Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood Review (no fat)

Game Description

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood is the sequel to the hugely successful ‘Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30’ – this now being the second game of a title that has been billed as ‘The highest rated WWII Action Series to date’. It features stunning graphics, excellent Gameplay and a simple but versatile squad-based combat system. Earned in Blood takes place in the depth of WWII France behind enemy lines, and with an impressive focus given to squad and enemy AI it gives the player a definite feeling of being right in the middle of the action.

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood Gameplay

The Brothers in Arms series features an objective, and squad, based combat system. As well as having all the traditional FPS aspects, the player can issue orders to any of their squad mates using a simple mouse click. The game also features a ‘Situational Awareness’ mode, in which the immediate surroundings can be viewed from a birds-eye position – allowing you to plan your tactics against the entrenched Axis defenses.

Where Road to Hill 30 earned slack for a lack of enemy movement and intuition, Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood sees Axis squads who aren’t afraid to move around a little, retreat, and even attempt to counter the simple ‘flank and clear’ tactics that almost felt like an exploit in the original.

Missions are often interspersed with dialogue between you and your squad, adding to the immersive experience. Everything in the game is authentic – from the photographed real locations to having fired actual WWII weapons to record the sound effects.

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood Squads

One of the central features of the Band of Brothers series is its focus on Squad Based Combat. As the leader of a small platoon its possible issue orders to your team, who respond accordingly with some top-notch AI. A simple movement order will have them check the location for an enemy presence, and if necessary find cover and offer light covering fire. It’s also possible to send attack orders, or to instruct your companions to storm an enemy position. As the game progresses, the player may find themselves commanding not only fellow infantry, but artillery and vehicles.

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood Combat

Earned in Blood features a large array of WWII weapons, which look, sound and fire in a completely authentic manner. The developers have sacrificed the arcade feel that some similar titles are often accused of, in favor of a darker, gritty, realistic experience. Aiming at enemies is difficult - and simply pointing and unloading clips from automatic weapons is unlikely to yield much success.

Tactics are important too – it’s no use simply rushing an enemy position. Using the terrain, flanking, and utilizing your squads’ ability to provide intense covering fire all go towards making a successful strike.

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood Missions

As you progress through missions, you encounter enemies at set locations (although the system is much more flexible since ‘Road to Hill 30’. You move from encounter to encounter, and for the most part need to utilize your squad and environment to overcome your opponent. In some cases you will be clearly outmatched, and will need to think up clever strategies in order to defeat the enemy squads. Using the ‘Situational Awareness’ mode allows you to plan out these strategies without accidentally running headfirst into an ambush.

One of the big new features in Earned in Blood is a full multiplayer system, as well as several new Gameplay modes – one of which being a ‘Defensive’ game, in which the objectives are to hold a position and defeat incoming troops, rather than always having to be the one pushing forward.

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood Extras

As with Road to Hill 30, Earned in Blood is not only extremely historically accurate, but it also offers a vast amount of historical content that can be unlocked by the player. Ranging from information on rifles and weaponry, to looking at the real locations used to make the game, there’s plenty of ‘side content’ to keep any budding enthusiast happy.

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood - 2cent

Although Earned in Blood has fixed a large number of the ‘problems’ that hindered Road to Hill 30, it’s title of ‘sequel’ is questionable – the game feels much more like a large add-on, with some, but not huge amounts of new content.

The new multiplayer and Gameplay modes are a huge step forward, as is the ‘fixing’ of the enemy squad AI/aggressiveness. However, Earned in Blood covers a lot of the same ground (literally, in some cases) as Hill 30, and only visits a small handful of new locations and environments.

The squad based combat may be a turn-off for players used to a much more arcade feel (…where lone gunmen can often take on whole armies and make them look like fools in uniform). But for those willing to give it a chance, it’s a very well implemented idea that offers some very different and interesting Gameplay. Likewise, the realistic combat is challenging, but very rewarding. Overall, definitely worth a try, but go at it with an open mind, and don’t expect to be able to storm machine gun emplacements head first…they do fire.

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood Price

Earned in Blood currently retails at $44.99 for PC, and $49.99 for Xbox.