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Brothers in Arms: Earned In Blood

Let’s face it, we’re all a bit tired of shooting Nazis (excluding the recent Call of Duty 2 on the Xbox 360). We’ve done it a billion times in countless Medal of Honor games and seen it happen on the big screen plenty in movies like Saving Private Ryan. It’s a part of what made us the American citizens we are today, forging our future on the backs of fallen Germans. Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 provided a fun, refreshing take on what has become the common knowledge of those who’ve struggled during that war.

Taking strong first-person play and combining it with the strategy of squad-based tactics, Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 managed to mesh the two together into a new game that required much more than pointing your reticle at an enemy and hitting the fire button. Another apsect of that game that also surprised was the unforgiving enemy AI. Well, with Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood all of these things return, for the most part, to provide more backstory of the war, this time through the eyes of Corporal Joe “Red” Hartsock.

The game begins with a botched landing in a French field during night, as you meet up with a couple of other guys and manage to find a squad. As the game progresses and losses begin to pile up, Hartsock eventually gains the role of 2nd squad leader, gaining control of 3 fire teams. Coordinating your comrades’ attacks, suppressing bunkered down enemies, and flanking enemy positions are the essentials if you wish to survive this tour.

The game’s story is brought alive through excellent cinematic presenation through flashbacks told by Hartsock as he debriefs Colonel Marshall. This isn’t to say that the story development is all progressed through dialogue, as plenty of things occur on-screen through the perspective of Hartsock. The rich display of the game’s cutscenes along with the wonderful voice work and epic music all come together to bring the powerful and emotional story of these men to life. Being real individuals and an actual tale of truth pertaining to what they went through during that hellish time, the material is handled tastefully and presents the player with the emotions of the conflict.

Getting back to the squad-based gameplay, should you be unfamiliar with the first game’s approach to squad-based play, Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood employs a control scheme not very different then that of Ubi Soft’s popular Rainbow Six franchise. Adapted to be better suited to the situation, here the tactics are much more focused on out-flanking and suppressing the enemy, rather than success through stealth. You’ll be able to issue commands to your allies such as follow, move, and take cover. When your buddies encounter an enemy while moving, they’ll automatically take that guy out.

Encountering an enemy squad hunkered down behind a sandbag enclosure, you’ll first want to issue a suppressing fire command to your first squad. This is as easy as pointing your reticle at the enemy squad and holding in a button to begin suppressing the enemy. Your comrades will then begin to unleash a barrage of bullets, with a small red circle being displayed above the enemies. The more your team fires, the more this circle will turn from red to grey, dictating the length of time with which that squad is going to stay down from fear of death by firing squad. It’s then time to issue a command to your other squad to move around to the side and flank them, waiting until the enemy pops back up before sending them back down permanently. While this approach to the game was acceptable in the Xbox version of the game, the enemy AI in the PS2 version is severely stunted and allows for one general exploit to be used to progress through the entire game.

While the enemies adapted to your approach and adjusted accordingly in the Xbox version, they only really hold their position and just flat-out kamikaze rush you on the PS2. What this allows is for the player to just order suppressing fire to get a good vantage point on their position, tell their teammates to hold still, and snipe the ensuing rush of those troops. It takes all of the strategy and difficulty out of what was an otherwise exemplary experience.

Multiplayer for Earned in Blood allows you to go through any of the single-player chapters cooperatively or you could choose to play any one of the other modes available. Defense mode is just that, you defend a position from countless waves of enemy troops. Timed Assault mode drops you in a map filled with enemies and an amount of time. Every enemy you kill gives you more time, and you’re scored based on how much time you have remaining following all enemy deaths. Tour-of-Duty mode allows you to see just how tough a soldier you are as you go through 5 consecutive missions with just one fire squad and one life.

So while Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood arguably doesn’t provide much more in the way of improving upon the original formula, and manages to totally demolish the fantastic enemy AI on the trip over to Sony’s console, it’s still not that bad of a title. With a fresh take on your run-of-the-mill World War II FPS, Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood presents a gripping, emotional story that’s unparalleled by most modern games today. Those who can manage to pick this up on the Xbox or the PC would find the experience much more enjoyable.

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Posted by David Hinkle on Jan 5th, 2006 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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