Game Reviews

Brothers in Arms

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Brothers in Arms

You've got to wonder how many shooting games would actually exist if the Normandy landings had never happened. It's rapidly becoming a standard setting for all forms of heroic, guns blazing, boots first endeavour – another arena of glorious battle that allegedly involved more well-oiled biceps and gleaming white, all-American teeth than blood, noise and wet misery.

My grandfather landed on the beaches at Normandy, but he couldn't quite recall the single regiment of indestructible Americans who single-handily saved the entire British army and thwarted Hitler in one tour.

Still, all historical rebuttals aside, Brothers in Arms has now landed on the N-Gage beaches and has once again set about providing a more entertaining version of tragic events than stuffy old history can provide.

The game takes you across 14 different levels featuring various battles of note from throughout World War II, each offering a suitably different take on the allied attacks in a host of different environments. It's a wise decision on Gameloft's part to include the variety of settings, which makes up for the often sedate action.

This latest incarnation of the popular series also drops the camera back a few feet to make the N-Gage version into a third-person shooter. The benefits here are, naturally, the extra range of visibility – a matter that often suffers in a first-person mobile game. By looking over your character's shoulder, the game retains the sensation of control and quick-fire fighting whilst avoiding the often claustrophobic and disorienting direct perspective.

That said, accuracy can suffer when viewing the action at a second remove, so you're still able to look down the rifle's barrel when taking careful aim. And you'll need to, as the far distant, well-entrenched enemies are difficult to pin down, and landing a successful headshot is often as difficult as tracking a single pixel.

Fortunately there's also a sufficient range of weaponry available, from grenades and rifles to rocket launchers and tanks. With careful attention to basic hardware strategy a good soldier is well enough equipped to deal with the authentic, detailed 3D landscapes that provide your Nazi aggressors with so much cover.

When all else fails, you can hop into a tank or jeep and see how they fare against heavy artillery. While the tank is great for forging ahead without care or consequence, the scenes when you're driving a jeep feel rather restrained. Throughout much of the game there's a distinct yearning to try and flank the enemies by approaching from the side or rear, but these efforts are severely curtailed by the funnelling level designs.

Brothers in Arms for N-Gage is a decidedly linear game, and although we're not expecting a free-roaming environment, the action would be dramatically increased by the ability to break away from the established routes.

What small amount of military strategy you might expect from a shooter is found missing, and you'll quickly resign yourself to simply blasting your way forward under all circumstances. This rather shallow gameplay mechanic robs much of the game's variety; whether trekking through the snow or the desert, your tactics remain exactly the same.

Neither is there much urgency in either the loose plotline or the actual game speed. Your character fairly trudges his way along the paths, giving the impressively efficient control system a feeling of wading through warm toffee. A bit more alacrity would have made up for the lack of choices.

But there's no denying that the action, regardless of its sedate pace, is never anything less than constant – you're never out of the line of fire or jogging for miles without setting eyes on the enemy.

Ultimately Brothers in Arms is rather unbalanced. While it's very good-looking and full of blazing guns action, it's also quite slow and lacking in variety. The regular checkpoints are automatically saved, however, so it's at least a good mobile game you can drop in and out of quite easily for a bit of light escapism. It demonstrates what the N-Series platform is capable of displaying, but falls short on showcasing its gameplay abilities.

Brothers in Arms

The visuals and settings have been ported to the N-Gage beautifully, though the gameplay suffers from a steady pace and acutely linear action
Score
Spanner Spencer
Spanner Spencer
Yes. Spanner's his real name, and he's already heard that joke you just thought of. Although Spanner's not very good, he's quite fast, and that seems to be enough to keep him in a regular supply of free games and away from the depressing world of real work.