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"Bring the Boys Home!"
I've been with BiA since Road the Hill 30 (RTH30 for short) and was relunctantly excited to recieve this installment.
The Story alone should be commemorated for it's heartfelt "War is Hell" emphasis. Its based off of the true events of Operation Market Garden, the largest Airborne invasion in World War 2. There plan was simple, open up a highway for the allies, win the war by Christmas. Unfortunately, the Germans closed off the corridor, leaving our men Screwed. This highway became Hell's Highway, a tragic and emotional battle for survival.
You'll be stepping into the Boots of Matt Baker. A Squad leader who is starting to slip into states of Shell-Shock. Hes a great character (Who resembles a more Poetic young man, then the typical "Average Joe")
He is haunted by Dead Squad mates, who he feels regret for (He believes it was his own actions that got them killed) as anyone would.
Now then, The Sound Design.
Its Brilliant. When you arent hearing the petrified screams from your Companions about what the next Plan of Action is, your ears are screaching from a nearby grenade blast or ringing from the sound of Assault Rifles in the distance.
Which bring me to this, Cover is the name of the game. If you play this as a "Run & Gun" Call of Duty type game you may, scratch that, WILL be killed. Enemies need to be Supressed (This can be viewed by the supression meter visible above their heads
Red: Dont Even think so
Grey: Its all good, Flank away)
What makes the Tactical Planning and execution fun, is the Squad AI. They are smart enough to find cover while under fire, rarely ever run into the open, and will sometimes even question your judgement.
Additionally, there is an added feature called a "Kill-Cam". This feature is very welcome, as it zooms in on a target that you have taken down by a headshot, a grenade, or a well-placed bazooka shot. The only problem is, it happens entirely to randomly, but even that isnt an issue to gripe at.
I just have to give Kudos to the developers at Gearbox for the realistic Squad characters. They become people you can easily grow attached to, and it really saddens you when one dies. They crack jokes, swear at Krauts, and even look you in the eye when awaiting an order.

The Environments are Stellar as well. Each area you engage the enemy in is literally a Puzzle. There is more then one way to get past each area, and the game is pretty leanuent on how you choose to. Its very satisfying to force enemy units from controlling a Good 75% of a battlefield, and with some expert planning, force them into containing less that 5%.

To Wrap this up, Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway is a memorable Action experience that all should experience. It really does bring the "War is hell" aspect to a whole new level.

It should be called Brother against Brother...
World war 2 was not something to be proud of. SeeHuman Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization or The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945 It devastated Europe and destroyed many great men, AND MILLIONS OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN. Politics, propaganda (from academia, to movies, and even comic books), and ego of world leaders brought us in on the side of England. We allied with the worst mass-murderer maybe of all time with the largest real death-camps STALIN, and plunged half of Europe into communist opression for 50 years. England should not have fought Germany, and they did not have to. Neither did we. We all should have fought WITH Germany if anything. If we had not done numerous covert acts of war against Japan, they never would have attacked. The world would be MUCH better off today if we had fought WITH Germany. They were our people, from the heart of Europe. We messed up BIG TIME. Now in every European-majority nation, we are being overrun and destroyed. Our birth rates are way below replacement. We are winking out of existence as a race -- going extinct. WHY WOULD I WANT MY KIDS TO PLAY THIS GAME?? IT IS POLITICAL NONSENSE. IT IS A HORROR. IT WOULD BE PROBABLY BE MUCH BETTER FOR THEM IN THE LONG RUN TO PLAY X-RATED GAMES. They should come out with a game where you play as the Germans, complete with kids and old men fighting desperately to save their (and it turns out our) world -- and getting firebombed to put this in perspective. THAT was HELL.

Other than that, the gameplay is good. if you don't think about the horror of it, it is a good game.

boring
It is obvious the rave reviews were written by people with an agenda. Web reviews have become blogs for employees of the game manufacuters. This game is repetitive to the extreme. The controls are complicated and most the time don't work in time to keep SSgt. Baker alive. "Press A to vault over obstacles" is mind numbing, slow and a good way to get killed. When "dug in" he keeps rotating back and forth so much you can't aim properly. I have never played a game such as this [with the exception of "Gears of War"] that is so repetitive and is an invitation to develop carpal tunnel syndrome. To place it in the same category as Battlefield: Bad Company [the funniest and most fun Xbox 360 game yet developed] or Call of Duty 4 is rediculous. Not even close. Ignore any review over 3 stars with this one. Col. Antal is getting paid by Ubisoft and, from a former USMC combat infantry officer, should be ashamed of himself for even mentioning the real combat soldiers in Afghanistan/Iraq in the same breath.

My impressions after passing BIA.
First of, let me just mention this, the game is good!!!. How good depends on you, but certainly a lot of fun and challenging. Its not hard, but you have to think, no rush and gun gameplay here.

Let me start with the controls. The controls take getting used to. It took me about 30 to 60 minutes to learn, a long time. You can change the controller's button layout, but they are all predetermined, and none are exactly what you want. A custom layout would have been welcomed. You can hardly turn when you run, but you get used to it.

