I rate Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 1/5. A good idea done very badly. This game should have been called, ‘Bland, Badly-Trained Caricatures with Guns: Erroneous Road to A Grossly Inaccurate Depiction of What Happened at Hill 30.’ If we had actually fought World War 2 in the way this game shows us fighting, we would have lost.

Over 200 historical inaccuracies have been found in this game, many of them major, such as the main character’s unit participating in battles they were never actually at and, at other times, fighting in battles which never happened in the first place. Battles the main character’s unit did actually participate in are shown incorrectly anyhow, missing most of the allied support they had and showing them fighting against enemies (including several enemy tanks) which were not actually present. To make matters worse, the linear, bug-ridden, inconsistent and poorly designed gameplay isn’t even very fun anyhow. There is something wrong with almost every aspect of this game.

It is not that Brothers In Arms: Road to Hill 30 has aged badly. This game was never good to begin with. For example, this game’s AI is garbage. The first Unreal Tournament came out roughly 6 years earlier and also featured AI controlled characters which could follow generalized orders including “defend,” “attack,” “freelance,” “hold this position,” and “cover me.” So long as they had been programmed correctly, if you ordered them to “cover me” they could be relied upon to keep up with you. If you ordered them to “defend” they would attempt to do so, autonomously defending their home base area (and themselves) without being glued to a particular spot. If you actually wanted them to defend a particular spot you could instead order them to “hold this position” which would cause them to defend a much smaller area while still attempting to avoid most incoming enemy firepower as needed. If you ordered them to attack, they would advance towards the nearest enemy (or the enemy’s positions) and attack while still attempting to evade enemy firepower and they could do all this without being micromanaged. Despite their haphazardly fearless combat tactics (there was no way to get them to flank enemy positions or provide covering fire), the AI characters in the first Unreal Tournament (which came out in 1999), were vastly superior to the AI controlled soldiers in Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (which came out in 2005) because at least the Unreal Tournament characters could act aggressively while still autonomously looking out for their own interests.

By contrast, soldiers in Brothers in Arms cannot follow you for long without dying, can barely defend any position from attack and frequently die when attempting to either fire on or assault an enemy position. They frequently get stuck behind walls and bushes, stand around complaining they cannot see the enemy (instead of moving themselves to solve their line of sight issues) and constantly fail to effectively use cover or to even crouch to avoid being shot. Sure, the AI soldiers in Brothers in Arms do move (and can be given specific orders) as though they are in cohesive combat squads but they are incapable of behaving as if they value their own lives and can neither advance nor retreat of their own accord.


Unfortunately, there’s more to why this game is bad other than just generally crummy AI and its numerous historical inaccuracies:

- You cannot aim reliably (unless you get to use the Springfield rifle in certain sections, at which times you inexplicably become an expert marksman). In a misguided attempt to force players into using squad tactics to defeat the enemy (and perhaps to simulate nervousness during combat), you are not allowed to aim your own guns properly. Even at close range there’s at least a 50% chance you’ll be forced to completely miss (even when using fully automatic weapons) and using Iron Sights (aiming carefully) doesn’t seem to help at all. This is severely frustrating and makes NO sense for an elite, military trained paratrooper. It is also an inaccurate and insulting depiction of the level of professional training in the United States Armed Forces.

- You cannot jump over fences or low walls and you cannot sprint. The linear, closed-in level design also results in several places where you run into impassable terrain and doors you cannot open or destroy which prevents you from carrying out several common-sense attempts to flank enemy positions.

- You cannot shoot through fences which clearly have huge gaps in them.

- Inconsistent situations where you may survive direct enemy gunfire from machine gun nests but other specific areas where you may be instantly killed by the same or lesser amount of enemy gunfire.

- AI characters can die in one area only to be mysteriously brought back to life in the next area which completely breaks the game’s sense of immersion.

- This game has a severe lack of gore except in certain plot situations where the gore is used for shock-value. The lack of gore breaks the game’s sense of immersion, decreases the sense of tension and danger and shows an intrinsic lack of respect for what our soldiers endured during the war. War is messy and violent and this violence should be shown honestly. There should at least be violence realism settings in the menu or something.

- Severe censorship of Nazi symbols and uniforms. If you don’t want to be historically accurate and be held to high historical standards, don’t make a World War 2 game that is supposedly about actual World War 2 battles against supposedly actual World War 2 enemy forces.

- Boring, generic, stereotypical characters with bland dialogue. Sergeant “Mac” is probably the most generic and boring depiction of a combat sergeant ever created. The other characters are mostly forgettable as well.

- Several minor bugs occur, such as a character floating in mid-air early in the game or plot critical characters getting hung up on a particular curb late in the game.

- Friendly and enemy units alike have effectively infinite ammo and yet you do not. This decreases immersion.

- The “Situational Awareness” view is totally unrealistic and should not be included in this game at all as no soldier ever has such detailed intelligence information in the field. While playing this game, to make it a little more realistic, I never used this view.

- The game’s extras are locked behind different difficulty levels. This makes the game very tedious if you want to see all the game’s extra, behind the scenes information which it comes with. All this information should be unlocked from the start. The game designers should be happy that you are interested in looking at it at all.

- The lack of any plot choices or alternate endings decrease replay value.


Mediocre stuff about this game:

+/- You can rebind most keys but additional gaming mouse buttons are not recognized (maybe this game is too old). The controls which do work are responsive though.

+/- Boring, forgettable and generic sounding music but at least it isn’t obnoxious.

+/- Boring sound effects though they are useful to hear and don’t get too obnoxious.

+/- Unlockable additional options such as a grayscale “old movie mode” or unlimited ammo mode but like the game's other extras, they must be unlocked by finishing the game on different difficulty levels.


Conclusion:

I really don’t know what most other reviewers (even professional reviewers for publications) were thinking when they reviewed this crummy game, but my experience of Brothers In Arms: Road to Hill 30 has been overwhelmingly negative. I do not recommend playing this game, even if it is somehow given to you for free. Unless you are curious to see just how bad this game is, playing Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 would be a complete waste of your time.