Brothers In Arms Immediately One of The BEST

[ThaMaskedGamer]

I don't have much time, but I wanted to put the word out that Ubisoft's Brothers In Arms is an excellent game, and not to be missed.

I'll post more about it later, but you should have no reservations, get this game. The best thing to do is just read the reviews that are out there, it is up there in the mid 90s on game rankings.

[Darwin]

I don't have much time, but I wanted to put the word out that Ubisoft's Brothers In Arms is an excellent game, and not to be missed.

I'll post more about it later, but you should have no reservations, get this game. The best thing to do is just read the reviews that are out there, it is up there in the mid 90s on game rankings.

This was a game that I was interested in getting, but opted not to when it came out because I was picking up Devil May Cry 3. Doh. Should have probably picked this game up insetead.

Waiting to hear more.

[ThaMaskedGamer]

The game starts with very nice opening movies, then it places you right in the middle of a battle. It turns out this battle, is a dream. Then you are on an air plane as a paratrooper on D-Day. Most of the cut-scenes allow you to move the camera, which is pretty cool. The movies are great, your plane gets shot up, so everyone just jumps out, which scatters your squad.

Once on the ground the game begins. You don't have any weapons, your gear gets lost in the jump. The graphics are top knotch, and this first part of the game is a light mission that is mostly tutorial. You meet up with another American, and he gives you a pistol. You are told to follow his orders. There is an immediate sense of danger in this game, you realize how fragile you are and how serious the game is immediately. There are easy, normal, difficult, and authentic settings. I wanted to choose Authentic, but I guess that option is greyed out until you complete the game on an easier setting. So, I chose 'difficult' so I can't say how the game is on easier setting.

When you face the enemy, there isn't a lot of running around. The enemy isn't like in any other game, except maybe FullSpectrumWarrior. The Germans are dug into these towns, with fortified positions, sandbags, etc. They rarely move, in fact, they will only really move if you outflank them. Then, they try and counter move. Since they are dug in, it is you and your squads(when you get them) that will be forced to strategically move to outflank and kill the enemy.

The story is well, told, like Band of Brothers and Private Ryan. In fact, it is a true story with input from WW2 vets. The fighting is fantastic. There is no aiming reticule. You either shoot from the hip, which is a waste of precious ammo, or you aim through the iron sights. Which is cool, and should immediately become the norm in FPS. It is very satisfying to line up an enemy in your old sights and pop 'em. One or two shots and the enemy falls. You and your teams are more hardy, i'm sure that is the only difference between Authentic, as I think in authentic, 1 pop and you drop. Here, you gradually take damage, maybe 5 hits and your dead. Though, one round from a tank, or heavy MG, will drop you immediately. You have to reload your weapon, so if you run out and the enemy is close, it is best to switch to the back up weapon.

Speaking of weapons, you have a fire team, 3 guys with M1 rifles and pistols. These guys are supposed to be used to suppress the enemy. Then you have an assault team, which you are part of, 2 guys and yourself, have a variety of weapons. You usually have an M1 rifle and a sub-machine gun, or sometimes a pistol. The assault team has grenades and machine guns, cause their job is to get close by flanking and just barrage the dug-in position. Aside from no reticule, you also have no on screen indicators. No arrows pointing to enemies, or red indicators showing where the enemy is shooting. Instead, dirt will fly-up on the camera if you are shot at, or you will literally hear near-misses buzz by you. If you are hit, a little bit of blood will splatter the camera. Grenades and mortars and tank rounds are very impressive, they blow up chunks of earth and sound deafening. And they will tear your squad to pieces, limbs and everything. Vice versa too, it is not uncommon to surveil a defeated enemy and see them laying there limbless.

The maps and environments are huge. There are airplanes flying close over head. Sometimes there are anti-aircraft guns on the map, that are not even part of your mission. But, if you happen to get close to one, you can sneak up on the AA gun's crew and lob a grenade and wipe them all out. The AA machine gun roar is deafening, if you have surround sound it will rock your neighbors. AA machine guns should be destroyed, meaning you have to go up and plant an explosive to turn it into twisted metal, otherwise, it might be re-used.

Your missions vary, for example, one mission has you clearing open fields on farms, of giant poles the Germans erected to stop planes from landing. So, you have to blow up the poles, all while underfire, and clearing out AA guns. It is real challenging because, you would like to clear out all the enemies and then remove the poles, but it is a constant battlefield.

