This is one of the first games where I didn’t get the “yeah! wahoo!” feeling (which is a good thing in this case). I didn’t feel the need to run up to whatever victim of my chosing and blast his nazi-ass back to the saucagefactory he came from. The approach of this game is somewhat more in-depth and has increased realism which makes it a lot more fun to play. You are Sergeant Baker, and start out leading your own squad into the second chapter of global war, hoping you and your team will survive the madness and carnage, not to mention all the German bullets and artillery flying around your head.

Every mission is preceded by the Band of Brothers look-a-like chapter-screen with the red line under the title during which you say something about life in the army or the life you left behind. Your first mission is to land behind enemy lines and secure the landingspots for the allied forces. It starts with an in-game movie during which your plane gets hit and your squad gets scattered all over the place. Once you’ve landed and find someone to show you the way you gradually get to learn how the game works and what controls what. BiA uses a nice mixture of genres; you have your standard first person view and by a simple press on a button you get the “situational awareness view”. If you enter this view time stops and you get a chance to overview the situation (hence situational awareness view) and decide what your action is going to be. You can see the position of your own squadmembers as well as enemy units (if their position is known). This view comes in handy in hectic situations like when your squad is pinned down by two MG’s and you don’t see a way to flank them. You have control over two teams; an assault-team and a fire-team, each equipped with specific guns to best serve their purpose. Sometimes you receive control over a tank instead of one of your teams. You can give each team specific orders to either move to a location, give cover, lay down suppressing fire or just to perform a frontal assault. You can do this by a simple click, but it needs some getting used to before you can master the techniques.

The great AI of your squadmembers really help out in the early missions. Your squad takes cover, they lay down suppressing fire when needed, they inform you when someone has been hit or when you aren’t doing anything at all and are just looking at them they can entertain you by making jokes or remarks (which can be pretty darn funny sometimes). The system isn’t waterproof though. Telling your fire-team to take cover behind a wall can be pretty daring if a teammember decides to stand next to the wall instead of behind it so he gets blown into bits, so you have to be very carefull how and where you position your teams. Since this game is based upon the increased realism idea it’s not so easy to shoot someone. You really have to use your different teams and use tactics to flank and terminate your enemies. A frontal assault will have a disastrous outcome. The AI of the Germans is very well though through… They also take cover, pin you down, notice when you flank them, … Everything a real-life soldier could do, the ones in BiA do it (probably even better).

The engine BiA uses is very nice, it renders both the environment as well as characters in such a great way you truly feel like your part of something bigger then just a computergame. The level of detail put into this game is amazing, little straws of grass get stirred by the wind, the expressions on the faces of your squadmembers while in the midst of a battle, the great French cottages, … The list goes on. Add to this list of graphical deluxe an awesome lot of soundeffects and you’ll be beginning to understand how great BiA truly is.