Hell’s Highway is the third title in GearBox’s World War Two series Brothers In Arms. This is one title that is quite aptly named and themed as it has been stranded in development no-man’s land for way to long. But has all this extra development time helped Hell’s Highway to battle down the sheer power of COD or the solid gameplay of Medal Of Honor? There really is only one way to find out.

The story of Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, follows the joint British and American Operation Market Garden in which the two forces were para-dropped into The Netherlands to take bridges surrounding three Dutch towns. The storyline follows the plan and actual events for the Operation quite faithfully, and it also injects the familiar feeling of the human side of war that the series is well known for. Of course you take control over Sgt. Baker leading him through the troubles of the Operation.

The strange thing about Hell’s Highway is that although it is solid in the events that are happening and keeps the strong feeling of humanity, it just doesn’t work with the gameplay mechanics. In the cutscenes you have best friends dying in each other’s arms and basically being shown the horrors of war and how important human life is and in play you have German’s being blown apart. Yes, I mean apart, If you throw a grenade you will get a slow-mo camera shot of each of the men fly up into the air with torsos and limbs torn off each other in the process. It is amazingly gory in its depiction but at the same time gratifying to see your handiwork have an effect on your ever present foe.

Alongside all this decapitation and gore, there is the ever present idea of teamwork. Teamwork really is the only way to process; if you take the whole one man army approached then you will just be made into mince meat after a few steps. But having your men lay down cover fire and suppress the German troops allows for you to have at least a fighting chance. Each of the enemy squads have a small circle above them to indicate if they have noticed you or to show their nerve, if you order your men to suppress the enemy then the circle will turn white to show that they are too scared to leave cover, that’s your chance to move. This reflects perfectly how the AI has been tuned, your men will trip over objects as they try to run to dive from cover from explosions near them. Though there were points when I encountered that show of stupidity for the AI as well, at one point one of my objectives was to place a charge on a AA gun, unfortunately once I placed the charge my men had followed me up to the gun and were unable to see that it was about to explode so my whole squad was killed in the explosion. But lucky for me, every time you hit a checkpoint your team is revived, not replaced with a new soldier but the dead are brought back to life, which if you think about it kind of dents the games moral story of how life is so precious.

Unfortunately although the levels are varied in location things really comes down to the same old moves which consist of taking out all the Germans then holding or destroying an objective and then also holding a position against a German counter attack. This is a shame really as there are some otherwise great additions, like the bazooka team that can dish out some nice spectacles (even if they do keep their set-piece feeling instead of playing like an action movie).

The backdrops really do look amazing, they are like a watercolour painting of the Dutch Killing Fields, it’s almost a shame you can’t take the time to stand and stare at its glory. The character models fair well too, with some nice detail but each German does look like he has just come out of the clone-a-matic. The best thing about the presentation though is the sound, if your squad hasn’t been seen yet by the enemy then they will whisper and try to shout over the gunfire, it does add a sense of realism to the proceedings.

Overall Brothers In Arms is a game that had all the groundbreaking ideas, however having taken so long to have been released it has missed the boat slightly. Pretty much everything that Brothers In Arms does has been done elsewhere and sometimes better. That said it is still a good solid game, just because it doesn’t break any new ground isn’t too much of a problem as everything is done well enough for the old to feel comforting.