Retro Review: Brothers in Arms Road to Hill 30 & Earned in Blood
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- čas přidán 13. 06. 2018
- NOTE: I said Earned in Blood and Hell's Highway were "console follow-ups". Obviously they released for the PC as well, no idea why I said that. My mistake.
Brothers in Arms Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood are the closest videogames have ever gotten to a gritty, realistic WW2 drama that also tells an intelligent story.
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I loved brothers in arms, I wish a new one could come out to compete again, and focus entirely on the campaign, make multiplayer an afterthought
personally i think they should focus on Vietnam as a next setting if ever they will revive the series. The 4f's mainly find,flank, fire and finish them would be a great gameplay mechanic for vietnam setting since the vietcongs would always find choke points or run and gun tactics.
As a kid I had Brothers in Arms Road to Hill 30. To this day it's one of my favorite games, I grew up with it. Great video btw..
The first Brothers in Arms Review where someone understands, what it's really about. Thank you, I subscribed.
I think the problem with Earned in Blood's gameplay loop "cracking" occasionally is explained by the fact that it was meant for the people who really "got" Road to Hill 30.
By that I mean it wasn't a direct sequal for those who enjoyed the original, but a high quality, much more polished level pack for those who were seriously dedicated to the genre-defining launch game.
It's quite clear in the opening missions that EiB is different, it's far more difficult and challenging and requires a finesse to just skate by that would be sufficient to breeze through RtH30.
It took two play throughs of the game before I realised this in EiB- it wasn't made for old me, it wasn't even made for those who liked the original game, it was meant to be a true reflection of war, particularly the kind of combat that a light infantry division such as the 101st and 82nd Airborne experienced in Normandy. They weren't equipped with tanks, or truck-mobile artillery, but their enemies *were*, and yet they defeated them because of their brotherhood *earned in blood*.
These were true heroes of a truly heroic battle, fighting insurmountable odds and despite that defeated them and pushed on. The series is a realistic depiction of company-sized combat, and when you introduce combined-arms against a lone platoon of paratroopers, as commonly occurred, the gameplay will break down *as it did in real life*, and require heroic actions beyond what was deemed fair or possible, mechanically or otherwise.
Road to Hill 30 was a simulation game, but Earned in Blood was a high-art depiction of true heroics. I appreciate Earned in Blood more than most other games I return to over the years precisely because of the nature of it's source material and the attempt to understand and portray it through rather simple code.
The gameplay was so much fun especially multiplayer where you v someone with fireteams each.
personally, i think they should focus on Vietnam as a next setting if ever they will revive the series. The 4f's mainly find,flank, fire and finish them would be a great gameplay mechanic for vietnam setting since the vietcongs would always find choke points or run and gun tactics. I liked how the game is technically also an rts game and due to the game mechanics being brutal i.e inaccurate and eratic guns you are forced to be tactical.
I just got to say that your videos are AMAZING! It is a crime that not many are exposed to this quality work. I am not a youtuber so I don't know how to attract more followers but I would like to encourage you to keep it up! Being a gamer for 30 years I have come to appreciate the complexities and depth of videogames. You have illustrated them both in this review.
Now when these games came around I played the demo and I didn't appreciate the complexity and the slow craw that this game requires. I just tried to be Rambo because that is what you do with all of the other FPS war games at that time. So I was frustrated and gave up on it. Now that I am older and less rash in my play style I think I am going to pick up this game again just because of all the points you have made for this game. So thank you and keep at it!
Wow, thanks! It's a game/series I've always thought was underrated. Hopefully we haven't seen the end of it.
-Tyler
Hayse, I think a lot of people get frustrated and give up when first starting to play this game. It's so unlike most shooters; no run 'n gun. Brothers In Arms requires practice and patience; caution, thoughtfulness and good decision-making. It takes awhile to learn how to anticipate and eliminate Jerry without panicking and getting killed. To understand your men depend on you and you on them to find, fix, flank and finish. To learn control inputs and make them reflexive. By design, marksmanship is less effective/important than suppression and flanking. Recognizing this paramount feature in BIA is key to successful and satisfying gameplay. There's a lot to learn in this game if you experiment, explore and take the time. Truly a classic and never gets old in comparison to others. As mentioned, hope you've given this another whack.
