One of the best tactical shooters available...
BIA may not be a game for everyone with its' realistic and difficult gameplay and unforgiving nature but if you're one for a challenge and something a little different, your're not to be dissapointed with BIA.
The graphics are hardly going to blow you away, nor are they likely to disgust you but they arn't the prettiest in the world but BIA is not about fancy graphics and shiny effects - it's all about being gritty and realisitic in a way that's not going to impress fans of pretty games like Far Cry. The sound is not likely to send shivers down your spine either; these arn't the over-the-top action movie stlye guns sounds that you'll find in Call of Duty and Medal of Honour but what they are is more realistic than any other shooter on the system. On another note on sound, the voice acting is superb which can be truely difficult to find in alot of games.
Brothers in Arms' shooting is all about tactics and is suprisingly easy to get the hang of; "Find 'em, fix 'em, flank 'em, finish 'em"! What this means is; locate your enemy, pin them down, flank them and then finish them off. Although this whole flanking business can get repetetive after a while the game keeps throwing new situations at you to keep you on edge throughout. To do this you have to control one or two fire teams - an assault fire team and a suppresive fire team. Your suppresive fire team is used to pin the enemy while the assault team flank the enemy and finishes them off with grenades and rapid-fire weapons. It's all incredibly easy to direct your team. It's all done with one shoulder button, you just hold down that shoulder button and if it's pointed at the ground a blue circle will appear, telling your team where to go and point it at the enemy and a red circle appears telling them to attack that enemy. Simple really. Another interesting factor is controlling tanks to do your bidding, they pretty much work exactly like your squads do and while it's incredible to behold their imense power for the first few times, you soon realise that you can just make your tank do everything and it soon gets very boring as a result.
The game is also full of some nice set sequences clearly inspired by some moments in the TV mini-series Band of Brothers that follows Easy Company of the same Airborne division. So, overall, Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 is a very good and immersive tactical FPS and I would definetly recommend buying it, especially at the bargain price it must be at now - just in time for Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway out soon.