This review, and the review of it’s sequel, Earned in Blood, are written in lieu of finishing Max Hastings’ Historical Piece Overlord, which gave me advanced insights on top of my existing knowledge regarding the combat during the Battle for Normandy. The first Brothers in Arms title, Road to Hill 30, I finished earlier, in early January, and I timed my playtime of Earned in Blood to coincide with finishing Overlord. For now, we focus on the first game. Road to Hill 30 was released for Windows on the 15th of March 2005. Critics received it well, and for me, well I think it’s a great title. Road to Hill 30 has all makeup of a classic World War 2 First-Person Shooter, even now it makes itself remarkable at every turn, even more impressive considering it was made at a time where the market was increasingly flooded. The way Road to Hill 30 sets itself apart from its era and even today’s shooter market lays in its design. The AI, weapon mechanics, difficulty, suppression system and squad management all play an impressive part in creative a cohesive and challenging experience that neither feels too painstaking or overly lax on the player. That’s not to say the game is perfect, it manages to bring with it some flaws along the way. All the above, I’ll further explore bellow.
Coming into the game, as most older games do, Road to Hill 30 inevitably shows its age. The facial animation and textures are laughable at points, but this is merely a first impression, and not exactly something you can fault a game from 2005, a time where advanced and emotional facial animations at all were a revolutionary concept, so at least they gave it a good crack. Without giving spoilers to the story, the game starts you at the very end of the story, with a not unexpected cliffhanger. A not unique way of setting the plot forward, but it does take the chance to establish the fact that Road to Hill 30′s characterization will become a trademark of its story. This is an important point I’ll hammer on down the line. But the game does contain all the aspects of a professionally made title. The tutorial explains all the player needs to know to understand the game properly, and doesn’t drag on too long, something that’s left to be desired in even some modern titles. But it would be difficulty for me to touch on the deeper elements of mission content without spoiling the story, so I will provide one comment. Gearbox Software’s mission design is exceptionally well researched and considered. Each mission, for the most part, functionally feels great and flows without error. To experience it, simply requires putting in the time in to what is a remarkable challenging game, which will be the focus of my next point.
Challenge is a core concept in most video games. By and large, almost every video game you play will have challenge on some level, bar exceptions like Visual Novels. It’s still a complicated concept that some games don’t get right even in AAA titles today. Some games can be ridiculously easy or hard to the point that it hurts their playability and reduces the overall quality of the game. Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 is one of the minority of games that gets it just right, on simply all levels. An amazing mix of level design, enemy AI/direction/placement, weapon balancing and reward really make Road to Hill 30 an incredibly challenging but fulfilling experience. Now I should preface by saying my runthrough was done on the hardest possible difficulty (a further difficulty is unlocked upon playthrough), so read my words with that factor in mind. The games levels are designed progressively, with the player passing through area to area seamlessly, with no loading times bar between full missions. This asset handling alone to allow for no mid-mission loading screens is impressive for a game from 2005, which I could have just as easily seen using a loading time between each battle segment. Another sign of a challenge being posed to the player is no regenerating health, but beyond that, no health kits either. Regenerating health was only fully popularized with the release of Call of Duty 2 later in October 2005, but health packs were still a commonplace concept in games for a decade. Through this choice, Gearbox Software leaves the player with one health bar and one health bar only, with whatever health you had at the last checkpoint remaining that way. Not to mention, in true fashion, checkpoints are only placed sparingly in each mission. But what takes the cake in truly establishing the game as a challenging but fulfilling experience is the enemy and weapon design, and the ultimate end they go for with those two elements.
Firstly, the enemies in Road to Hill 30 are clearly designed in principle with more care than your average video game hostile. The developers go to the grateful step of differentiating the forces you face, Fallschirmjäger, Waffen-SS, Wehrmacht are all included and differentiated between, giving a new level of authenticity to an already well researched game. Along with a great level of historical attention to detail, the enemy in combat performs to a great standard due to the developer Gearbox Software’s great use of both standard AI but also their with their large scale use of what I’ll dub ‘directed’ AI. At predetermined points, when the player character and/or his squad begin to encroach on an enemy position, often the enemy in question will actively move to a further back defensive position, or elicit some other action that would be far beyond a standard FPS AI. Far too often, throughout even modern First-Person Shooters, I see completely rigid AI, capable of only the most rudimentary concepts of attack and defense. Now, there are some great examples of fully independent and well working FPS AI, but they are vastly outnumbered due to the level of time they consume in programming compared to leaving them at a standard comparable to most other FPS games. The developers of Road to Hill 30 did not include an amazing AI for their combat enemies, as a matter of a fact, it is sub-par when isolated and unsupported. But their competent use of ‘directing’ the AI at key points in response to player actions give them an edge above the average FPS player. Now these movements are pre-programmed, so upon dying and re-loading, the AI will almost always make the same move to the same predetermined points, making this a function a player can actually use to his advantage if he/she has their wits about them. Overall, the smart combination of AI and developer-guided combat movements make the hostiles in Road to Hill 30 a tougher opponent than your average, especially on harder difficulties when they can drop the player in a few short shots. This AI system works best because it’s supported by another key element: Weapon design.
In Road to Hill 30, the weapons are designed with a different set of attributes to games that have come before and after it. On average, rifles like the M1 Garand, M3 Carbine and Kar98k sway far more than in games like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty, and hitting a target at more than 20m requires supreme patience and continuous fire. Submachine guns like the Thompson and MP40, and very well larger machine guns like Browning Auto Rifle are wildly inaccurate at range unless held carefully and while being exposed to much more accurate enemy fire. Especially on harder difficulties, enemies can dish out pretty much the same if not more volume of fire you can, and on authentic difficulty they will deal effectively the same damage. While I’m not sure about the historical implications of such game design, the principles implemented with such ideas plays in well to what Gearbox Software had in mind with how the player should approach the missions contained in the game.
