Every so often, that soldier might just stumble a bit and fall, and every so often, another soldier might rush to his aid, help him up and proceed with the task at hand. This is but one example of the many unscripted brotherly moments that can occur in this third instalment in the extremely successful Brothers in Arms series.

The brotherly moments are unscripted, look great, and are cool as hell to see, but like real life, just because each soldier is working together, doesn’t mean they like one another. If one solider takes a spill, and the nearest soldier holds a bit of a grudge against him, solider B might ignore soldier A altogether, or sometimes even laugh, or make fun of the fallen comrade – pretty much sums up the relationship I have with my brother.

The demo shown behind closed doors at E3 this year was promising to say the least. While still quite early in development – this one’s due out about a year from now – Hell’s Highway showed a number of improvements over its predecessors while still remaining faithful to the series’ dramatic content.

The demo started with Matt Baker and crew engaging in some friendly banter before the building is hit by a mortar shell, sending Baker plummeting to the floor below. Dazed, as he gets up and stumbles out of the building a member of his squad runs over, points at the large shards of glass embedded in his left hand and yells that they need to be taken out. The camera then moves over to Baker’s hand, and he picks out each shard one by one – ouch. It’s at this moment when control is given back to the player. Here you’ll notice that you can now control two firing teams and have a few new commands and actions at your disposal. The first I saw was the ability to go prone- most definitely a welcomed addition. The second new feature was the ability to command your squad mates to jump over certain objects. Press the left trigger and the jump button and your mates will leap over the obstacle and immediately take cover. The last new command allows you to tell members of your squad to commandeer vehicles and weaponry stationed through the levels. Though this command wasn’t shown in the demo, it’ll obviously open up a whole new world of tactical possibilities.

Back to the demo: The objective is to locate and take down a nearby German 88 (an anti-aircraft weapon). The team enters a sort of stealth mode and silently moves about the environment, hopping over walls, and running in and out of buildings. By now you would have noticed that the game has absolutely no HUD whatsoever. Gearbox was very quick to point this out and players must rely on their senses and keep a watchful eye on their surroundings – without the aid of hints to successfully complete each objective. The example shown to us had Baker and his team taking position behind a small wall. Just ahead, on top of the roof of a nearby building, was a solider looking off into the distance. Further inspection revealed that the solider was acting as a spotter for the 88. Assuming that the 88 was nearby, there was no need to kill the soldier and potentially give away the team’s position.

Moving on, Baker and team came across three Germans, one who happened to be wounded. Again, the team could have opened fire, but was instead instructed to remain quiet. This presented the team with an opportunity to follow the Germans right to their squad, and hopefully the 88. One brotherly moment later, and after crawling under a nearby vehicle, Baker’s team was able to locate the weapon, flank the unsuspecting Germans and take them out. Another very cool detail was that all of the Germans who were using the Anti Aircraft gun were naturally unarmed, and when the team began firing, the Germans turned around with genuine expressions of shock on their faces, while waving their arms frantically in the air pleading for their lives. It’s too bad we couldn’t understand a word of German, and the soldiers were quickly mowed down by gun fire.

Though the demo was over I managed to squeeze out a few more juicy tidbits worth noting. The game is completely, 100 per cent seamless. There are no loading screens, no stuttering between cinematics, nothing. In fact, chances are you won’t even realize that you’ve begun a new level. Secondly, innocent bystanders will play a huge part in Hell’s Highway. They frantically run across the streets, hide in buildings and plea for their lives. Whether or not you are penalized for killing them is yet to be determined, but I would imagine so.

Another small detail that may have gone unnoticed was that the 88 was actually aiming at the aircrafts overhead. Unlike in games such as Call of Duty, where a weapon of that calibre always fires in the same spot and hits the same targets, this 88 was programmed to actually hit the targets above, and it often did – impressive.

Even in its very, and I mean very, early state, Hell’s Highway appears to be pushing the Xbox 360 harder than we’ve seen before. There are some great motion blur effects, dust that picks up with the wind and some gorgeous explosions. In a few completely unscripted events, buildings were blown apart sending debris flying in all directions – an awesome sight to behold.

Gearbox’s upcoming shooter is scheduled for a Q1 2007 release (although talk of further slippages was abound), but is already showing enormous potential and was one of the best titles shown at E3 this year. Keep checking back as we’ll have plenty more on Hell’s Highway in the months to come.