Thanks to Ubisoft I got the chance to get to work with a previewversion of Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30. Accompanied by someone from the design team I quickly got the hang of it and decided to write down a short preview of this upcoming FPS from Gearbox.

As Sergeant Baker you'll be dropped behind enemy lines during the invasion of Normandy and you'll have to find your way and your comrades. Your pals will become very important as opposed to many other shooters, you'll quickly develop some affinity to them and it will hurt if one dies.

What immediately catches the attention is the realism and the authenticity of both gameplay and characters, the setting and the overall graphics. The developers based themselves on satellite pictures, weather and eye witness reports from that period so you'll constantly see buildings and surroundings that still exist now.

The realistic gameplay shows itself in the fact that playing Rambo is impossible. Trying to play like that will guarantee certain bloody death, and bloody the game definitely is; grenades tear off body parts, headshots will have the brain splashing out and when you get hit yourself, red splatters will come in your sight. Victims also don't disappear after getting killed but will stay laying on the battlefield.

To bring your mission to a good ending you'll have to use two squads: one assault and one cover-team. Both are easy to control and you won't need more than 5 minutes to get used to the controls.

Said in short, your base tactics will come down to the following principle: with your coverteam you'll pin down the enemy by shooting at them and once that's done you'll quickly order the assault team to make a surrounding movement and attack the enemy from their flanks. Sounds complicated but thanks to the good A.I. (your squads take cover after all kinds of objects), the neatly dedicating of assignments and icons that show in what matter an enemy is pinned down, it will soon become a second nature and you'll feel like a real sergeant.
On top of that you can get a top-view of the battle after a push on the button which gives an excellent image of the surroundings, the enemy's position and your troops. That way you can quickly think out a strategy and then inform your squads. For the action-lovers amongst us: I was told that to bring some extra variation to the game some missions like the car- and truckscene from CoD will be added.

Next to commanding your colleague-infantry you'll have to kill some German ass yourself aswell of course. Strangely enough there are no crosshairs, but to have an accurate shooting you'll need to use your iron sights, something we already know from Call of Duty. Here however, this is brought on even stronger as headshots are already practically impossible when running around and you'll need to come extremely close or find a good position to aim. The necessary recoil is of course also present, just like the reload animations and the accompanying loss of time. Make sure not to be in an open field when your clip runs empty!

On top of the 18 missions of the single-player campaign which the assistant designer guarantees 20 hours of gaming (impressive these days) there are also some original and entertaining multiplayer possibilities foreseen, both in splitscreen and XBox Live!. And here we get a surprising viewpoint: you no longer get the control of an assault and cover-team but only one of those, which adds even more focus to the strategic part of the game.
The other player logically gets control over the second squad and this of course opens fantastic possibilities; the two of you can take on the computer and work together while sitting in your chair, or you can fight against human opponents, 2 vs. 2 through XBox Live or split screen. That this leads to hectic circumstances, exciting moments and lots of blabber to give cover at the right moment and attack, I probably don't need to tell you.

When you die during a multiplayer game you can take over control of one of your surviving teammates. If everyone from your squad is killed, you need to restart with reinforcements at the spawnpoint. When one of both players leaves the game, the other one will get control over both squads.

The maps themselves are loosely based on true facts and offer objective-based teamplay. In one of the 10 available levels (downloadable content will be made available) one side needs to blow up a truck while the other has to prevent this from happening. Another example: the Germans need to defend cannons in a map filled with trenches while the Americans have to make sure these can't harm anything anymore; pure chaos and intense fights guaranteed! Another fun one is the map where one side plays sniper without squads while the other needs to track the first one down during a dark night.

My guts tell me this game can very well become a hit title. The finishing and graphics said enough already, the A.I. is strong, the gameplay original and realistic and the setting is very authentic. This is a game that no doubt needs to be on your "want to buy" list if you like games like Call of Duty, Full Spectrum Warrior or Battlefield. I'm also sure other gamers will have fun with this title though. The waiting is for the final version.