All of this, like I said, tied together into a singular concept: Strategy! Laying down suppressing fire. Flanking with force. Making frontal assaults. Sniping from the rear. Using tank support. Employing close-in combat tactics. All these things are necessary for victory in on the Road to Hill 30. Their necessity in the game is only presupposed by the previously described game design because of the way the enemy moves and responds to pressure as well as the volume and accuracy of fire from both you and them and the superb environmental design. I think great FPS games don’t force you down any one path of handling a challenge, but simply set a pre-defined set of factors and give the player multiple angles to handle the challenge. Road to Hill 30 excels at this, and at most points it always feels like there are different angles to handle any situation, and more often than not when I failed in one, I succeeded in another. In summary, it’s this kind of gameplay that makes up the core of the game throughout it’s 11-13 hour runtime. It’s energetic, it provokes strategy and thought from the player and most of it all its more evidence that the developers clearly took a lot of pride in this piece of art. A caution to the reader, I do consider video game development an art form, calling this game art doesn’t mean I’m ranking it anywhere yet. But before I pull all my thoughts together, some notes on the storytelling and additional content, and what I found lacking in the game.
From the get-go, Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 shows that its story is at least attempting to be above and beyond the average FPS storyline. How this goes is a hit and miss. It performs adequately at most points, emotionally well at others and distractedly irrelevant at other times. It’s clearly inspired by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg’s 2001 TV Mini-Series Band of Brothers, a great piece of work which has since inspired many other works. Admittedly, I do often mix up Band of Brothers and Brothers in Arms, a testament to their similarities. The ensemble of characters presented each have their own interesting quirks, but keeping track of who’s who while already pre-occupied with the challenge presented in handling the combat involved was difficult in only one run through. I feel the developers foresaw this by locking some of the extra content behind a second run-through, but I still feel that more attention needed to be given to the storyline to make it more prevalent during gameplay. It’s a difficult area to put fault on without giving the game one more run through, which at this point the time doesn’t exist to do. I guess the only real comment I can make is that the Developers had a mind for replayability, placing the story possibly purposely in a place that requires more attention than first time players can give it. This tied into what I wanted to say on additional content, some of which can only be unlocked upon a second playthrough on authentic difficulty. I mentioned earlier that the developers had a great leaning towards historical realism and content. Upon finishing the game on the hardest possible first time difficulty, I found that I had managed to unlock about 80% of the amazing trove of extras packed in the games main menu. Fascinating items like real documents, pictures, maps and diagrams are unlocked from each mission, the more things being unlocked depending on the difficulty played on. I really found this feature one of the most commendable out of the entire game. Not only does the game feature a reasonably interesting plot and compelling gameplay, but prompts players to learn about the subject matter itself, as well as tying the function itself into the games core design. Great choice, which I think stands to benefit players new to history or at least the subject matter the most.
Now finally, the two issues I did have with this game. For starters, I really think the game could have benefited from a ghosting function with its cover system. More often than not I found myself thinking I had found a great refuge for my soldiers only to find them taking cover on the opposite side, open to enemy fire. This was doubly frustrating considering the impetus the game puts on keeping your squad members alive. I think the AI isn’t wholly to blame for this, the order circle which is brought up when holding down the order button is not adequate enough in describing where your men will end up when they get there. Though I found that this issue wasn’t common enough to be serious, and the intuitive level design made good cover choices obvious most of the time. Another issue I had was the games highly noticeable suspension of belief when it comes to the forces involved. Call of Duty 2, while a flawed title, was revolutionary quite primarily in it’s set-piece scale, involving dozens of soldiers facing off on epic battlefields. I understand that in Normandy especially, small groups of forces were capable of amazing feats in the rough terrain of the Bocage, but in all the literature I have read, these small groups almost always numbered more than a simple 7 paratroopers with small arms weaponry. Or beyond that, one light tank supported by a small complement of 4 paratroopers. The game at times makes attempts to at least fleetingly show larger elements of force on your own side but for the larger part the player is forced to acknowledge that throughout the duration of the game, his small squad and it’s occasional armored allies are capable time and time again of defeating quite often well organized defense lines of first rate SS soldiers up to and beyond company size, equipped with heavy weaponry such as MG42s and Pak-36 Guns. Adding up the uncontrollable allies witnessed occasionally throughout the game, it equates on average to a usual standoff between 6-10 soldiers and a full battalions worth of usually first rate German soldiers. Even the engagements described in the game are real engagements, but were always fought with formations totaling around platoon size or higher. This may very well be my nitpicking, but every critic is different. That’s for the most part the only real issues I took up with this game from start to finish without spoiling anything. While I’m quick to point out the unrealistic qualities overhanging the protagonists progression, the games depiction of the Normandy fighting is superbly accurate. Many a historian has lamented on the allied armies slow progress in tactical evolution, as well as pointing out how well the elite formations such as Road to Hill 30′s 101st Airborne were first to employ successful strategies. The strategies in question being close in fighting, flaking of opponents and high volumes of concentrated small arms fire. The player succeeds in Road to Hill 30 in much the same way the real allied soldiers did. This is a keen observation I was only able to make after reading Max Hastings’ Overlord, which greatly improved my appreciation and enjoyment of the Band of Brothers series as a whole.
Finally, in summary: Gearbox Software’s Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 is a great and challenging experience for any FPS gamer, especially on the higher difficulty levels. Over time it has shown it’s age but even to this day some of its mechanics prove even better when stacked up against modern AAA titles. My review of Earned in Blood will follow this review closely. I’m happy giving this game a 8/10.