Quick Stats:

• Developer: Gearbox Software
• Publisher: Ubisoft
• Release Date: 4 October 2005
• Platform: PC
• Genre: First-person shooter
• Last played: 25 April 2020

Introduction:

So around a year ago I started a playthrough of Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30. Mainly I did this because I absolutely adored Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway on Xbox 360 back when I was in secondary school. I was kind of gutted that I never finished Road to Hill 30, but equally didn’t want to just play through the same game again just yet. In this game you play as Sgt Joe Hartstock (or “Red” as he is called by the others).

It’s a WW2 first person shooter with some tactical elements interlaced in there. According the Steam, I purchased this game on 3 July 2017 and my playthrough started on 19 April 2020, so almost three years after buying it!

Playthrough:

Session 1: Roses All the Way to Three Patrol Action

Time: 1hr 31m (1hr 31m)

In the first session, I managed to get through the first few missions and my God is this another janky game. Similar to Road to Hill 30, which controlled super poorly. I guess that makes sense considering how close the release date was for both games. I mean in a general sense however, the game supports widescreen and graphically it doesn’t look *too* bad for a game that released in 2005 so I have to give it some credit.

I’m finding that the difficulty setting is basically spot on. I’m finding it challenging but not like impossible. Which probably means that the last mission will feel actually impossible like in Road to Hill 30. Completed up to the end of Three Patrol Action and only ended up losing one solider.

Nothing majorly important to say about the first few missions. Like virtually every WW2 game at the time you start off by getting your weapon and slowly facing more and more enemies. The game also gives you control of the squads at this point, which is kind of the differentiating factor compared to say Medal of Honor.

Session 2: Hell’s Corners

Time: 40m (2hr 11m)

Thought I would sneak in a quick session to end the day as I enjoyed earlier. Man this mission was tough as nails. I lost my whole squad (on multiple loads) through the open field with foxholes. This meant I had to basically fight the entire mission alone, which is difficult when you’ve got a BAR with no ammo and a K98k sniper. The scene on the bridge was horrible, I had to use the unbelievably poor geometry and the AI’s need to poke their heads out of cover every few seconds in order to progress.

The random mortar fire on this map is something that Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 liked to do. It’s a good element as it makes you think, but at the same time it’s frustrating when you lose an entire squad to the roll of a dice. Next mission is a night mission, which should be interesting.

Session 3: Chateau Colombieres

Time: 1hr 04m (3hr 16m)

I took a couple of days break from the game because that last mission really was sucky. I must say however, even though I died an annoyingly high amount of times during Chateau Colombieres, I actually enjoyed this mission. It felt like you had to be a lot more tactical.

Casualty report on this one is not good, lost everyone again (but literally only in the dying seconds) and the tank. Managed to dispatch the enemy tank because it got caught up on some small geometry (not complaining). Honestly though I started to actually understand a lot more about how to play this game about 40m into this session. The need to flank people was always obvious to me, but I now realise how important it is to press ‘V’ and go into the weird look around mode. Honestly I could’ve completed that mission in about 20m if I was doing this properly from the start.

Here’s hoping times improve in the next mission, but good to see the game has somewhat redeemed itself.

Session 4: Bookends to Eviction Notice

Time: 59m (4hr 15m)

So this session started off with a cutscene instead of a mission which honestly helped to catch me up a bit on the story of why Red and Baker don’t get along so well. We also learn in this that Red’s pretty cool scar comes not from the war but from getting glassed by some guy in a bar.

Bloody Gulch started off as a disaster. I accidentally used right click on the wrong squad, forcing my Assault Team to move across the MG42 fire, leading to all three of their deaths. Let me just tell you now that this mission is impossible unless you have two things: speed and two full health squads.

I got pretty good at speedrunning the second part of this before the tanks came and honestly got really lucky on one run where the German AI just kind of ran into my assault squad and the two tanks never actually entered the hedgerows. Baker then (as in Road to Hill 30) swoops in like a white knight. Alas however, the Baker AI didn’t actually shoot any enemies and so me and the squad had to finish them off whilst he sat stuck in the middle of the battlefield… not quite the cinematic ending from Road to Hill 30 lol.

Eviction Notice was honestly probably one of the most fun missions so far. Fairly close range, but an actually interesting layout with a small train station and industrial railyard. Made for some interesting combat and honestly the game has become more enjoyable for me with each mission. Maybe it’s because I have worked out how to navigate the incredibly janky shooting mechanics, maybe it’s because I’m now actually using the squads properly… who knows.

Session 5: Close Quarters to Baupte

Time: 1hr 16m (5hr 31m)

So I didn’t count the time for this, but I started the session by looking at the extra little bits of information you unlock for completing missions and honestly this is pretty cool. There’s lots of extras about the making of the game and the actual history of the battles covered. Well worth a read.

