BROTHERS IN ARMS
Hell's Highway
Review by Joshua Rouse

As General William
Tecumseh Sherman once
said, “War is Hell.”
Nearly 150 years after the
Union destroyed Atlanta in the
Civil War, war has become a
game. Adults and children alike sit
down in front of televisions with
controllers in-hand and wage war
across diffff erent time periods, both
past and future, with little or no
consequence.
World War II has become the
favorite time period for the setting
of fifi rst-person shooters. I’ve lost
count of how many times I’ve
stormed the beaches of Normandy.
I’ve killed so many Nazis that
they should pin the Congressional
Medal of Honor on me, and while
many of the famous WWII games
like Medal of Honor and Call of
Duty were fun, they were tame,
watered-down and dare I say
neutered visions of what the second
World War was really like.
In contrast, Brothers in Arms:
Hell’s Highway doesn’t pull any
punches. It shows the true nature
of WWII as best as can be done
through a video game, even if it is
disturbing.
Hell’s Highway is the third
chapter in Gearbox’s Brothers in
Arms series and it puts you right
back in the shoes of Sgt. Matt
Baker and his ragtag group of
soldiers in the 101st Airborne
Division. Unlike most WWII
shooters or even video games in
general, Hell’s Highway is storydriven
with numerous cutscenes
that dig deeper into the story
beyond “Look! Germans! Shoot!”
For those who have never played
a Brothers in Arms game before,
there’s an opening cinematic that
sounds more like a daytime soap
opera that begins with “previously
on Brothers in Arms.” While the
attempt at familiarizing new
players with the story of the
previous two games is noble,
without any kind of context the
random cutscenes have no real
continuity. ThTh e cinematic isn’t
needed. ThTh ere’s enough character
development to keep the story
interesting throughout the game.
Hell’s Highway takes place
during Operation Market Garden,
the Allied attempt to have the
war ended by Christmas. It was
the largest Airborne operation in
the military’s history. ThTh e allies were
to liberate Holland and push their
way into Germany to bring a swift
conclusion to the war. History shows
Market Garden was one of the worst
blunders in American military history.
For the purposes of this game,
you’re a beat-down sergeant trying to
keep himself and his men alive, and
while the story of Hell’s Highway is its
greatest strength, it’s also the game’s
greatest weakness.
A lot of the story-telling is heavyhanded.
Yes, war is Hell. Everyone
knows that. But the game continues
to beat you over the head with how
badly the soldiers have taken the battle
and how badly they want to go home.
Sometimes it pulls on your heartstrings
a little too much, like when
you have to rescue a kid from what
seems like half of the German army.
It’s defifi nitely darker than the standard
WWII game affff air but it could be too
dark for many people.
Just because the game’s story is
its greatest
drawing
card doesn’t
mean the
gameplay
isn’t up
to par.
Gearbox
has had two
previous
games to
polish up
the Brothers
in Arms
formula,
and it
shows. ThTh e
shooting
mechanics
are smooth
and
intuitive.
Unlike other shooters, Hell’s Highway
relies more on squad mechanics. It’s
not as tactical as games like Ghost
Recon or Rainbow 6, but you have to
keep your squads alive if you really
want to have a smooth time during the
campaign.
Each mission gives you a diffff erent
set of teams to command. You have
the assault team, which is your
standard group of soldiers with
infantry weapons; the MG team,
which carries an MG-42 machine
gun to lay down suppressing fifi re; the
bazooka team,
which carries
a powerful
bazooka
to destroy
emplacements
and the
base of fifi re
team, which
uses heavier
infantry
weapons.
How you
use these
teams is
entirely up to you. You can
order them to suppress a
squad of Germans while
you flfl ank around behind
them, or you can have your
teams lob grenades into an
emplacement or you can
order them to flfl ank while
you draw the enemy fifi re.
ThTh e options are endless,
but you do need to use
them, otherwise you will
die quickly. And there’s
nothing like the feeling
of flfl anking a squad of
Germans and taking them
out with your ThTh ompson
machine gun.
