Brothers in Arms

Well since my last post we had spring break. Nothing new here on my end of things, hey i got to sit home the entire time... What was weird is that i slept a whole lot but was still tired. Am even more so tired while typeing this, no juice is left in my bones to keep typeing but i shall still type!

I got Brothers in Arms on the PC through Direct2Drive. Now before i get into the game i have to say that D2D is a pretty good concept and they really do have alot of money to be made on their hands, however they still are having some server problems and getting the correct version from the publishers but that is okay.

Well then, ive hyped up Brothers In Arms for about 3 months and was hypeing it up since E3 last year when it was showed. Now the concept of Brothers In Arms is quite good, tactical FPS, you get a squad to controll, everything is cool, you can order supress and assault and flank.... But thats where the dime stops. Let me explain.

First off, BIA for the PC is a direct port from the Xbox, a little dissapointing for us PC users who like to have historical accurate things, were just a more demanding bunch i guess. Anywho, the games textures and animations are a little... poor to say the least. There not up there with Half Life 2 or anything, there... mediocore. Yeah there just average. There is anohter problem with the graphics. Since this game is based on the Unreal 2 engine, the physics are a little sloppy and out dated. Yes it has ragdoll physics, but a round from a tank into a MG nest would rip it to shreds in a "realistic" tactical shooter. This is not the case in BIA. Also something that is quite dissapointing, in having such a realistic game, you look up at the sky... It doesnt move. Yeah sure, C-47's fly over head along with gliders on a few of the levels, but the clouds and the like seem to be in a standstill of time. Onto the Gameplay.

Gameplay is really fun in the start. However each encounter with the enemy starts to become rinse, wash, repeat. Set your men behind cover. Order surpressing fire on the enemy, you walk around on the lovely given other cover and shoot the enemies in the side. The situational AI are spose to be good and spose to recognize your actions. Now then, if i noticed a paratrooper with a Thompson Sub-Machine gun, i wouldnt just stand there with my gun pointed at him in the same position, i would try to avoid him and get to better cover that helps me from both the fire team and him. Maybe toss a grenade aswell i dont know. Also in the gameplay there are times where all reality is dropped for run-and-gun gameplay. One notable time is where you have a cache of unlimited Panzerfausts and a few tanks try and come at you. Now a Panzerfaust was a pretty heavy duty anti-tank weapon. Fired at a PanzerIV in the drivers compartment would most likely destroy the tank. But not here in reality of BIA, it took 6 shots from a panzerfaust into the drivers compartment for the tank to stop coming. And it took 2 shots into the rear... where the fuel is... A little unrealistic yes. Also this game was spose to make you feel like your not taking on the whole german army, because you have a squad with you. Well this is the case yes and no. It is because ussually your opponents are squads aswell. However since this is only "based" on actual events, there a couple of different events that take place your one character and squad do all of them. So taking on Carentan and not seeing any other Paratroopers help you. Carentan was taking over by the 101st Airborne. It was a pretty massive assault. It wasnt just one squad. There was more going on in the fight. A good representation of it is the Carentan Episode of Band of Brothers. Yes i know Band of Brothers doesnt have the actual events but it gave a more hectic feel then Brothers in Arms. Brothers in Arms made you feel like your taking on the whole German garrision in Carentan alone.

*breathe* *breathe* okay ive taken a few breaths and now i get to move on the Multiplayer Aspect of Brothers in Arms. Now then, the kinda arcade style of the single player is brought over into the MP realm. However not fully. The servers only allow up to 4 people. 2 to each side however on each side, each individual person gets a squad of 3 AI too controll, just like in Single Player. The fighting in Multiplayer seems to be more intresting because like any MP, the enemy is a human and is more aware. The AI in singleplayer were spose to act like a Human, but eh it fell short. The only problem is that, most people take too much to rambo and they leave there lovely AI comrades and just use them as extra lives instead of implementing tactics with them. When you have both Axis and Allied sides using there squads effectivly, it becomes quite fun. I had a grand old time distracting the enemy by sitting ontop of a crashed glider wing, knowing the human ai controller had his men by him, and him knowing that only a human would go up top the glider, he sent his whole garrision to a new postion to get me and be protected. However from the top of the wing i had a perfect view of the battlefield and sent my men around to another side and had my AI squad flank them, that was fun. Going onto my next thing. The game does come with a thing called Situational Awareness View. Bassically it takes you out of the First Person mode and you see an overview of the map including your enemies positions. In single player its usefull occasionally but a little lame since the enemies never try and flank you. You can use the Sitatuional Awareness view in Multiplayer but the game doesnt stop as it does in Single Player, so its a bit useless in that respect too.

Onto my final rant, the general let downs of the game. Inside Multiplayer they forgot a few things. One of them being a Dedicated server option. Thats right one cant set up a dedicated server. Also what was left out which is quite distressing is the ablitly to kick players off a server. Thats right you cant kick someone out of a game. So in the ready menu where you choose your side, if someone is not there, the whole game cannont start. Thusforth shutting the game down pretty much. Quite emabarsing for Gearbox Software.

With that all said and done, i give Brothers in Arms an 8.5/10. The game is a funtional very good shooter which brings it up to about a 7. The next few points are the games ambitions to try and do a tactical shooter well. Though they got some of it right, others they failed miserably. What kept this game from being a 9 or a 9.5 is the things they leftout in Multiplayer and the muddy textures and animations inside the game.

Okay, thats what i did for my Spring break... Sigh... im quite depressing arent I? Well i bid you a good day.