Orderoftheflame

Hell’s Highway is the third main title in Gearbox Software’s franchise of World War II first person shooters, continuing the story of Sergeant Matt Baker and the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, this time round covering operation Market Garden in Holland.

The game is the first in series to make use of the Unreal 3 engine from Epic, and has some noticeable differences to it’s two predecessors. This is to be expected due to not only the move in engine, but also the length of time between releases. Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood were released just seven months apart in 2005, using an almost identical modified Unreal 2 engine.

The game concentrates on the story considerably more than before, and elaborates on events from the first two games, clearing up many plot elements that were not divulged to the player previously.

Due to the engine changes the gameplay is quite different this time round. Aiming and firing weapons is much easier and more accurate for the player, and whilst this goes against one of the deliberate features of earlier games in the series, for me it was a welcome change.
The strategic element however seems to take a hit because of this. As an example rather than being forced to flank an enemy, it is now possible to simply shoot them from cover with careful aim. This may be less easy to do on the veteran and authentic difficulties however.

Two of the most notable new additions are the use of cover and vehicle sections. The new cover system works just as it does in the Gears of War franchise, allowing extra protection whilst offering a stable firing position.

The vehicle sections take place once every few chapters and offer a break to the standard infantry combat. In many FPS games I find vehicle sections disruptive to gameplay, however in Hell’s Highway this is not the case.

Graphically I personally feel that this is one of the nicest games I’ve seen since Crysis, particularly the character models, shadows and textures. It’s clear that a humongous effort of attention has been paid to the faces of the characters in the game, and each character is instantly recognisable from the previous games.
A slow motion action camera has also been added during large explosions and occasionally when the player gets a head shot, adding to the brutality of the game, and along with the destructible objects and cover of the Unreal 3 engine can lead to some spectacular (if gory) images.

To sum up, I enjoyed Hell’s Highway tremendously. One thing that surprised me was that I actually enjoyed it as much as and possibly even more than it’s forerunners, which surprised me as the original games are some of my favourites of all time. Gearbox have shown that by spending time to get a game right, rather than churning out endless sequels in a franchise is the correct way to go about it.

If you’re looking for a good World War II first person shooter, gameplay wise Hell’s Highway is easily the best I’ve played so far from any franchise in the genre. If you’re looking for a good story you won’t go far wrong with it either. However I would insist on playing Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood before hand if you want to get everything out of it, as the story relies heavily of previous knowledge of the main characters to make absolute sense.