As with most squadbased
shooters, your
squad-mates are a bunch of
morons. You tell them to take cover
behind a wall in the middle of a large
fifi re-fifi ght and, instead of taking the
safest route , the character will go
through the line of fifi re to get to their
newly assigned position. It becomes
so annoying,
that you will
want to put
a bullet in
their heads
just because
they are so
stupid. At
least the
Germans
will flfl ank
you or turn
tail and run
if you get
the jump on
them. Your
squad-mates
will stand
there and
ask, “why
aren’t we
moving?”
ThTh ere’s a new cover system in Hell’s
Highway that will keep your head out
of the line of fifi re if used properly. If
you get near any solid, flfl at object, you
can press the left bumper button and
go into a third-person view, kind of
like Rainbow 6: Vegas. When fifi ghting
three or four squads of Germans in an
open area, you’ll wonder how you ever
survived without a cover system.
ThTh e controls can be overwhelming
in the beginning. You’ll send your
soldiers offff to get killed and you’ll fifi nd
yourself flfl anked and killed numerous
times, but you will soon get the hang
of it. Also, Gearbox has added a
“Training” option that will help you
hit the ground running with diffff erent
popup boxes that walk you through
the basics of the gameplay.
Sooner, rather than later, you will
be popping headshots and placing
grenades perfectly. In fact, after a
while, the game becomes a cakewalk.
ThTh at is why Gearbox added the
“Authentic” game mode. After you
complete the game on one of the
two starting diffiffi culties, you can go
through the game again without
crosshairs or any other identifying
markers that helped you out during
your previous playthrough. It gives
fans an added challenge to an already
fun game.
ThTh e health system isn’t as
punishing as the previous games.
Instead of hunting for medpacks
to heal, there is a Halo-style health
system. If you get shot, the screen will
turn red and you need to fifi nd cover.
You will heal quickly, but during
this time you can be killed by two or
three bullets. Just because your health
recharges doesn’t mean you can turn
into the WWII equivalent of Rambo.
Graphically, the game is impressive,
but it isn’t mind-blowing. It runs on
the Unreal 3 engine, and like other
games on the engine, there is some
very bad texture pop-in. Beautiful
cinematics are sometimes ruined by
areas that look horribly blurry before
the textures load. Furthermore, even
with the install on the Playstation 3,
the textures don’t load any faster.
ThTh e character models look
impressive, as would be expected from
a UE3 game. But the lip -synching
during cutscenes leaves a lot to be
desired and can even pull you out of
the moment.
Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway
is probably the most authentic
WWII experience you can get on
a video game console. ThTh e game
carries a Mature rating from the
Entertainment Software Ratings
Board. Not only is there a lot of bad
language, as you would
expect from a group of
soldiers during WWII,
there is an insane amount of
blood and gore.
ThTh e game also has
“kill cam” moments that
emphasize the brutal nature
of the war. Land a headshot
properly, throw a grenade
in the right spot or shoot
a group of the enemy with
a tank shell and the game
will zoom in on their bodies
and slow down so you can
see the resulting carnage.
ThTh ink the infamous head
exploding scene in Scanners,
only over the course of 25 to 30
times in a playthrough. It almost
becomes too grotesque after a while,
but there is an option to turn offff the
kill cams as well as the gore and the
language.
ThTh ere is also a multiplayer
component to the game developed
by a team from Rockstar Studios.
While it supports up to 20 players
in a similar style to the campaign,
the graphics are downgraded and
there are a lot of bugs. ThTh e game
constantly lags no matter how
great your connection is. ThTh e
hit detection is worse than Halo
3, and that’s bad. For all intents
and purposes, Hell’s Highway is a
single-player game. If you want a
multiplayer WWII game, look up
Call of Duty 2.
Like the previous entries in
the Brothers in Arms series, Hell’s
Highway is not for everyone. ThTh e
gameplay is slow and methodically
paced. ThTh ere’s no running and
gunning. You have a sprint button,
but it’s only there to move from
cover to cover.
ThTh ere are no John Wayne
moments in Hell’s Highway. It’s
a dark, gritty game that’s almost
depressing. Hell’s Highway is the
Band of Brothers of video games, and
with high production values and
some of the most refifi ned gameplay
of squad-based shooters, it’s a game
you should really look