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Brothers in Arms: Earned In Blood

Let’s face it, we’re all a bit tired of shooting Nazis. 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 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’ attack, 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 to 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 tastfully 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 holding down the left trigger and pointing your firearm at the enemy squad, releasing the trigger when the crosshair icon shows. They’ll then begin to unlease 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. This is the kind of rinse and repeat approach you’ll take throughout the entirety of the game, but what keeps things from getting stale is the adaptable enemy AI.

Enemies now adapt to your flanking by retreating to different positions. If you’re taking on two enemy squads, each behind a wall structure or bunker enclosure, and squad A is flanked and taken out by your buddies, squad B is going to notice and compensate when you try to do the same with them. So upon sending your other fire squad over to flank B, they’ll retreat to the side of a dilapidated structure or even maybe begin to flank your other fire squad. It’s this adaptability and tenacity that make every second of Earned in Blood a great game.

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 , it’s still an excellent and rewarding game. 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 and viscous, difficult, yet rewarding gameplay to match. Every inch of progress in this game will be earned not in blood, but sweat from your brow, and your strategic mind will be rewarded with a sense of accomplishment few games can offer.

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Posted by David Hinkle on Oct 27th, 2005 and is filed under Reviews, Xbox 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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