The Brothers In Arms series is one of the greats in gaming--it stands out from the slew of generic shooters that trivialize World War II thanks to its perfectionist, respectful approach to historical accuracy and realistic squad combat. Which just makes this shoddy port all the more disappointing.
Brains and brawn are required to survive Brothers In Arms' tactical battles.
Double Time assembles the first two games in the series--Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood--under one roof, but it does little justice to these five-year-old games, which first appeared on PC and Xbox (as in, the first Xbox…not the 360) in 2005. The graphics haven’t been updated a lick, and while they were remarkable in their day, in 2010 they hurt to look at even in 1920x1080. A ton of pop-in problems further disrupt the realism, and character movement feels trudgingly slow. Bizarrely, the games are installed as two separate apps that don’t even share common preferences, so you have to recustomize everything when you start the second game.
But if you’re cut from remarkably tolerant cloth, the core of what made these two games great can still be enjoyed. Unlike the boom-boom-pow of series like Call of Duty, Brothers In Arms focuses on tactical, squad-based combat in meticulously re-created settings. The original developer, Gearbox, put immense amounts of research into its virtual European theater, weapons, and combat scenarios, and you’ll feel like you’re playing Band of Brothers: The Game.
More importantly, this is anything but a spray-n-pray shooter. If you pop your head up from behind cover, your skull will be relieved of its contents. Instead, as the NCO in charge of two squads, you use a simple, speedy interface to issue commands. The tactics usually involve telling one unit to take cover and lay down suppressing fire while you lead the other unit on a flanking maneuver that finishes off the enemy. The games keep upping the ante with more and more challenging, interesting battles, and as it all progresses, you get caught up in the intriguing tale of these men and what it cost them to win this war.
Double Time is a lousy port of two terrific games. If you’ve always wanted to play Brothers In Arms, it’ll let you see how the series became famous, but only because Gearbox’s genius still manages to shine through.
Brothers In Arms: Double Time
COMPANY: Feral Interactive
CONTACT: www.feralinteractive.com
PRICE: $29.95
REQUIREMENTS: 1.8GHz Intel processor, Mac OS 10.5.8 or later, 1GB RAM, video card with 128MB VRAM (GMA graphics with shared RAM not supported), 9GB disk space
Brilliant tactical combat. Impressive historical realism and story. ESRB rating: Mature.
2005 graphics weren’t updated. Sloppy port with inexcusable performance issues.