The game has a LOT of glitches, from guys walking infinitely toward a wall, to you pressing the zoom button only to recognize two second later the game never registered that you are pressing the button, so he never zooms and you have to release the trigger and press it again. This still doesn't take away from the fun, which is amazing.

The game is simple and complicated at the same time. Lemme explain. Its simple in you move from one field to another and you find cover, and then flank them so you can shoot them yourself. Its complicated as the commands you issue aren't always followed (dam you bazooka team, always dying on me, when I tell you to move, MOVE!!!).

Multiplayer is HORRIBLE. I dont wish it on anyone. It is torture. It was just put in as a feature. Its the same mechanics as the single player, (so bad controls!!!), and basically there are two flags on the stage to capture. You are assigned to a squad and CANT change,so you are stuck with said squad's weapon loadout, not fun.

The story is well written and will keep you interested, but I had a hard time remembering who is who as the graphic are mostly Xbox 1 quality. Most memorable moments where setting up an ambush against incoming enemies in a warehouse in 10 seconds and watch as my team makes it to position just in time and slaughters them without any help. The tank segments are fun, and the areas are well planned and make you think everytime. Definitely a must play, but I can't justify its $60 dollar price tag to everyone. This is not a typical FPS game, but a lot of fun if you get into it.

Brothers in Arms: Shell's Highways (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Joke!)
Picture it. September, 1944, Holland. The top allied commanders have put together a daring plan to create a corridor through the Netherlands and punch through the German lines and into Germany to end the war by Christmas. This is operation Market Garden. You play Sergeant Matt Baker, the returning protagonist from the first game (although not the second!) Anyone whose played the first game (or second, maybe) will know that a great deal of these games deal with the adverse psychological affects of war on our little human protagonist.

Baker, Sgt. Baker, is the commander of a squad, and thus has multiple teams under his command. These teams include, and are limited too, a machine gun team, a base of fire team, an assault team, and a bazooka team. Each team has their own specialties and functions (mg team can suppress multiple enemies, bazooka team levels cover, etc), and you'll have to use them to the best of their ability if you want to make it through unscathed. Actually, it is a lot easier in this outing to just rally your team around you and charge in, but you will stall up during the more difficult part of the game.

In general regards to gameplay, this is more of the same from the old games, which attempted to reinvent the World War II shooter genre subcategory by being a 'realistc' squad based shooter . Find, fix, flank, and finish continues to be the principle philosophy and strategy. New to this outing however is a Rainbow six-esque cover system (where it switches to third person when taking cover) and the old health system is gone, this time replaced with a "risk" system, if you will (and you will). Basically, if you put yourself in a dangerous situation, the screen will go red; stay unsafe long enough, and someone's gonna clip you. It seemed as if there was a problem with this risk system, as to me it felt like the way your risk was calculated was "are you being shot at" "yes? then are you taking cover". Many times I was behind cover, just crouching without leaning against the wall, and was still getting a red screen. Other times I'd be up against cover and enemies would be on my flank shooting at me from where I wasn't covered, and I'd take no red.

But wait, mister, this is supposed to be a more story driven game, correct? Well, I wouldn't say story driven per se, but I would say there is a heavy focus on the characters in this game. Each of the character has a unique personality, and also have three things they'll say repeatedly during combat (usually along the line of "we should probably flank 'em boss"). Baker is the sensitive leader, who takes it hard if he loses one of his men. So we get to see Baker's psychological deteoration during market garden (as you may know was the real last allied defeat). These psychological deteorations manifest themselves through flashbacks, hallucinations of fallen comrades, and visual distortion effects (which take place in a spooky abandoned hospital, a level which nicely showcases the developers attention to Baker's character).

But Brothers in Arms Heck's Highway (or BIA:HH as its known on the streets) does have a few problems. For a game that's supposed to have an interesting story with cool unique characters and such, it could have had better voice acting (some of them are pretty good, but others, like Red, deliver their lines without sympathy or emotion, merely reading off a script.) Speaking of script, it was somewhat weak; it lacked the realness and punch that I could have sworn were in the other games. I don't know whose fault it was, maybe the actors just didn't read it with the right something, or maybe they didn't have something good to read. Either way, it left a bad taste in my mouth. Like week old Indian food. Or fresh English food.

Other problems include late-texture pop in (where the ground and models are smooth and then a second later the texture loads in). This detracts from the overall sense of realism and the convincingness of the game, but really it wasn't too bad, just a minor annoyance. I also got trapped in a tank once. On that topic, the tank levels were alright, but the tank controls are the wonkiest vehicle controls I have possibly ever seen in a video game (akin to the terrible mako controls in Mass Effect).

But the hands down biggest problem was with Glitched out enemies. I only encountered this maybe twice, but it was EXTREMELY aggravating. An enemy would stand out in the middle of the battle field, behind no cover whatsoever. I'd shoot him. Nothing. I'd pour whole clips in to him. Nothing. They would only die when I had my team mate take them out. Sucks you out of the experience.

Multiplayer: Unpolished and tacked on. Not worth it, doesn't contend with the big boys (halo 3, cod 4) and probably won't pull you away for more than the five minutes it takes to make you realise you don't like it.

All in all, the game's alright. Pretty much the same as other BIA games, which while not bad, the lack of innovation blocks this game from getting full points.

4 out of 5.