Game Journal: Brothers In Arms 1

Yeah. Technically it's "Brothers In Arms: Road to Hill 30". But I'm not writing that every time.

BiA's a tactical shooter. Find the enemy. Pin them down. Flank and kill them. But it's rarely that simple.

Or maybe it's just me. But I feel like every time I move between cover without every nearby enemy suppressed, I must be doing it wrong. And, like SWAT 4, I don't ever want to lose a squad mate. But I always do. Sometimes they ignore grenades tossed next to them. Sometimes they stand next to enemy tanks I've dropped a grenade into. Sometimes they pathfind stupidly and wander in front of machine gun emplacements.

There are automatic checkpoints, but when I get kicked back for something that wasn't my fault, I get frustrated. I'm working harder here than I would in a standard FPS. So losing progress to stuff like that is more demoralizing.

My first experience in this game was in an internet cafe in Prague. I've just gotten past the point I left off at there. When the tanks come in, it's even easier to instantly lose the game. Enemy tanks will kill your men instantly, and if an enemy takes out your tank, you instantly lose the game.

I've got BiA 2 here. If the first one gets to be a pain, I may see if the sequel suits me better. The reviews on the third game (which came out last month) were pretty meh. In fact, taking a quick look at Game Rankings, it appears that the first game was the highest rated in the series.

Right now, though. Nothing satisfies. The gun combat is supposed to be gimped, and I accept that. But the tactical elements are also pretty gimped, and that's the core of the game. I mean, any time I tell my guys to put fire on a target, they stop moving, which means I have to manually step them up through cover while keeping the enemy suppressed. Plus I have to do all the flanking myself because I can't send them around anything. It's repetitive and dull and feels like work. Gearbox earned my eternal respect with their Half-Life add-ons and Doom deathmatch skills (or skillz, I can never remember the rule about when to use the "z"), but there's a good chance I just won't hang with BiA.

Dear Gearbox,
Please make Aliens and Borderlands super awesome co-op games.
Yours,
Blain

That reminds me... BiA could be a superb co-op game, but has only competitive multiplayer, which has it joining Republic Commando and Jericho as a Crime Against Co-op.

Here's a simple rule. If a game has the word "squad" on the box and has no co-op, the makers should die in a fire.