Hell's Highway is the third edition in the
Brothers In Arms franchise by Gearbox. While
the first; Road to Hill 30, was average, the
sequel; Earned in Blood, I hated.
And actually looking at my
reviews of those two games, all the same problems
still exist in Hell's Highway, but for some
reason I just enjoyed it a lot more. The main
reason is because it's a tad easier. No longer
are you forced to use your teams for flanking
in order to beat this game. Instead you can
just have them follow you constantly while you
slowly, and I mean SLOWLY shoot your way through
the enemies.
Hell's Highway got rave reviews
from the leading critics. Which isn't a huge
surprise because it's different and critics
like that. However, I don't mind if a shooter
wants to remain old skool and not try to change
things. If it's fun and looks good, I'm happy.
How Hell's Highway (I'll refer to it as BIAHH)
differs is in it's difficulty and gameplay,
which is also it's main flaw - it's extremely
repetitive.
I'll outline the combat in
BIAHH:
1. Move forward and red dots
appear, signalling enemies have entered the
scene.
2. Find the nearest cover and
duck behind it, making sure your team-mates
are nowhere near you as they'll do nothing but
get in your way and get you killed.
3. Poke your head up with ironsights
enabled (taking up most of your screen).
4. Wait for the enemy to then
poke his head up, taking your shot. Usually
missing.
5. Repeat over and over again
until everyone is dead so you can continue to
the next scene.
There is the odd level where
you go solo indoors and can move along a bit
faster, which are actually my favourite parts
of the game. They're just more fun.
Having to ironsight shoot enemies
from a far is a real strain on the wrist and
eyes because they're often just a tiny dot in
the distance. This game feels like a duck hunt
or arcade shooting game more than any other
first person shooter I've played.
Let me get back to how useless
the team-mates are. If they're set to follow
you and you poke around a corner to find enemies,
they'll often be standing right in your way
as you get shot to pieces. I didn't once in
the entire game see an enemy get shot that I
didn't shoot myself. And more than once I placed
a satchel charge on a tank or 88 gun, run away
with the precious few seconds I have left only
to turn around and see my ENTIRE TEAM just standing
right beside the explosion - every single one
of them being blown to pieces. Of course once
you get to a checkpoint they've somehow returned
from the dead. At least it's not at the end
of the level like the previous games.
So the checkpoints are still
here and not that close together, but I didn't
die all that much in BIAHH so it wasn't as bad
as the previous games. The regenerating health
has been improved, so it's no longer an issue.
But the inaccurate weapons return. Countless
times I can clearly see I'm aiming straight
at the enemies head, and somehow I miss or it
takes a few shots at the exact same place before
they die. The inaccurate weapons 'feature' is
supposedly to increase realism, but it really
just increases my frustration.
While I disliked the gameplay
in the previous games, I also disliked the design.
The levels were bland, flat and just looked
ugly. Gearbox has picked up their game here.
BIAHH actually looks very good, of course running
Unreal Engine 3.0. This time there's a lot of
variety. Sure your countryside towns are prevalent,
but we also get creepy bombed hospitals under
moonlight, a chaotic recently bombed city with
fire everywhere. Okay, perhaps now that I look
at the levels they are all still little towns
and countryside, but with the different weather
and times of day, Gearbox have given the locations
enough variety to be interesting. The same could
not be said for the previous games.
Now the final topic of today
is the story. Critics seemed to love the story.
I, on the otherhand, found it a confusing bore.
You quite clearly need to have played the previous
games very recently to know who everyone is
and what's going on, as the stories intertwine.
I couldn't remember a damn thing about the previous
games apart from the main characters name. Despite
this, whatever story was there wasn't really
that interesting anyway. The lengthy cutscenes
between each level/chapter (of which there are
ten) feel more like just random conversations
and interaction between the characters, setting
up the next chapter. Supposedly some team-mates
have died (don't ask me who they all look too
much the same) and there's a lot of remorse
and secrets. Good dialogue and action sequences
but the story could have been told a little
clearer. I did still enjoy all the cutscenes
though, they might a nice breather between chapters.
Overall I enjoyed BIAHH much
more than it's predecessors and more than I
was expecting. The graphics are great, the cutscenes
and story are decent, though not as good as
has been made out. The only weak point is the
repetitive combat, but it's been improved since
last time out. Gearbox is currently working
on two more BIA games and with the success of
Hell's Highway I can now actually look forward
to playing them.
