Point Zero: Redefining Otaku

Overview

Finally, the release of Gearbox’s 3rd installment to the Brothers-in-arms series; Brothers-in-arms: Hell’s Highway!

The first two series follows Sgt. Matt Baker and Sgt. Joe Hartstock in the night-time airborne assault on Normandy. For this third installment, we follow the two characters in to Holland for Operation ‘Market Garden’ and how they deal with the death of their fellow comrades-in-arms.

Just like the first two series, you will make use of authentic World War 2 military tactics (Find, Fix, Flank and Finish) to complete most of the missions in BIA:HH. You will not be alone through the entire game as you will be in command of 2-3 squads to complete every mission.

There are a few changes from the original series like…

-Situation view from the original series has been changed to a 2D map indicating everything from objectives, alternative routes, friendlies, enemies etc…

-Find Kilroys and Recon points (Learn more about the history which the game is based on through Recon)

-Additional Bazooka team/MG team

-Tank rides

-No health packs, self health regeneration when seriously injured. Screen will go red when critically injured unlike previous series where red patches indicates where enemy fire is coming from.

-More eye candy…

Graphics

The graphics is brilliant but unfortunately, there was a bug in a particular level which puts a dampener on the whole experience. That I will elaborate further in the ‘Bugs’ section.

With the ‘Bugs’ aside, I can focus on giving you the good aspect of the game’s graphic.

Gearbox has always striven to make Brothers-in-arms an authentic military shooter as possible.

True to their words, every single thing in the game, even the locations are actual representation of real-world locations! Right down the positioning of every single buildings. You could even find something in the game familiar… So familiar until that you might be using their product. I shall not spoil it for you, so play the game to find out what I am talking about!

Enemies get torn up by bullets, grenades and explosions. Blood and gore will fly everywhere when an explosion goes off or when you score that ‘perfect’ shot.

Think that you are safe behind that wooden cover?

NO!

Definitely not especially if the enemy is raining bullets down your location, where the wooden cover will get torn up leaving you exposed to even more incoming fire!

Graphic score: 4/5

Storyline

For those who play games just for the story, this is the game to get!

The story-telling is just like the novels which you borrow from the library but with alot of cut-scenes and intelligent dialogue to flesh out the game, giving it more depth and emotions which makes the player feel more connected to the game’s character. The storyline is very engaging, making you want to progress further into the game to uncover the fate of the characters…

Storyline score: 5/5

AI

The AI itself falls short its’ touted capabilities. The AI is at times dumb… at times smart… but most of the time, it is dumb. It seemed to me that the AI is not really polished and unchallenging… Bad pathfinding and limited waypoints

For example:

-The AI will just run straight into the enemy position when the most obvious is to avoid them by flanking them. They will still run straight into the enemy even if you are ordering them to your position which is the enemy’s flank!

-They refuse to shoot at the enemy even if you order them to repeatedly… even though they are not being suppressed by the enemy.

-They will run into walls…

-They will vault over walls to the other side and vault back again… even in the face of enemy fire.

-The bazooka team seemed to have problem with their eye sight. They cant seem to fire straight, instead they will shoot over the head of the intended target and not hitting anything.

-The enemies seems to have no brains of their own… They will not try to flank you or suppress you. They just wait for you to suppress them and finish them off…

AI score: 2/5

Bugs

Missing texture, intermittent  lags and crashing of game leading to PC rebooting. This problem seemed to only afflict ATI graphics card…

ATI has maintained that the problem does not lie in their graphics driver and are helpless in alleviating the problem. Gearbox tried to rush out a patch to fix the bug but are hesitant in releasing it due to more problems caused by the new patch, much to the disappointment of the gaming community…

2 weeks on… No patch in sight…

Bugs score: 1/5

Overall thoughts

Nice game with brilliant graphics (except for the disappearing textures), Voice overs and storyline.

Overall score: 3/5

Miscellaneous screenshots

Bed and breakfast at the local hotel

Lamb chops. Anyone?