Brothers In Arms: Hells Highway

Brothers In Arms: Hells Highway.

I am rarely moved by computer games. Which is a shame really, gaming is just another way of telling stories, and there aren't enough games with characters that you either sympathise with or, overall, actually care about. However, this game in particular made me play in a different way to how I normally play; and here's why.

The Brothers In Arms games follow the real life exploits of the American 101^st Airborne. In fact, these games are so true to life that the developers decided that the story would follow the exact soldiers; they even based the facial modelling on photographs of the men themselves. Originally I thought this was a disrespectful of the dead, but after some thought I came to the conclusion that it is in fact nothing of the sort. By making this not about a faceless private, we can see what these people actually went through (well... as much as you can, sitting at your desk).

The game itself is a squad based FPS. The essential tactic you need to master is suppressing the enemy and flanking. Sounds easy, and to be honest, it's not that difficult to get the hang of. In most missions you will have two squads: a support group and an assault group. The name of the game is to get your support group hunkered down in a good position and let them take care of most of the suppressing while you and the assault team will hop fences and other chest high obstacles until you either get the assault team close enough for them to use grenades or (the much more common tactic) you quickly flank the enemy, and gun them down in a hail of hot freedom loving lead.

The game itself draws a lot of inspiration and style from the Band of Brothers series and tries to keep the game itself as cinematic as possible. Certain events such as headshots or a successful grenade are rewarded with a slow-motion zoom in (which resulted in me usually sitting back shouting “HEADSHOT” in the manner of Unreal Tournament) and a satisfying amount of arterial splatter.

The campaign is unfortunately far too short, maybe 4 – 5 hours at a push, and that's even with the perfectionist mentality of “NO MAN LEFT BEHIND”. However, even if you do try to push ahead despite any losses, once you hit a checkpoint, they get back up again and join your squad; kind of defeating any point of really caring about characters in-game. Which is a weird sensation to be honest, especially with all that which I said earlier. During gameplay any one of your team members can hit the deck and you might not care at all, but if one of them should get shot during a cut-scene, you're sitting there with single manly tears running down your cheek.

Overall this is a fantastic WWII based shooter that (in my opinion) is a much better display of war and comradeship than anything that the Call of Duty franchise has produced. Unfortunately it's marred by a criminally short campaign and a slightly flawed by NPC's magically healing from lethal wounds whenever you go through a checkpoint.

Brothers In Arms: Hells Highway - 86%

The Witcher

To say that I've spent all my spare time gaming and writing would be a bare faced lie, so I apologise for my laziness. To apologise, here is my review on the epic RPG, The Witcher

“Choice... it's all about choice isn't it?”, murmurs Keanu Reeves in The Matrix Reloaded, and it really is. So many new games are released with the boast “endless choice” (read “goddamit Peter Molyneux will you stop promising the world”), but so few actually deliver. Or at least deliver with choices that seem to matter. Deus Ex: Invisible War claimed that players would have separate playing experiences, but essentially you have two storylines that aren't really that different to each other, instead of helping Blue, you're helping Red and you don't really feel anything aside from, “fuck yeah... Blue!”.

The Witcher on the other hand gives you choices that make you sit in your chair and say, “well fuck son, this is a horrible situation to be in.”. Things that seem like their obviously moral high ground decisions can result in horrific consequences later on in the game. I decided to play the game in a way that attempted neutrality for as long as possible, but the I realised that by allowing the hate crimes and racism to go without being unanswered so I finally stepped in... and then later on in the game, I ended up regretting stepping in at all, or at least stepping in and backing the other side. Or was it? I have rarely played a game that has made me sit there and question my own motives and wonder about the consequences of my actions.

At one point in the later stages of the game, my decisions and the events that they created and I was appalled at myself. At the time I thought I was genuinely thought I was doing what was morally right, alas, nothing but death, destruction and despair followed in my wake.

Unfortunately nothing is perfect and The Witcher is no exception. Combat is easy and repetitive; just click when the sword icon is yellow. Another point is that you spend so much time going from A to B it's unreal, the game could have greatly benefited from a quick-travel option like in Oblivion.

However, with it's flaws, The Witcher is a great game, with an immersive world full of interesting and compelling characters that offers no illusions of good and evil. Everyone has their own agenda and it's your job, as the player, to try and make the decision that hurts the least amount of people, or that advances your own personal agenda. No one is a white knight in shining armour in this RPG.

The Witcher - 87%