Head Shot!
editor@playthismag.com
Hell’s Highway (HH) in the next installment in the Brothers in Arms series that places you into WW2 as Baker, experiencing the war as he would.While the story line and cinematics of the game are rather nice, the game play makes Hell’s High way bleak and tiresome.
To quickly sum this game up is best done as a glorified version of wack-a-mole. The skill required in this game is more so based on luck and timing and a majority of the game you simply pop up, shoot at an enemy and go back to hiding. There are a few other portions of this game and the multiplayer is weak at best. While the sound and graphics of the game are awesome it does not push it to a “good” game status.
Graphics & Cinamatics: Hells Highway is clearly a next generation console game as the graphics are great and the cut scenes or cinamatics for the game are rather bad ass. It feels as if you are in the midst of the mini series Band of Brothers with some terrible game play in the middle of it. Honestly if there was a bit less of the tedious game play it would pass off as a decent game. Graphics are good, but not great and there seems to be some issues with their rag doll effect. Some instances such as pictured below are cases where a small pile of rubble can prevent you from walking trough an area.3/5
This small pile of crap prevents a soldier from exploring the world.
Music & SFX: One of our favorite thing about a war based game (aside from high destructibility to the surrounding world) is premo SFX for gun fire, explosions and blood squirting from your victims. The SFX in Hells Highway were spot on and made for a great experience even if the game was weak. 5/5
Gameplay: HH has a rather bad ass and pretty deep story line (for
video game) but the game play was terrible. Gamers are allowed to outsmart their enemies and suppress them with their extended arms or squads provided but more often then not, all they can do is shoot at walls. They often miss targets, especially your bazooka team that could make your life easier when taking out artillery, often shoot a corner or small thing in the way of the rocket, taking out most of that squad. The destruct ability in this game is almost non-existent. When shooting a tank at a wall you expect to see some damage or even smoke, but this yields nothing. Later in the game you can shoot out some windows but that’s about it.
The physical game play that takes up a majority of the game requires you to hide behind some sort of cover, pop up and use suppressing fire and simply wait for the enemy to poke their head out. Half the time enemies are so poorly placed that you can still pop shots at their legs until they die. Head shots are also the most ridiculous thing in the game, half of your shots will cause a cut scene to show your enemies head getting blown in half. While this is good old fashion gory goodness after the 30th head shot you get bored. 2/5 and this is being modest.
Just a bit buggy
Multiplayer: HH has a rather weak multiplayer mode, which resembles that of Day of Defeat (modded Steam game). While it does resemble that of DOD it has the terrible game play like that of the rest of HH. The easiest way to play is by rushing to a location in the middle of the map and camping out till enemies come by, other than that there is such a small amount of people wanting to play causing the maps to be much to large. Basically it’s boring as hell and not worth the time. 2/5
Replayability: HH has some of the most pathetic gameplay causing the replayability to be just a terrible. What’s worse is that the AI is based on a one pattern program, meaning each time you restart a level they go to the exact same place as before. Even playing Hells Highway on harder difficulties makes little impact in playing the game again, although the story is also decent, it’s not something you really want to go back too. It would seem the more difficult you make the game the less resistant you are to enemies. 1/5
Achievements: Achievements in the game are pretty easy with exception of the finding of hidden objects. KILLROYS are the biggest pain in the ass in the game. Penciled in artwork that you have to find in obscure locations is not exactly a fun activity. In all the achievements are easy to get but you won’t rack up without some effort. 4/5
Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway receives a 2.5/5 
Did someone lose something?
