Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (DVD-ROM) review:2 stars (Stick With Call of Duty) - I deleted this game off my hard drive after 3 days. It just could not match Call of Duty. Stupid storylines, canned dialogue, nonresponsive squad members and hideously inaccurate M1 Garands just made this game a real mess, not to mention a pain in the keester to play. The game made a noble attempt to simulate squad-based WWII infantry combat and failed. To add insult to injury, the game "entices" you to win your missions on higher difficulty levels so you can access "secret" information about the "real" WWII. I thought: "Ah, this could be interesting,' so I doubled my kraut-killing efforts and prevailed. But having done your duty and gained access to the "secret" files, your reward is to be lectured by a 21-year-old nasally graphics-design nerd about how he went to France and sketched the house that he so accurately rendered in the game... "puhl-leeze!!"
And where was the gore? After reading "War Is Hell" on the front cover, I figured, "Hey! This game might supply the slaughter factor I loved from back in the RTCW days, complete with gut-ruptured bodies, rolling heads, tossed limbs, etc..." But to little avail. The most carnage you see is a German with a leg off and almost no blood. Not too hellish... and certainly not on a Doom 3 scale. Not even close to "Saving Private Ryan."
Oh, and one more thing. The multiplayer on this game is atrociously bad. You can only have four players on line at once and it's just impossible to control your guys as a squad. They wind up getting themselves killed before you can right-click enough to get them out of the way. Call of Duty just blows the doors off this game on this score. I like playing as the Germans, and I was very upset when I gave my voice cue commands and they came out in English with a stupid German accent: "Mein Gott, I am hit." I think this game is "hit," too. Somebody call a medic on this one.3 stars (Ambitious but ultimately weak WWII shooter) - It's funny how game magazines and critics are besides themselves with joy when reviewing this game, because I was so incredibly disappointed with the execution that I sold it back within a couple of weeks. The idea is simple: take the intensely realistic, scripted action of "Call of Duty", throw in some squad based action ("Full Spectrum Soldier"; "Republic Commando"), add some Spielberg-esque attempts at narration and drama, and voila, the most over-hyped and underwhelming WWII action/shooter in history!

The GOOD: Nice Graphics (though not up to "Far Cry", "Doom 3" or "Half-Life 2" standards or even close); the game does present some tense, gritty and realistic moments; the voice acting can be pretty good (though it can also be cheesy and bad).

The BAD: Lather, rinse repeat. Here is the game in a nutshell: you are walking around with your squad. You spot a german machine gun nest. You order your buddies to lay suppressing fire on them. You walk around the convenient hedge/building/car to surprise the idiotic enemy and you try to pump them full of lead. The game is fun for the first few missions because its strategic element is new, but once you realize that it's pretty much all the game has to offer... Well, let's just say I went back to playing HL2.

The aiming is another casualty of the "realism". In an attempt to make you feel like you were really in the French countryside hunting Nazis, your weapon will bob and weave (presumably to simulate "real" aiming), you have no crosshairs (though you can insert them through the options menu) and your rate of fire is slow. There seems to be two camps when it comes to this game: those who love its "realism" and accuse the haters of simply liking unrealistic shooters, and those who can see through the hype and cheesy gimmicks (and that's what this game's realism is, a gimmick) and see the flaws and tedium of this game.

The UGLY: For all its realistic tendencies, this game magically revives your squad mate after every gunfight. How convenient! The enemy AI is mentally retarded (gee, a flanking maneuver! Never would have expected that!) and the main narrator sounds like an idiot.

BOTTOM LINE: I'm not against realism, but this is still a game, and there are certain conventions that exist because they make games more enjoyable. Sometimes games try to do away with those conventions (save anywhere, good mouse-look aiming, etc) and they usually fail, because at the end of the day... we are still playing in front of a monitor with a mouse and keyboard. The idea isn't bad, but the repetitive nature of the gameplay really, really got to me.
3 stars (Fails in all the ways that matter) - AI programming perhaps the worst in any game. Solders duck in front of cover, stop cover fire for no reason, will not cover player while moving on flank, has to be directed who to shoot at and from were, will not react during fire fight without direct orders from you, and when taking direct fire from the flank has to be told to protect themselves. All the hype about super smart AI is just that, hype.

Game balance is tipped hopelessly in Germans favor. The German bots, who all are uber solders to the extreme, not only are they able to pick off your men while crouched behind cover or while running with a bolt action gun, they'er also psychic and can track you from behind walls. They also have spiffy tanks that can out maneuver you on foot. Leaving the game winnable but frustrating in lower difficulty setting, and a serious drag in difficult. Not features most people look for in a game.

Even with countless gamers screaming about the need for a patch on message boards all over the web, Gearbox is very slow in delivering. Since Gearbox's official stance is that the game is "good enough" and all the glitches are in the players heads, it is very unlikely that in game SP problems will be fixed even with the patch.

But hey, it does look pretty, so if swaying grass effects and well drawn character eyes is very important to you then by all means get the game.

Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (DVD-ROM) Features:
Computer Games
Action
Shooters (Shooter)
Military (Tactics)
Strategy (Strategic)
Historical (historic) Recreation (Recreations)
Military (Wargames
DVD-Video
PC PRODUCTS
ESRB Rating: M (Mature)
Action/Adventure

Brothers in Arms- Road to Hill 30 (DVD-ROM) is the DVD-ROM version. The full version can be purchased by clicking on the "CLICK HERE TO ORDER" button below for around 25.99USD.