I was 23 and had just purchased my first surround sound rig. Playing RTH30 and EiB full blast was such a satisfying experience. That mg42 really worked that sub. I played the hell out of those games!
It's cool that they put suppressing and flanking as a viable tactic in a videogame but its not enough to carry an entire campaign. I was expecting more in regards to the tactics you could implement in this game especially considering just how awesome Hidden & Dangerous 2 was and that came out 2 years before BiA RTH30. Hell, even in 1999 with Unreal Tournament you could issue more commands to bots then you could to your squad in this game.
Socom was my military game introduction, i love the weapon and accessory selection importance in the gamec:
I love combined Assault, such a good game with a Nice story and soundtracks, def a place on my heart for socom's franchise
Great review on 2 great WW2 games.👍🏻
I LOVED COD 2 and 3 on 360. But BIA is the most authentic.
Fantastic video perhaps the best I've seen for this series I'm damn surprised your only at 7k this skill rivals that of youtubers with the 10ks or even 100ks
Those games are so fucking glorious... i really love them, truly a gem.
I enjoyed the BiA series immensely, and especially appreciated the "take cover" capability and better aiming of Hell's Highway. The squad dynamic was funky at first and took a little practice to get comfortable with the suppress and flank tactics, but it definitely made the game more interesting, and the outcomes better. I don't play the games much any more, but still come back to CZcams from time to time to revisit. It's always frustrating when I start watching a playthrough by somebody who's trying to do the game like a CoD one man army!
personally, i think they should focus on Vietnam as a next setting if ever they will revive the series. The 4f's mainly find,flank, fire and finish them would be a great gameplay mechanic for vietnam setting since the vietcongs would always find choke points or run and gun tactics. I liked how the game is technically also an rts game and due to the game mechanics being brutal i.e inaccurate and eratic guns you are forced to be tactical.
I like the emphasis on smaller scale battles, and a more realistic depiction of WW2, at least compared to MoH and CoD. The problem for me is, the squad a.i. system, much like in Rainbow Six Vegas, another Ubisoft shooter with similar squad/tactical mechanics. Despite Gearbox's attempt to make the a.i. intelligently find the nearest cover and begin returning fire without needing to be to told, I still find the a.i. system to be way too clunky to actually be useful or effective in combat. I find myself constantly baby-sitting and hand-holding the tank, even just to drive it!. I can't just point to somewhere on the other side of the map and have it drive itself there in a logical manner. Every few feet I have to point out, "go here," "okay go here," "now go here," etc. a thousand times. If I try to set up my tank to suppress here and my squad to flank there, it just never works out the way I want to. Squaddies decide to run in the open in line of fire and land up getting themselves killed. Or I accidentally control the wrong squad and now my men are running where I wanted the tank to go. It just feels too cumbersome and annoying to constantly hand-hold the friendly a.i., and nearly impossible to coordinate this way while reacting to German soldiers at the same time. Idk, maybe I just suck at RTS games, since this is kind of an FPS merged with some RTS mechanics. Or maybe, despite my complete burnout on Call of Duty, I kind of miss its intuitive if still very stupid a.i. who at least can take cover and shoot enemies on their own without constant attention. Kind of sad that the one major attraction of this game--the squad mechanics--is a bit of a letdown. The only shooter of the era with a similar squad system but actually done well was Star Wars: Republic Commando. I've yet to see another competitor match it.
personally, i think they should focus on Vietnam as a next setting if ever they will revive the series. The 4f's mainly find,flank, fire and finish them would be a great gameplay mechanic for vietnam setting since the vietcongs would always find choke points or run and gun tactics. The emphasis on smaller scale battles would fit a vietnam type game. I liked how the game is technically also an rts game and due to the game mechanics being brutal i.e inaccurate and eratic guns you are forced to be tactical.
I don't know man.. For me only bia can match bia.
The first two are amazing!! So fun. Hell's Highway though....hot garbage imo.
Good game. But the story and characters were hilariously cheesy. I don’t care about the characters.
If their was perma death - and you have a pool of set recruits - that would of been awesome.
It would be more realistic, but less fun and would probably make future levels impossible to beat later on. So realistically you would land up simply replaying old missions till none of your squad mates died, which just isn't fun from a video game perspective.
@@UnchainedEruption perma death is actually fun
Socom was my military game introduction, i love the weapon and accessory selection importance in the gamec: