Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

Stevie heads back to the frontline

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Hell's Highway unfolds during World World II's ill-fated Operation Market Garden, which saw Allied forces deliver the largest ever airborne assault down onto Holland in an effort to not only combat German occupation, but to also cross the Rhein and punch all the way though to Berlin.

Despite its grand ambition, Market Garden proved to be a complete failure for U.S. and British troops, racking up more than 17 thousand casualties in a little over a week.

And, in Gearbox Software's latest addition to Ubisoft's longstanding Brothers in Arms franchise, unfolding events in Holland are certainly scant-little more than a convoluted nightmare for returning battlefield squad leader Sgt. Matt Baker.

The narrative in Hell's Highway is built on story points from previous releases, following Baker as he directs multiple squads of U.S. troops against the German menace, and also struggles with the ghostly demons manifesting within him after witnessing the deaths of many friends and comrades in existing series titles.

Beyond its layered and flashback-fuelled plotline, which gradually pans out through in-game cut scenes and doesn't demand too much prior narrative association on the player's part, Hell's Highway remains extremely faithful to its existing, strategy-driven FPS gameplay structure.

For those not familiar, Hell's Highway is primarily a first-person shooter, but it stands separate from the genre thanks to the inclusion of a real-time tactical interface that allows the player to issue various battlefield attack and move orders to multiple squads of ever-willing soldiers.

While players can freely utilise cover to target and dispatch enemies in typical FPS style, the true appeal of Brothers in Arms is supposed to reside in the ability to instruct squads to suppress dangerous MG42 nests, launch bazooka rounds at heavyweight artillery emplacements, or lob grenades at entrenched Nazis - while executing battle-deciding flanking manoeuvres.

Sadly, however, the in-depth core control mechanic ingrained throughout the Brothers in Arms series has largely failed to reach the heady heights Ubisoft would no-doubt like it to reach due to strangely shallow linearity, fractured A.I., and unusually unrewarding gameplay. And, largely inconsequential detail enhancements and intriguing plot aside, Hell's Highway worryingly treads the same path as its predecessors.

Specifically, while mission levels are often rich, expansive and well detailed, their dull set objectives must be tackled in a strictly linear fashion as the game channels squads across pseudo-open areas of country, down restrictive streets, and through cramped, bombed-out buildings.

For example, on-foot objectives see squads tasked with clearing enemy emplacements, taking down hulking howitzers and blowing up Panzer tanks, while occasional solo player and a trio of in-vehicle British tank missions include exactly the same. Indeed, the shocking lack of variety and shoot-and-cover repetition soon usurps the novelty of being a squad leader and the pangs of boredom begin to creep into proceedings well before the game's obligatory "...to be continued" finale.

The main problem with Hell's Highway is that players only truly need squad assistance during the final few missions, which are positively rife with enemy resistance. Up until that point, the vast majority of disappointing challenges can be overcome by adopting a straightforward FPS attitude, which, while defeating the point of the game entirely, is something players may find themselves doing frequently because of the gameplay's biggest failing, its cover system.

Although it works well in the main, allowing players to hug close to the safety of most walls, corridors, piles of rubble, ditches, upturned tables, barrels and more, its patchy execution arises when targeting over window ledges or low obstacles in cramped confines only to have the camera restrict the player's view by being stuck behind Baker's helmet.

Furthermore, the temptation to plough onward with a simple FPS approach is made all the more tangible as most player deaths come about while using precious seconds to quickly peep out of cover to assign orders, at which point Baker cannot fire his equipped weapon. This lack of safety when dispatching orders, which some may interpret as battlefield authenticity, only serves to frustrate due to instructed squad members repeatedly failing to accurately target enemies, and even signing their own death warrants by adopting strategic positions on the wrong side of cover.