If your looking for a realistic, intense and tactical WW2 FPS then Earned In Blood is the best of the best.
In the campaign for Earned In Blood you play as Sgt Joe 'Red' Hartsock. He was also featured in the first BIA game, Road To Hill 30 but in that game you played as Matt Baker who also makes his appearances in Earned In Blood. The story is based on a true story (basically your fighting your way through Fance just after D-Day).
Anyway, what makes this game intense, realistic and tactical then? Well, in the tactical sense, you command 2 squads (on most missions) and occasionly a tank. OK this doesnt sound like anything new but in order to survive you NEED to use your squad about 90% of the time. There have been times when both squads have been wiped out and I've managed to get through a mission on my own but this is extremely rare, and it's only happened on the earlier missions. The reason you need to use your squads are because the enemy AI is very good and you will die in a few shots. You have to use cover as well or you could get hit at any point. The enemy may be smart but so are your men. If you send them to a short wall, say, they wont just stand there and shoot, the'll take cover behind it and fire at the enemy to stop them firing back at you. They'll also shoot at the enemy while dashing towards cover. They will only really do stupid idiotic things if you tell them to. The main tactic recommended is to get 1 squad of men to fire at an enemies position to get the enemy to stop firing and get the other squad to do a direct attack (basically run up and shoot them while there not shooting). One cool feature is this mode that lets pasues the battle and lets you locate you enemies postions and you and your men so you can get a better view of the battlefield. You can rotate the camera too and this mode is great planing out what you will do.
Another realistic part of the game is the accuracy of the weapons. You have to take your time when you shoot or you'll just end up missing all the time. Each authentic WW2 weapon featured here all work differently and have their own strengths and weaknesses. The weapons you'll be carrying will usually be a rifle (there are many different rifles) and a sub machine or rapid fire weapon. You can carry 2 weapons so you should vary them. Luckily you can pick up the German's weapons too.
The graphics in Earned In Blood are nice if you crank up the resolution and performance settings. The trees and grass look very nice while the building look decent and run-down like they should though not as nice as the country side locations. The locations you fight in are actual recreations of the real thing so they feel very realistic. A nice effect of the game is the mud that flies on the screen if you very close to incming bullets and explosions and rain that splats on the screen. You wont need a high end PC to run this maxed out by any means, you probably wont even need a mid-range PC either so this should look decent on most systems. A PC with a 3GHz processor, 1GB RAM and GeForce 6 series card should run this at high perfectly (im guessing this because my PC is a 3.4GHz processor, 1GB RAM and a GeForce 7 series card and it runs it at high perfectly).
The sound here is extremely high quality- excellent cinema-style voice acting throughout from the soldiers. The gunshots, explosions etc are top notch too, though you'll find the voice acting the most impressive in the sound category.
The offline gaming doesnt stop at the story mode either- there is a new skirmish mode where you can play thorugh objective-based missions as teh Americans or the Germans. Each amry has different missions. This mode gives the game much more replay value and it is great fun if you just want to have a quick blast at the game.
You can also play this mode online and other modes too. I dont think the multiplayer is as good as the story mode but this is still some great WW2 online online tactical shooting (although setting this game up online is annoying).
The bad points of the game is that it is very, very hard at times which frustrates some people really badand you cant save at any point, there are checkpoints so if you die sometimes you will have to go back pretty far. Also, apart from better AI and longer missions, there isnt hardly anything new in the gameplay since Road to Hill 30. The graphics engine hasnt exactly been improved either so graphically, it looks basicaly the same as the last one did.
If you love WW2 games then you definitely need this game- it's one of the best WW2 games available along with Call Of Duty and Medal Of Honor.
RECAP:
Pros:
+Very intense, tactical action based on a true story
+Good squad tactics
+Excellent voice acting
+Skirmish mode for more replayabilty and online multiplayer
+Great graphics (but not improved)
Cons:
-Hardly any new gameplay
-Graphics engine decent but not improved
-You cant save at any point and the checkpoints are quite spread out with long hauls in between