Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

Gearbox is back with their third installation in the Brothers in Arms series, Hell’s Highway. Like the previous two titles, (Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood), the game is a WWII shooter that focuses on real-time strategy and tactics.

In Hell’s Highway, you meet up with characters from the previous games, Matt Baker and Joe “Red” Hartsock, as they join the 101st Airbone to take part in Operation Market Garden. Operation Market Garden was a real campaign conducted during WWII during September 1944, where the Allies made a concerted effort to push into Germany by aerial assault. A 40s-era version of the Dutch city Eindhoven was re-created for the game, from aerial photography taken during the assault. From all accounts the recreation is spot on, with everything in the city fleshed out, including bicycles, cobblestone paths, gardens, and terrified citizens running around the town as you wreak havoc.

While the premise of Hell’s Highway is the same as the two previous games, there have been certain improvements and changes made, including giving players the ability to move to a prone position, as well as crouch and stand. This should give players a considerable advantage in the combat zone. Players will also get the opportunity to command three squads (compared to two in previous games). These squads will change depending on the objective, and could be any combination of mortar squad, radio man, bazooka team and machine gun squad.

Another change to previous games is the inclusion of what Gearbox has dubbed “bro-mo”, or “brotherhood moments”. It’s a game system which is meant to emphasise the human element of all this fighting. Basically what happens during bro-mos is that the game will take over the control during these moments, and the game can even go into slo-mo. If a squadmate trips and starts to fall (an apparent bro-mo), the game will take over and make your character help him up. The effect of this is meant to emphasise characters, with their own stories and histories. I just hope it won’t be cheezy.

In addition to all the solo gameplay, Gearbox has developed Hell’s Highway with multiplayer in mind. There will be the standard deathmatch and capture the flag shenanigans, but there will also be a multiplayer co-op mode, where you can go through a campaign with a friend.

By all accounts the game will be playable on both XP and Vista, as well as Xbox 360 and PS3. The XP resolution comes up bottom of the heap, with the 360 and PS3 well above that. Vista players, however, will get the most bang for their buck.

Hell’s Highway is slated for release sometime towards the end of June.