Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

avelanchefan

Well I finally was able to pop the disk in today and play the first 30 minutes of the game. What a beginning! I will not give anything away, but GearBox does it again with a great start to the game that sucks you in immediately. If anyone has ever played the past BIA games, then you will know that the game usually starts at the end of the story, and then it moves back 3 or four days.

Characterization looks A+, dialogue to me looks just a tad off. Nothing to annoying but it to me looks like there is some delay. The landscape is stunning, and it looks to be maxing out the Xbox's graphic card. Just stunning.

Looking forward to getting into the meat of the game, and I will post regular updates.

avelanchefan

So I finished a few more levels today. Capt. Dale Dye revives his role as Col. Robert Sink. (He played the same role in Band of Brothers)

First off I am playing it on Normal mode. Realistic is unavailable until you complete the campaign. Normal mode is very very tough. A lot of trial and errors into finding the best way to get at the Germans. Usually 2-3 shots and you are dead., if you are taking fire and you peek your head out, your squad will start yelling at you to hide again. Pretty cool.

Ok there is a mode called action shots. This can entail a grenade, sniper shot, whatever. It slow-mo's down and you can see your head shot, or your grenade do devastating damage to your enemies. This folks has to be some of the bloodiest shots in gaming since Gears of War. Downright brutal. I tossed a grenade over a sand bunker, a few seconds later the Germans noticed it and started to scatter (great A.I. BTW), then it slowed down for me to watch a grenade literally rip a German in half.

I also noticed something else. I was pinned down in a house. I could see a Germans foot sticking out. I just started shooting his foot, he eventually died, and when I went around to make sure he was dead there he was, dead, with half of his leg about 5 feet from him. Crazy realistic. Not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing, but I really like what UBI, and Gearsoft did with this game.

avelanchefan

I cannot believe this game has been out a week and no one has not responded to this thread. The more i get into this game the better it gets. It has been one of the better experiences I have had on the 360 since BioShock.

I actually got to get into a tank last night. The mission starts off in Eindhoven and you work your way through the streets with your two squads. You end up fighting through Churches and wharehouses. The story takes a turn when one of the Dutch resistence leaders loses his son. You end up on top of a wharehouse seeing the boy, and picking up a sniper rifle to help him get across a trainyard. Excellent mission.

So any ways after getting the boy across the trainyard you are able to get into a British tank to take out the T-88's that are knocking down the resistence planes. Another excellent mission that is reminisent of the AC-130 mission in COD4. The mission ends up where the boy is hiding at the trainyard.

It looks like each mission has 7 sub-missions within it. So far I have played about 21 of them as I am heading into the fourth one. And I am about half-way through the game. One other thing to note is that I am trying to get through the missions without losing any of my men. So it is taking me a bit longer than it usually would.

Also my son just finished the game. It took him about 20 hours total. He was not restarting after losing a man. He also stated (he is 15) that it is one of the best games he has ever played. Take that for what it is worth, but for a boy who obsesses with Halo3 and GTA4, I take it that UBI did something special.

edbert

I go to church with one of the developers for this. I remember when the first one came out he got a bunch of guys from our Sunday School class to test it for him. About a month later we had a Halo tournament and the winners got pre-releases of the game. I haven't played them in a while but I am sure that it is pretty awesome.

tboo72

I might have to pick this up

DannyD

I dowmloaded a demo from the PS3 store. I am so used to the controls from COD4 that I just couldn't for the life of me get used to these controls for BIA. I was dying so quickly because I couldn't react in time. Excellent graphics and sound effects though. The slow motion head shots were amazing. I blew a germans head off peaking over a sand bunker. It was pretty gruesome.

avelanchefan

Well I finally finished it. The last two sections ran me about 3 hours to finish. Unbelievably hard, and German coming from every direction. Very intense to say the least!!

Once the playing finished the cut scenes lasted about another 10 minutes. Very fun to watch. The story ended as a "To be continued..." of course, but it looks like the next installment will involve the Battle of the Bulge.

If anyone is wondering I received a 695 gamer score for finishing the game. With another 105 achievable points that are not impossible to get.