One of the things that amused me at E3 was watching people who were unfamiliar with the Brothers in Arms series pick up the controller for Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway and try to play it like most other first person shooters. Usually they were fairly quickly dispatched by the relentless German fire and they would wander away from the game, annoyed. That would be because they don't realize how realistic the third incarnation of the Brothers in Arms series can be.
The two big tactical points in Brothers in Arms are cover and suppression. Gunfire is deadly and therefore cover is king - it is vital to always be in cover unless the enemy is suppressed. Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway helps players with that by giving them an additional option to "dig in" to cover - and when the time comes, to be able to vault out of that cover. Conversely, you must be more careful about cover at the same time, as now gunfire has the ability to penetrate thin cover.
Suppression is the other part of proper tactics in Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. World War 2 was not fought by people acting on their own. Instead, a squad would put down covering fire to force the enemies to put their heads down and then have part of their group move forward. Like in the previous Brothers in Arms games, this is indicated by a circular marker above the heads of the enemies.
Tactics like that make the game. The map screen shows where your men are and is a bit more stylized, less like a "game", than versions in times past. If a player wanted to, he could spend a large amount of his time in the map screen, ordering troops around and only engaging in fighting when absolutely necessary. Most players will use the map and squad commands to have their squad mates support them while they become the "lynch pin" of the operation.
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highways adds in some other neat effects, too. Obviously, the graphics and audio are better than in previous games. A new special effect, a slow motion effect, has been added for some good shots and kills. If you get a particularly good head shot, or have an effective grenade throw, it may go into slow motion to show the destruction you are wreaking on the Germans.
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway is (finally) coming for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC in September of this year. For the Wii, the first two games will be bundled together onto one disc.
I'm a 29 year old senior network and systems engineer for a consulting firm in the DC area. I'm mostly into MMOs and FPSes (on the console), and I'm a big pro football fan. In my other spare time I like to write and tend to read copious amounts of history and military sci-fi. I'm also into cooking and bad action movies.
