by: John Olin

October 15, 2005

Brother in Arms; Earned in Blood isn’t like any other shooter I have ever played, World War II themed or not. The game has a presentation that could be considered a bit clichéd with its music, themes, tone, and so on, but it is still done fairly well. You get a sense of accuracy especially with the ‘History Channel’ seal of approval on the back of the packaging. Still this is one of those games that definitely aren’t for everyone. The game has supremely well done A.I., with more tactics than actual shooting involved.

The game is actually based from true events of course, and will soon be made into a television special on The History Channel. It takes place during the landing in Normandy in France, and you play as corporal Joe “Red’ Hartsock. If you played the first Brother in Arms game, ‘Road to Hill 30’ a lot of what is in ‘Earned in Blood’ will definitely be familiar to you. The first thing about the game that gets your attention is of course the presentation. Immediately when you turn on the game the music sounds like it is from a World War II show or movie. This can be good in many cases, and sometimes, it seems like I said before, a bit clichéd. At any rate the music in the game can be repetitive as well but it is still done very good and you get the sense of the Americans struggle with the Nazi forces. The voices are done well for the most part, but the dialogue they speak can sometimes be painful to hear, especially since it sounds like the writer of the game just watched a bunch of War movies and ripped the dialogue straight from them. Strangely, and annoyingly so, whenever you are meeting up with someone new, learning something, or talking to someone you stop in your tracks and can’t move. That isn’t really a sound issue but it is annoying nonetheless. The sounds around you, specifically the gunfire, mortar explosions, bombs, grenades, and tanks all sound 100% accurate and beautifully created. You are given a huge sense of immersion because of that aspect of the sound.

Visually the game is mixed, as it is using the now aging Unreal Engine 2. The faces while done well, seem too bright and big-eyed, sometimes coming off as caricatures of real men. The colors while appropriately muddy sometimes aren’t very detailed, and it doesn’t look like any part of this game is pushing the Xbox’s might. The game also seems to stumble a bit on frame rate in certain spots with more enemies on the screen and more going on. At one point, the frame rate started to chug at under ten frames. Still the visuals suit the game, and other than those minor complaints they are done well.

As for the actual gameplay, it takes some getting used to, and has a certain amount of depth that those disgruntled Halo 2 and Medal of Honor fans might have been urning for. Besides firing yourself, you command up to two different fireteams at a time. By using some simple commands you are told through a tutorial in the beginning of the game, you can order troops to certain positions, order them to fire on positions, order them to throw grenades, order them to charge, or them to follow you, order them to take cover, and more. If you are a bit sloppy with your orders, the AI in the game on your side is extremely intelligent and will make up for that, assuming correctly where is best to go. The best example of this is, you tell them to follow, you see some Nazis you direct them to fire in that area, and when you do they hide behind a stack of logs. The Nazi are hiding behind some crates. When you fire at someone, they have a meter, when the meter goes from red to grey; they are less likely to fire and more likely to take cover. This is when you sneak around the building, behind the crates and plug one in their head with your gun. Even the gun work in the game is done differently. To fire without using your sight would mean a random shot, as you are given no cursor to aim at. Then when you fire, the recoil kicks back so realistically that firing more than two shots at a time will have you firing two feet over the Nazi’s heads.

If you get confused about positions you can always press the Select button and look at the entire area above you, inspecting what is tactically viable in your situation. This element of tactics, which is the key element of the game, might not sit right with some gamers, and that is why this game definitely isn’t for everybody. This is more evident that while you are having your squad flank the enemy, when you sneak up on them, they realize your position much sooner, and will run up on you beating you down and shooting you in the head. As the game progresses you have less chances to take out ducking Nazi forces and they will actually advance on your position rather than the other way around. So basically, no amount of running and gunning will get you through Earned in Blood. So this game might be more for the Tom Clancy players rather than the Unreal Tournament and Halo players.

As for how long the game is, you will be playing the game for at least eight hours depending on how well you are at games like this. Some people might actually take up to twenty. The thing about it is, you have a lot of maze type areas, and areas where the game unrealistically blocks you off in some areas. Why can these soldiers jump out of planes but they can’t clear five feet over some crates? Little things like this will get under your skin. The good thing about the game is that it understands that ‘War isn’t fair but this isn’t war it’s a videogame’ and if you are stuck in an area it will replenish everything for you including fallen members of your squad.

The Xbox Live portion of the game still keeps with the nature of the campaign, and lets you cooperate with another online to try and take over some missions, or you can also have another player on the Xbox through split-screen. There are more difficult modes in the game, that are sometimes timed, or require a certain amount of kills but they are all very basic. Still even with my better connection I had problems, and sometimes it is hard to find a person who will cooperate with you. Still, if you find someone who is willing to play right, it will definitely help you sharpen your skills within the rest of the title.

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Brother in Arms: Earn in Blood is a very deep and engaging game. The AI in the game is extremely well done, almost to a point where it may be to hard for some. With some practice anyone could definitely be a pro at this game but it takes a good while. If you played the first game, Road to Hill 30 and liked it you should definitely pick it up. It is definitely unique but visually it could have been a bit better, and some of the game seems to cliché so hard, it makes fun of itself.

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