1. BIA (Brothers In Arms, Road to Hill 30)
2. Review: Brothers in Arms - Road to Hill 30 (long)
Review: Brothers in Arms - Road to Hill 30 ----------------------------------------------------- Instructions for mixing a Brothers in Arms cocktail: Take 1 part "Call of Duty". Combine with 1 part "Full Spectrum Warrior". Mix in Unreal graphics engine. Tweak with bloom lighting and blur effects and other minor additions. Sprinkle with a dash of realism. Serve while boasting about how revolutionary the game is, but not until a year has passed after the bars down the street have released similar drinks. That's Brothers in Arms in a nutshell (or a cocktail glass). Brothers in Arms - Road to Hill 30 is -surprise surprise- yet another World War 2 first-person shooter. Produced by Ubisoft and Gearbox (producers of the Half Life add-on "Opposing Forces"), it is a multi-platform game whose most prominent feature seems to be a massive marketing campaign. Slightly less important are several "new" features added to the first-person-shooter genre, such as tactical command of squadmates and being based on real historical events. Astute readers may have already detected a hint of cynicism in this review. It's not that I think Brothers in Arms (henceforth BIA) is a bad game; it just seems a year or two late, and I have a hard time getting excited about it. Everything from the gameplay to the graphics to the setting has a "been there, done that" feeling to it. Had BIA been released in 2003, it would truly have been revolutionary. As it is, it feels like little more than a rehash of other good games that lacks any originality. Take, for instance, the graphics. They're okay, but hardly outstanding. The game utilizes a tweaked version of Epic's Unreal graphics engine, so it is easy on the eyes, but it doesn't equal the graphics of any of the latest games (e.g., Doom, Riddick, Half Life 2, etc.). BIA lacked any sort of jaw-dropping moment when the graphic intensity just knocks you aback; aside from the addition of bloom lighting and (lots of) waving grass, the game barely surpasses the visuals of "Call of Duty". This probably has more to do with the art direction, as the latest Unreal engines have proven quite capable. Nonetheless, the graphics don't really stand out. The sound is equally mediocre. The weapons fire is acceptable and presumably authentic, but that's pretty much true for dozens of other World War 2 games that have come out in the years past. The soundtrack is the sort of forgettable orchestral theme that so often accompanies this sort of game. Some of the other sound effects -such as explosions- lack body, and there's a noticeable lack of that full-featured cacophony of sound we've come to expect from modern-day war games. Extraneous background sounds and Foley obviously got the short end of the stick, so the gameworld sounds bare and empty. The voice-acting is average at best; there's a lot of shouting but little in the way of convincing emotion. Similarly, the art design fails to stand out in any way. The character models are all high-poly, decently textured and well animated, but that's par for the course these days. On the other hand, the NPCs don't have a wide variety of animations, which makes them seem stiff and unalive (the conversation animations were almost comical in their retro-ness; the mouths barely moved and the NPCs for the most part just stood stiffly besides one another). The texturing was acceptable -in fact, a touch above what you find in most "multi-platform" (read: console port) games these days, but often lacking in variety. The level design was fairly linear and very reminiscent of the standard fare found in "Call of Duty" or "Medal of Honor", but without any of those magnificent set-pieces like CoD's awesome Stalingrad assault. Set largely in the hedgerows of Normandy, there wasn't much diversity to the environments; it was largely bushes & fields or small provincial towns. Of course, this is exactly the sort of thing you would expect to see in that part of France, so it's hard to complain except that we've seen it so many times before. The levels are average sized -perhaps three or four skirmishes each- and take about twenty to thirty minutes to get through. There are only a few large open areas; for the most part you follow a twisty path between hedges or townhouses. At various points this path branches to allow you to flank an intervening opposing force, but invariably the branches rejoin before the next split, so progression is for the most part very linear. The plot is -like much of the rest of the game- pretty unoriginal: airborne soldier drops into Normandy and fights his way through hordes of German soldiers as part of the D-Day invasion. Of course, as the game is reputedly an accurate re-telling of the 101st's advance through Normandy, one might argue this story is the real original and other games are the copies... except those other games came out first. There's some attempt at including various sub-plots such as how the characters deal with the deaths of their friends and the camaraderie of soldiers, but this doesn't go very far and falls flat largely due to the unconvincing voice-acting. The hook of the game -the thing that is supposed to set Brothers in Arms apart from the score of other WW2 first person shooters- is the tactical command of up to six other squadmates (or three squadmates and a tank). Alas, BIA once again came late to the scene with this idea, and games like "Freedom Fighters" or "Full Spectrum Warrior" beat them to the punch. And once again, BIA failed to bring anything new to the concept; it never surpassed and sometimes was inferior to what had come before. To be fair, BIA's command interface was fairly straightforward; you use one key to toggle between your two squads, and then use a command key which brings up a floating icon. Place this icon on the ground and the selected squad runs to that location; click this icon on an enemy, and you direct the squad's fire at that target. You can also command your squad to "fall out" (e.g., take cover) or "fall in" (e.g., follow you), as needed. However, I found the default key-mapping made commanding the troops a bit more difficult than I'd like (often I'd order the troops to run into enemy fire when I accidentally hit the "command" key when I meant to hit the "zoom in view" key). However, after re-mapping the commands in options my control of the situation markedly improved. BIA also boasts a "situational awareness" mode, which pauses the game and displays a zoomed out top-down view of the terrain, showing maybe a 100 feet around you. Nominally this is so you can get an idea of where the enemy is and how best to flank them; however, given how small and linear the levels were, I found this information to be completely obvious from the normal view-point. Furthermore, you cannot give orders in the "situational awareness" mode, nor can you use it to watch how the enemy soldiers move and react to your orders, since it pauses the game. Both of these design decisions made the situational awareness" mode functionally useless to me and in the end I rarely used it. In design, the gameplay of BIA is supposed to be all about the four "F"'s of WW2 close-quarter combat: Find the Enemy, Fix the Enemy with suppressing fire, Flank the Enemy, and then Finish them off. You are supposed to order one squad (your "fireteam") to a position where they can shoot at the bad-guys while you lead your second squad (your "assault team") around the corner to take out the enemy from the flank. In practice, I rarely bothered with this rigmarole due to deficiencies in the AI. Even from a flanking position the friendly AI had difficulty taking out enemy soldiers cowering beneath suppressing fire; by and far I did most of the killing in the game. Furthermore, despite an obviously valiant attempt by the AI programmers, the squaddie's AI was exceptionally poor at making use at cover; I'd order my soldiers "move to right behind this conveniently placed fieldstone wall" and inevitably one soldier would decide to stand IN FRONT of the wall. Therefore, I usually just stuck my squads somewhere safe, ordered them to suppress the enemy, and snuck around and killed the bad guys myself, therefore for the most part ignoring the "hook" that was supposed to make Brothers in Arms so special. In essence, BIA played out just like "Call of Duty", except without the impressive set pieces and character (ironically, I felt more attachment to the anonymous friendly AIs in CoD than I did with my "buddies" in BIA, probably because I had to spend so much work shepherding the squads in Brothers whereas I could let the AI cheerfully sacrifice themselves for me in COD). In any event, the "tactical command" element of Brothers in Arms largely fell flat for me, and ultimately I played the game largely like any other first person shooter due to the various deficiencies in keeping the squaddies alive. This was made more difficult with the inaccurate (and some argue unrealistic) weapons waver, which made it harder to shoot the enemy soldiers, although this did not bother me as much as it seems to bother other people. (I did get the very strong impression that Gearbox originally wanted the game to play more like the tactical puzzle-game "Full Spectrum Warrior", but later in development bumped up the action aspect of the game when FSW wasn't as well received as it might have been because it wasn't the first-person shooter people expected it to be. Had Gearbox gone one way or another -a full tactical game like "Full Spectrum Warrior" or a "true" action shooter, the game probably would have stood out from the crowd. As it is, the compromises made to satisfy the needs of both genres made the game less exceptional than it could have been.) The enemy AI -while more reactive than in "Full Spectrum Warrior"- was less dynamic than it could have been; to some degree they shifted fire in reaction to various flanking maneuvers on the player's part, but rarely retreated and never advanced (except for scripted movements when they initially ran into position). They stayed in one position and the player maneuvered around them. BIA also utilized in several areas that hobgoblin of poor game design, endless enemy respawns. Game designers rely on respawns when they can't write compelling situations or code good AI, and therefore instead rely on brute force to rack up the difficulty level. Another failing of BIA's gameplay is that it ultimately becomes very repetitive: move forward to enemy position, situate squad to suppress enemy and fix them in place, maneuver around to flank, repeat ad infinitum. Things become marginally more intense in the few levels that you have tank support (tanks can only be taken out by panzerfaust rocket-launchers, anti-tank emplaced cannons or other tanks), but only marginally so (you use the tank to kill the machine-gun nest that's covering the rear approach to an anti-tank weapon, use the squad to take out the anti-tank weapon, and then repeat). One area that BIA does stand apart from other recent WW2 shooters is that it, amazingly, has gore. It is not a significantly bloody game -units don't show damage when they get shot and bodies disappear after they are killed- but there is some blood and a few (fixed) instances of torn up corpses. This is markedly different from games like Call of Duty, which are clean and sanitized. Brothers in Arms also has some adult language, probably to make it feel "more realistic". Speaking of realism -another supposed hallmark of the game- I found it rather lacking. Oh, not the situation or setting; there are some great comparisons of the real-life locations versus the digital representations, and they are very similar. But as far as gameplay goes, it's pretty much like any other shooter; it's an arcade version of the war. This, of course, makes the game more fun, but it goes contrary to the "true to life" marketing of the game. Although the game is of average length -perhaps 20 hours- the developers decided to increase this by tossing in various "unlockables" that can only be achieved by finishing the game on its various difficulty levels. These include various movies, animatics, photos and historical data, as well as cheats and -annoyingly- the "authentic" difficulty level. Given how linear the game is, there would be little reason to replay the game otherwise. BIA supports multiplayer via Internet and LAN. Once again, this is an area that goes unreviewed, as I have no interest in these game modes. But it's nice to see it's there , although there doesn't seem to be a much desired co-operative mode. Brothers in Arms was possibly the buggiest game I have played in a good while; not only did I experience a couple crash-to-desktops (something I very, very rarely experience), but there were also several scripting bugs when the AI would get "stuck", essentially stopping the game. In the end, I was disappointed with Brothers in Arms. Not because it was really that bad a game, but because it failed to live up to its potential. In almost every area it was matched or bettered by competing products, some of which were released a year or more ago. Had it been released in late 2003 or early 2004, it would have been an instant classic, but the bar has been raised since then. For sheer WW2 action exhilaration, we have Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Medal of Honor, and Call of Duty. For the tactical combat aspect, we have games like Full Spectrum Warrior and Ghost Recon. All these games are as good or are better than BIA. And unfortunately, it can't help but be compared to these games because it borrows so many of their aspects. Nor does it help that it uses the most overplayed setting in gaming history. And that's a shame because -I'll say it again- it is not a bad game. It just fails to stand out and one has a great sense of ennui whilst playing. Brothers in Arms isn't a game to be avoided, but nor is it a product that one rushes out to get. It's... average. Completely Arbitrary Numerical Score (CANS) (for those who like this sort of thing): 345/500 (just above average) System Specs: Athlon AMD 3000 XP (Barton) 1024 MB RAM PNY Verto GeForce 6600 GT w/128 MB (AGP) Windows XP Brothers in Arms was played at acceptable frame rates at 1280x1024 resolution, with all settings at highest, anti-aliasing off and anisotropy at "2";
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5. 30 Ping
6. HALO: What setting is better in MP: 30 FPS, VSYNC or NO VSYNC
For best performance, what should I set that value to? I have everything else turned down. -- Patrick Maloney New York State Workers' Compensation Board (Remove REMOVE from e-mail address to reply)
7. What setting is better in MP: 30 FPS, VSYNC or NO VSYNC
The new issue of Retro Gamer is out today and features an article about Exile - called "The Making Of Exile" - good to see some BBC coverage in there! cheers Matthew -- Message sent from an IYONIX www.iyonix.com Using RISC OS 5 : RISC OS Open Ltd www.riscosopen.co.uk You're Watching KYTV