Your finest hour

Brothers in Arms: Hill 30.

Brothers in Arms: Hill 30
Xbox

The game: It’s the night before D-Day, 1944. The soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division are about to be dropped into Normandy behind enemy lines. You are Sergeant Baker, the lead of your paratrooper squad, and you must push hard to ensure you can fight and survive through eight harrowing days that will define history, and unite you forever as brothers in arms.

The play: A first person shooter that shows that war is about strategy – information, manoeuvre, and bravery- and the willingness to give all in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Every step over different terrain has a sound effect and the rattling of your equipment changes depending upon what you are carrying. Bullets whistle by from right to left and even bullets impacting the dirt sound real. The controls are simple and easy to adjust to allowing rapid play for both the hardcore and mainstream gaming audience.

The terrain: The scenery is genuine and it obliterates in realistic fashion under different weapon effects, large clumps of dirt replacing trees and bushes with bright orange flashes rapidly becoming incoming fire. Your vision will become splattered with blood and dirt and if a grenade detonates close by the screen goes white and an intense ringing is heard as you slowly pick yourself up to resume the fight.

The experience: Multiplayer mode is a little different to the traditional with objective based games where players (up to four) each command a team to achieve the objective – it’s interesting and no one stops you from all out carnage anyway so if that’s all you want to do then feel free. There’s no unlimited ammunition and all weapons are authentic to the time, but after a few minutes on the battlefield all you have to do is walk over to your recently departed enemy to continue to battle his band of brothers. A good title well worth the investment.

– Sqn-Ldr Nick Hogan

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