At times you fight and fight along side a tank. Let me tell you it is a nerve racking experience. First, you are fearful you tank will get wiped out, secondly, you are fearful an enemy panzer will just obliterate you. With all this you would think the game is hard, but I went a long time before dying the first time. If you leave cover though, which I was never tempted to do. You will get laced up quickly. You simply can not run in the open. You can always pause the game get a paratrooper's view of the battlefield. You can look at the battlefield from each soldier's perspective(friendly and enemy), the view can be zoomed out, but never wide enough to see the entire battle field, which makes things kinda ticky. But, you can always see covered positions where you can move, and sometimes moving closer, then looking at the battlefield, will show you the avenue to the kill.


I haven't played online, from what I understand, a max of four players can compete, or a minimum of two. It can be 1v1, 1v1v1, 1v1v1v1 or 2v2. Each player has his own fire teams to control. And you simply try and outwit and maneuver your opponent. The designers specifically wanted to avoid the traditional deathmatch game types seen in every other fps. This is cool, and I can't wait to try it. But, I still wish they would have included some coop mission modes like GhostRecon2. But, I must say, Ubisoft knows online. Their 2v2 Pandora Tomorrow, Spies Vs Mercs was outstanding fun, so I think this is along those lines.

[ThaMaskedGamer]

Let me just add, you can also jump on top of your Tank, and use the rear Machine. This is cool, cause you can just roll along, giving orders and shooting. But, you are a sitting duck up there. Alternatively, you can use you the tank as rolling cover, which is an effective tactic.

Far as weapons, you can also pick up the German weapons, and use their machine gun positions. You can not use their artillery or mortar positions though. Ammunition is hard to find, you might be tempted and have limited success, trying to pick off enemies, but this waste ammo, and in the end, you will be forced to pick up the horrible German rifles. There are re-supply points in some missions. The missions are also fairly long and large, so you will have to be smart and conserve ammo. Your team though, doesn't seem to run out of ammo. They have to reload, and call out reloading clips, but they never run out of clips.

[DrunkenThumbmaster]

Since TMG commented on the actual gameplay I'll comment on the superficial stuff. First the graphics aren't the greatest thing ever barely above PS2 level (except for the faces) but the atmosphere is excellent.

You need a 5.1 system for this game it sounds better than Halo or the SC games. When you on the ground you'll hear a low but gradually growing rounding sound you look up and you'll see fighter jets going by. The voice acting is really well done too and it's not repetitive there are several different phrases to give the same order. I'm having mind block now and can't think of them but if you order one team to fire depending the situation you will get a different phrase. If it's a sneak and you aren't under fire you will hear one thing but if you are under fire and there's a lot of pressure the phrase will reflect that.

The A.I. is pretty good as well. I through a grenade one time and it landed near my team but before it went off the computer picked up and threw it toward the enemy! Sweet. The game also has plenty of different ways to apporoach a certain situation so tactics are important. There is a lot of flanking behind cover. The cover in this game is more realistic than in FSW where if the cover Icon was full you coudn't hit them. In BIA if they are behind cover but there head is still exposed you can still hit them and vice versa.

Like TMG said you aim with the actual gun there is no reticule and you have to really adjust your shot at first I coudn't understand why I was missing shots but sometimes you have to actually fire on a lead it's more realistc that way.

This is my favorite war game ever! It would be my favorite FPS but I'm not a big fan of the multiplayer. Haven't played it much to really judge it though.

[ThaMaskedGamer]

Well DTM i'm glad you got the game and like it. It seems to be slowly picking up steam. I'll tell you, Oddworld Strangers, now this game, I have no understanding why people on XBOX ignore great great games.

Anyway, Darwin picked up the game also. So that makes three of us. I've played the game online and it is almost single player, except one or two people will control the German forces.

The great thing about the game online is when there are two people on each side. Because it is hard to manage two squads online and keep everyone alive and complete the objectives. Also, you can really implement flanking procedures better with two people, as it is impossible to fully utilize flanking when you are limited to sending your other team only to positions which you can see. The other thing about online play is, even if you get wiped out, you can call in reinforcements, which basically gives you another squad. It isn't really about how many kills you get online, it is all about completing the mission within a certain time limit. Of course, being good at killing makes this a lot easier to do.

You hit the nail on the head with the dialogue and story aspects. The dialog is not canned and very fitting to the theme and setting.

[Darwin]

The gameplay is freakin amazing. Instantly loved the game.

I am out of town right now, and don't have access to Live. (Incidently I was just going to bring my Gamecube with me since it is so much lighter, but after playing Brother in Arms I decided to bring the Xbox instead.) Now I just have to find time to play it inbetween all the other stuff that my parents have planned for my sister and I while we're out here in California. Ironically, I spent yesterday at Disneyland with them .... and I live only 30 minutes away from Disney World in Orlando. Travel to the other part of the states just to go to a place that I can visit any time I want.