Close Quarters was actually quite a good mission. There was a really stupid scene where Baker steps in, brings a tank in with him and then suddenly disappears, meaning that Red and his squad have to mop up. At least at the end of the scene he appears with a bottle of wine as a celebration for Red’s promotion.

So then there’s Baupte. Not actually that great of a mission, especially as Friar got stuck in a wall and honestly I struggled to get through the town without totally losing everyone. The game appears to just be throwing tanks into the mix to make it seem like there’s an upstep in the difficulty. It doesn’t really add any atmosphere because the tank gameplay is rubbish. Find panzerfaust, shoot, rinse and repeat 3 or 4 times.

Session 6: Hedgerow Hell to Run of the Mill

Time: 1hr 16m (6hr 47m)

It now appears that I am on the last mission before the final act of the game, I think there are four missions left at this stage. Hyped that I’m potentially going to complete a game here.

Hedgerow Hell wasn’t a terrible mission in all honesty. The gimmick this time was blowing up randomly brown areas of the hedgerow in order to find a way through the battlefield, open up flanks etc. The defence part at the end of this mission was basically impossible for me initially as I only had one solider remaining. However once the game let me revive everyone, this was a really enjoyable defence scene and mission.

When it comes to Run of the Mill, let me simply start by saying that the checkpoints on the section with the FlaK 88’s is diabolical. Massive distance (both actual distance and time wise) and therefore you’ll find yourself making major progress and then being sent back massively, which is really unhelpful and added a lot of time to this session. The second part of the mission for me was made funny by the “sniper” that spawns on the top of the mill. The AI clearly doesn’t trigger soon enough and he is literally just standing on the roof and is the easiest person to kill in the entire mission due to no cover.

The game has stopped using tanks as a way of making everything seem more difficult, now we’ve got Flak 88’s and anti-tank guns (which look a little like Pak 36’s or similar) round literally every corner. God only knows what the two parter final mission is going to be like. So close to completing this game at this stage though, which is exciting as it has been a long slog.

Session 7: The All Americans (Parts 1 & 2)

Time: 51m (7hr 38m)

So here we are, the final set of missions! I’m sad in a way that this is coming to an end, only because the quality of missions has generally been improving throughout (and I’m now actually understanding how to play the game).

The first part of this mission was pretty standard gameplay, although for the scene where there is a tank in a town square, I couldn’t find the Panzerfaust anywhere and the compass kept pointing me towards an area where there was literally… nothing. So instead I ran back across the map to the only other position where I knew that these were stored, which as you can imagine took time. No joke it probably took me 10m just because of this. I probably should have just looked up a guide to be honest!

One thing that struck me as part of this was that there were absolutely no M1A1 Bazookas in the game at all. You’re always reliant on the Germans leaving a box full of Panzerfausts around.

The final mission was genuinely a little disappointing. My entire squad had died pretty early on, so I basically just flanked and killed the remaining soliders myself. The last person died when I only had one magazine and 14 bullets left in my Thompson, with the M1 Garand totally dry. The saddest part of course was Doyle’s death, especially as the way that they did it was that classic watch a cutscene of yourself in an explosion and then get slowly dragged off the screen. That’s basically a Brothers in Arms staple.

But it’s over! I finally finished a Brothers in Arms game and as a result I now have my first completion on HowLongToBeat! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading through my journal of playing this game as much as I have enjoyed writing it 🙂

Game completed in 7 hours and 32 minutes. Find my entry on HowLongToBeat HERE!

Review:

Score: 7/10

I think that it’s important to give this game the benefit of the doubt in that it is old. In 2005 we really didn’t see many shooters with slick controls and so out of fairness I will assess it with that in mind.

The gun play can be absolutely mind numbing at times, mainly due to the way that the aiming swirls around chaotically in a figure of 8 and the actual iron sights themselves are chonky boys which don’t always really show you where you are shooting. The squad based mechanics are also a little stale after a while and I think the game would have benefited greatly at the time if you could issue commands from the ‘V’ menu which provides a better overview of the battlefield.

However, the story makes you genuinely care about the characters and some of the action sequences make it really quite intense. My favourite being the defence sequence in Hedgerow Hell as it really felt like we were finally beginning to tip the scales of the battle ever so slightly. I also have to credit the game for trying to do something different with the combat, even if compared to more modern games it is stiff and cumbersome.

The graphics have held up fairly well too and I really do like that it fully supports modern hardware and widescreen without any required tinkering (at least on my PC). This game is usually super cheap too, so for that reason I would genuinely recommend it but be prepared to get a little frustrated with it from time to time and the janky controls! Also… play Road to Hill 30 first as it gives the story background that you need.