Has anybody else checked out that console game on the xbox - Brothers in Arms? The original is really accurate - closet thing you'll ever get to a video game of saving private ryan. The sequel is out now BIA: Earned in Blood (I was thinking about buying it, but I got Far Cry Instincts instead, which by the way is amazing).
Yes, Brothers in Arms was really good, and a nice change from the MoH series, which tend to...well, suck. The squad feature is nice, as well as the ability to lay covering fire, send your men on charges (even against MG 42 poistions), use German weapons, etc. Far Cry Instincts is, indeed, a very good game as well. Incredibly long, too!
I like BIA but all you do mostly is flank, And Moh lets you cool down bye single Handely take out a City or a U-boat with a pistol and blast poor germans to the abyess.
Earned in Blood for the Xbox isn't very good. Can't really sneak around to flank half the German squads when they're pinned because they know where you are at all times and they just turn around and unload. And all this time they're standing and shooting you your squad is still shooting at the wall under them to keep them supressed. Also, they don't give the tank crews personalities at all. The first Stuart you get is alright, because you see their commander talk in a cinamatic and he unbuttons when out of combat. However, the Sherman and M10 are just objects. Especialy the M10, you can see the crew but they don't ever say anything. They're like zombies. The 82nd airbourn guys even talk to/about them as if they were talking to an inanimate object and not to the crew.
Earned in Blood got rave reviews over in the UK (9/10). The AI is supposed to be amazing - which makes it difficult as some of you pointed out. I rented the MOH- European Assualt a few months back and it was terrible. The AI was braindead and the graphics were bad. What I found particularly annoying was the health/ammo system, where you could spot some health/ammo a mile away cause of the giant flourescent icon hovering above it. The moment of invincibility when an adrenaline was filled was a lousy idea. One thing that I think we can all agree on is that Halo 2 was great game as well.
How can you say it sucked? It was exactly the same as the the original Halo, but with with some new weapons/vehicles. Besides that, there was no difference. Even the plot was the same and goes no futher to providing us with any conclusion. I'm sorry, but I can't see how Halo 2 could possibly be worse than Halo 2. I'm not a big fan of the series, but I can see the changes are only small.
The first seemed to have a well-thought out story, as well as a couple of neat cliffhangers. The second one however desperately tries to add elements to a storyline that doesn't want or need these, and fails miserably at its attempts to create a game as awe-inspiring as part 1. True to form, it ends with a sudden yet completely predictable "cliffhanger" that doesn't inspire any urge to play part 3 when it comes out.
As Roel already mentioned from halo to halo 2 the storyline went from intruging, suprising and inspiring to thinned-out, illogical and predictable. Halo gave me the feeling that at first I was a lucky survivor and at the end a lucky legendary person. In halo 2 your simply the hero. (period) leaving you to merely survive shootouts and do some stunts. In halo your up against an alien race that for some reason seems to have declared war on the human race. In halo 2 these aliens suddenly speak english, have miracously bred some more races and have completely shifted their goals. Halos story finishes with (as with almost any game/movie/book) the door only slightly ajar, you eleminated your enemie and your part is done for all you know. In nr 2 the ending is..... absent, you're on your way to the next mission or level and just like that it ends. Then for the gameplay Halo was an shooter which gave you the option of sneaking around some times and forced you to think about which weapons you would take, though each one was lethal. also it had a multiplayer option Halo 2 is a multiplayer game with some elements which could have benefitted a single player campaign. The weapons are overbalanced, for each human weapon theres an alien counterpart. For some strange reason you can always zoom in yet with most weapons, including the one which was simply good for the sole reason of shooting with zoom, you lose the zoom when firing. The weapons that were carried over from halo are mostly downgraded. The pistol has lost its zoom, the needler shoots slower, tracks less, and deals less damage, likewise the charged shot from the plasma pistol simply stopped homing at all. Instead of having a regenerating shield and a life bar that doesnt regenerate your simply down to your shield. As mentioned above, instead of having parts where you silently take out a guard or kill everyone around (your choice), halo 2 leaves no choice but to blast your way through spending bullets not unlike serious sam (which is a fun game but with the big difference that it doesnt pretend to be anything more then a frag fest). In halo I can count the areas where you MUST kill all enemies to continue using my fingers.... in halo 2 there is once again no choice, you have to kill almost 90% of all enemies in the game to get anywhere at all. And finally something that is always a major help to giving any story the right feel; the music. In halo the music was alien yet familiar, on the background when it should be and louder when needed. In nr 2 they (dare I say it? I dare!) RAPED the music, its the same tune but the choir and strings are replaced by falsesounding electric deathmetal guitars. Half the time there is no decent background music or way to obvious combatmusic the only part that I consider respectable is blow me away by breaking benjamin however even that is placed in a shameless loop till you finish all aliens. Not everyone likes the same thing, but I know this much; halo I played until I managed to beat the highest difficulty rating and then I played at least another 30 times from begin to end. Halo 2 I played twice from start to "finish" once with and once without subtitles (as it turned out the 1st time subtitles was on "auto" which apparently is the same as none, and the 2nd time I found out that they only subtitled the movies which were easy to follow and not the commentary given during explosive combat which often was most important to the "story") In short nearly everything that made stand halo apart from a standard shooter was removed in nr 2 and replaced with goodies that make the multiplayer mode more "fun" by making it look more like a fragfest game such as quake or unreal.
My friend & I once spent an entire weekend (Friday evening - Sunday afternoon) playing Halo from start to finish in 2-player mode. Great fun (although I had a headache all week) He loved Halo - and says Halo 2 is poor.
Oh, ok. My apologizes, I thought you meant the gameplay was worse, but yes, I do agree with you, the story was incredibly lacking. Stix makes a good point as well. Halo 2 does seem alot more geared for mulitplayer, which is really unfortunate since they took so much from the story. However, the gameplay, in my opinion, is better. I was sad to see the pistol go, but the needler was a nice replacement. I found it much more useful (especially in akimbo) than the needler of the first game. Anyways, back to BiA. Is the sequel even worth buying? I have the first, it is great, but you guys are giving me doubts on the sequel. Anyone played Mercenaries?
The first brothers in arms was excellent- very accurate (almost every character in the game is true to life), very tactical (using actual tactics) and really a lot of fun. Like I said, Earned in Blood got 9/10 from the top review guys in the UK. They said it is more like an expansion pack rather than a full blown sequel, so if you are unsure you might want to get a preowned copy. It hasn't changed much fom the original (although there are new missons weapons etc.) which is a good thing. However it is really difficult apparently. Far Cry Instincts (xbox and PC only) is great as well: its got a great map editor!
Earned in Blood isn't too difficult. I'm playing on Authentic and knocking out Hell's Four Corners as we speak. It just gets really stupid at times. Allot of times, after cleaning out an entire town of Fallschirmjager with only your squad ( :roll: ) you'll think the mission is done, but lo and behold here comes a whole battalion ( complete with tanks and all ) of Fresh Germans to challenge you and it just gets to be too much sometimes. You're left thinking "Yeah, ok, I know the 101st was tough but this is retarded." Hell’s Four Corners is pretty bad too. “Ok men, we’re standing out in the middle of an open field with no cover. Oh, look, we’re surrounded by Germans! Good thing they can’t shoot for @#$%, huh?” I also like how the MG42’s don’t actualy hit anything unless you’re within 5 meters. Otherwise it just kind of shoots in your general direction and makes atmosphere with the sound it makes.
Yeah, its pretty good with the free roaming and all, but I didn't buy it. It is really good as a rental though. Its knid of dissapointng how there was no water transport in it.
