So, World War II then. There have been two or three games that use it as a backdrop – what’s another one going to hurt? There are three separate campaigns, set in Normandy, Tunis, and the Ardennes. There’s no real attempt at narrative, other than very, very simple cut scenes which set the scene for the upcoming battle. Your field commanders have names, but they never at any stage become meaningful. But not to worry.
In case you couldn't see the guy shooting at you 14 METRES AWAY, the game has highlighted him for you.
Movement is controlled via the d-pad, with L being used to shoot people. Obviously, aiming and turning are done by using the stylus on the touchscreen. The level of precision is surprisingly good for a touchscreen – players will be able to nail headshots shortly after picking up the game. It’s not as good as a keyboard and mouse obviously, but it works quite well. The only real problem here is trying to turn around in a hurry – it can take forever. Reloading also takes place on the touchscreen – just drag a clip over to your selected weapon. Grenades are down by tapping the bottom right corner and dragging up to determine the strength of your throw. It sounds complex, but becomes intuitive after a few sessions playing. We would have liked to see more weapon variety, but thankfully, what’s here is good – expect to become well acquainted with the sub-machine gun and sniper rifle.
Breaking up the first-person missions every now and then are vehicles. The tank is the best of the bunch, and handles surprisingly well. Wreaking havoc with them is great fun too, as infantry fly across the screen after being hit with a shell. The jeep, however, is a massive low point. They are really fast and borderline impossible to control. Even worse, they have the turning circle of a jet, making them really horrible to drive. Thankfully, these sections are few and far between.
What really brings Brothers In Arms DS down is just how short and easy it is. The three campaigns can be blazed through in one sitting. On top of that, there is just no real challenge. Enemies are horrible shots. Tanks can rarely be bothered to attempt to shoot you, and don’t make any effort to stop you from running up and throwing a grenade inside. Enemies are often pointed out with screen markers – highly unnecessary. This is doubly the case while sniping. It’s one of the best bits of the game, but fact that game points out each enemy takes away from the fun. The only challenge comes from the occasional objective failure – not that the objective itself is hard, it just takes some trial and error to work out what the objective is, since the game doesn’t really tell you. Higher difficulties can be used on each level once you beat it for the first time, but there’s no real incentive to play through it again. Helping things here is the serviceable multiplayer option – although there was a distinct lack of players online when we tested this feature.
Driving the jeep as about as much fun as watching According to Jim.
Surprisingly, Brothers In Arms DS looks quite decent. Thankfully, the usual problems with such a game on the DS – blocky textures, over sized pixels and so on – are, while apparent, not a significant problem. The colour palette is probably a little bit too brown, but there’s just enough variation to keep things interesting. Character animation could definitely better – krauts in particular are really, really choppy when they run across the open ground. Given the DS hardware, the sound falls a long, long way short of your usual console World War II experience. Speech samples are few and far between, guns lack any sort of oomph, and the ambient noises are less than captivating. But, taking the hardware into consideration, what’s here is more than acceptable.
Given the restrictions of the Nintendo DS, Gearbox have come up with a more than competent World War II shooter – that in itself is one hell of an achievement. There is a lot fun to be had here, with good, effective controls, an engaging campaign and great shooting action, be it on foot or in an over sized tank. However, it’s all over far too soon. Multiplayer is good if you have someone to play against, but it’s not enough. Brothers In Arms DS is good, but if it was a bit longer, we could have had real cracker of a game here.
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