There is a new WWII first person shooter game that came out in mid-March called Brothers in Arms. Prior to this game, Call of Duty was the unequivocal leader of the WWII shooters. However, after playing through most of Brothers in Arms, I can honestly say this game beats COD. The graphics are as good or better than COD, and unlike in Call of Duty, you command your squad as well as fight. This means you give commands to your fire team and assault team. You use your teams to implement the 4 F’s on the Germans. Find ’em, Fix ’em, Flank ’em and Finish ’em. Or, as Patton used to say, “grab ’em by the nose and kick them in the ass”. All this while the Krauts try to do the same to you. The command mode is intuitive and easy to use, just hold down the right mouse button and point to where you want them to go. On top of this, the design team for Brothers in Arms (BIA) modelled the 1944 areas of Normandy you fight in down to the last yard. They took thousands of photos of the area today and thousands of arial pre-invasion photos in 1944 and combined them to recreate how Normandy looked back then. Way, way cool. In addition, Col. John Antal, a writer for Armchair General Magazine, was advisor on BIA, which also means it is as authentic as he could make it.
In BIA you are a member of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. In real life, and in the game, the 502nd PIR was tasked on 6 June 1944 with securing the Utah Beach causeway exits for the 4th and 8th Infantry Divisions, who were landing on Utah Beach on D-Day. Not easy, especially since their drops went wild and scattered many paratroopers across miles of French countryside. Not easy in the game either, but way, way cool. Nothing beats this game for breathlessness as you try to hold off Wehrmacht counterattacks of infantry, panzergrenadiers and armor with the light weapons of the 502nd PIR. A must have game.
Those graphics look amazing. Wow.