Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood review

In Lancaster there is a sandwich shop which holds a rather affection place in my heart It’s called Shelly’s. They do the greatest chicken tikka filling I’ve ever tasted – and it’ll take something orgasm inducing to top it. Every time I visit I always hop between tikka on a brown bun or white. (I'm rather fond of the Wibbly Wobbly Burger Bar in Lancaster, especially the chicken burger - Ed).

The difference is hardly noticeable. I do it for the diversity more than anything. After all, too much of the same thing can become a bad thing, right? Well Brother’s In Arms: Earned in Blood is practically the same as its predecessor. But for once that isn’t such a bad thing.

Brothers In Arms: Road to Hill 30 was exactly the sort of game the ailing WWII shooter needed. Earned in Blood is no different. And in some ways it’s even better than the first game.

Find Them!

The game is still the same as before. You rely on your squads to attack enemy positions while you find successful ways to flank them. It’s all about tactically planning assaults while being there in thick of it. Taking your time to plan a strategy and successfully accomplishing it is a wonderful experience.

But this time we are playing in smaller, less clear-cut and linear levels meaning Earned in Blood is a much more intense game than the first. This time the player must be absolutely sure their tactics are going to work – as the price for failure is the sorry end of a panzerfaust heading for your butt.

Like Hill 30, Earned in Blood is cinematic for the sake of being cinematic. This means it never shies away from the odd cutscene here or there. While Medal of Honor and Call of Duty revelled – and were revered – for their Half Life-inspired notion of sticking you in the thick of it and never leaving your eye sight, Earned in Blood is all too happy to go back to basics.

Fix Them!

This is part of why the games are acclaimed on a personal level. The emphasis on your squads – and on developing the characters of your squad – is unbelievable. Sure, there are times when the writing makes the dialogue a little ham fisted but the fact Gearbox has taken time to create individual people is commendable.

Unfortunately there are times when this illusion is somewhat shattered. For example, at the end of each mission you always have the ability to revive any dead soldiers to help continue the game. It doesn’t break the games ambition – you still care for your men because without them you are mincemeat – but it does feel a little too generous.

Then there are the odd spots where the game decides to autonomously kill off soldiers you’ve spent the last few hours protecting. In one level set at night the mission opens with Red narrating about the three soldiers in front of you, who ended up dying that night.

Speaking of which, Earned in Blood is told from eyes different to Matt Baker's. This time you play as Joe "Red" Hartsock. The entire game is told in flashback structure as Red narrates each mission to his superior. Thankfully this means the levels open and end with conversational comments – rather than the dire monologues of Baker in Hill 30.

Structurally this lends the game more credence in that it actually feels historical. Sometimes missions even pause mid-way as Red reminisces about individual sequences. It shows more confidence on Gearbox’s shoulders as a developer.

Flank Them!

Returning also from the previous game is some absolutely stellar music. Saving Private Ryan was the first film to truly influence WW2 videogames into using John Williams-like score. Medal of Honor and Call of Duty have certainly carried this mantle (Call of Duty’s Russian sequences in particular).

Earned in Blood falls from the same barn, but the score this time is absolutely gorgeous. I might go as far as to say it is some of the most beautiful music I’ve heard per se – let alone in a video game. It makes your short time looking at the loading screens a little saddening when the music stops and the action starts.

And as mentioned earlier, the action is really the only area in Earned in Blood where you can expect to find differentiation. Naturally, it is based on the same principals as before: you locate the enemy, order your squad(s) to fire on said enemy, manoeuvre to a safe flanking position and finally take them down. The new enemy AI ensures the gameplay is not as repetitive as the first game and no-mission will play out the same. It really adds a lot more depth to the gameplay over the first game in the series.

Regardless of who your controlling – be it the assault or fire team, or even a tank – the squad AI is wonderful. You have to be a little too precise sometimes when ordering them around, but doing so is as easy as it has ever been. By holding down the left trigger you aim the reticule at a spot and release. You then watch as your men head to the position.

Finish Them!

But given the more confined nature of Earned in Blood – and the emphasis on closer combat scenarios – you will have to be more careful when planning. Careless performance leads to piss poor results (and ultimately you won’t win any medals to unlock extra content like interviews with the real life soldiers of developers).

It’s safe to say Earned in Blood is one of the harder games you will find on the Xbox – regardless of which difficulty level you play at. Part of this comes from the level design, and part of it comes from the sometimes almost pinpoint accuracy of the German infantry.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who played and enjoyed Road to Hill 30. What should come as a surprise is how Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood appears little more than a glorified add-on pack. Except now Ubi-Soft is referring to it as a fully-fledged sequel (much like it did with Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow).

But as I mentioned at the beginning: this is one situation where more of the same does not negate the experience. More of the same is more than we could have asked for. It’s the brown bun alternative.