Brothers in Arms vs CoD

[|MP|Nomad]

Well I was surfing the net today and I came across yet another WWII FPS game called Brothers in Arms by Ubisoft at Gametrailers.  It coming out for PC, PS2 and XboX.  Anyway, I DL'd this huge mpg file which showed a demo being played, and let me tell you, I think this is the best WWII game I have yet seen.  It definetly surpasses CoD, with its extra added features.  

You can use what CoD doesn't have, and that's being able to air recon the battlefield to make tactical decisions on how to handle a situation thru 1st person, quite excitiing.

Also, it has a feature that is kinda like Full Spectrum Warrior on XboX.  It allows you to command 2 teams (assault and fire team) that are with you (you are their squad leader) and tell them where to go to either supress fire on the enemy while the assault team flanks and destroys the targets, something no WWII game I've seen has.  It just gives the game that extra zing!

Oh, and 2 last points about the game I noticed.

1) The characters are unbelievably real looking. Their eyes follow you if you move to the left or right when infront of a soldier.
2) there is no reticule (x-hairs).  In the demo, the host displays that you can fire with the weapon not zoomed in, just that there is no reticule.  However, throughout the entire action scenes in the demo, the host is always zoomed in; kinda looks like the same zoom in CoD, just better I think, from what I have seen so far.  So, I think that means that if you want to ensure accuracy you always have to zoom in, otherwise, you are taking a risk that yer fire may not be on target (makes me wonder about middle range fights, and not so much, but a little in CQB).

Anyway, go to Gametrailers and check it out.

[alaric]

Holy fucking shit.

No really.

Holy fucking shit.

This is incredible. I am almost beyond words. It's a perfect melding of a 1st person shooter and a 3rd person tactical game. I've never seen anything like this before. The detail... the historical accuracy... NOTHING like this has been attempted before... wow.... just wow...


Direct link to the movie: Brother In Arms E3 Demo

[crypt]

Any idea of when it will be out? I'm interested in the Xbox version and if it's online.

[|MP|Nomad]

Told you guys, its awesome.  I really hope it will come out for Mac.  I think we should all send an email to Aspyr to beg them to port it over to Mac  .

Crypt, it will be online with XboX and the others but I haven't heard anything about a release date.  

If anyone finds out, let us know plz.  

[crypt]

Hope it runs on the same engine and as well as CoD. The sooner we get Aspyr to notice it, the better.

[BTs_Mysterio]

I thought it looked very similar to CoD. What am I missing here?

[*NADS Foxy]

I've heard about this, but haven't seen this demo vid. Thanks Nomad.

Interesting looking game. Takes alot of elements from Full Spectrum Warrior, which has its ups and downs. I am astounded at the depth and realism in this game though. That's probably the biggest selling point of this game. I like how the enemy reacts to your movements though, hopefully it works good in the game, and they weren't feeding us a line of crap in this video. I didn't like how you had 2 specialized teams though, but maybe they did that to differ it from FSW. It just seems hokey because both squads should be able to fire and assault, not just a certain one. Thats a big BS. Another thing is, I don't know if I should love or hate the idea of your soldier carrying both a Garand and a Thompson at the same time. Kind of a paradox when they claim the authenticity of this game. But I'm keeping an eye on this.

P.S.   The guy playing the game is a tard.

[Supernatural Pie]

 

[BFG]

heh "my paratroopers got our orders..." he has such a annoying voice lol.

Thats some pretty damn inpressive character detail - really inpressive detail... alas like most games the lipsync is shit but hey thats not exactly inportant for most.

trees and grass looked great, love the idea of having a proper team of guys - although we kinda had that in CoD.... needs somthing really wow to make it stand apart more from CoD though i think

[Mr.Mellow]

Damn I'll have to get that one for the PS2. I hate playing shooting games without a keyboard or mouse, but damn I want that game lolol. Man, the guy playing in that video had no tactical sense whatsoever hehe. Kept running into the open. Ah well.

[alaric]

To Myst and BFG:

If you watch the entire video, the command and control aspects of the game should jump out at you as being extraordinary. Never before has there been this kind of marriage between a First Person Shooter and a Real Time Strategy/Tactics game. The way you tell your troops to move is revolutionary and the way the AI interprets your order and moves them intelligently is also quite extraordinary.

The Situational Awareness feature is simply astonishing. I've never seen anything like that in an FPS. That alone distinguishes it from COD. Unlike COD and every other FPS ever made, you can't go it alone on this one. You need your men and your men need you. Controlled Fire and movement is key to victory.

Quite simply put: This is no Call of Duty. You are in command here, you're not just playing a role in the battle, you're organizing the battle and your task is as much to lead your men as it is to fight yourself.


To foxy:

I'm pretty sure you can use either team as an assault or fire team, but given that they have different sets of weapons I don't know why you would want to. BAR and Rifle guys are meant to provide cover fire for the Sub-Machine gunners. Airborne Rifle Squads (which is what you're playing as in the game) had exactly 1 BAR per squad, with an assortment of Garands and Thompsons given to the remainder of the squad. Garands and BARs are heavier than Thompsons so it's only logical to make them the fire team.

As for the garand/thompson thing: I can see what you mean there. It's entirely possible for you to sling one or other over your shoulder but that's impractical. Actual squad leaders would generally have had a thompson. Giving you a carbine would have been one possible compromise, but I think most people would be unhappy with the lack of stopping power that weapon has. So, in the end, they made the decision to go for better gameplay vs. accuracy. And since it is a game and is meant to be fun, I guess it's a good thing.

[DAF ONE]

alaric, giants citizen kabuto was like fps and rts, but now lkike this.

[KoS.Rebel]

No reason for mac users to get hyped up...we probably wouldnt see this game within the next year or so the way macs get games. That an multi would be the same as CoD cause that 3rd person overhead view would be pointless

[BFG]

one game im totally hyped about has been still is and will remain to be Half life 2... hell if we didn't get any other game for a year other than hl2 id be happy... it just takes 20seconds of looking at the demo movies to see why!

[|MP|Nomad]

Ok, I think Alaric summed up pretty well what I was going to say to Myst and BFG.  Although, there is one thing that I would have liked to see with the Situational Awareness feature, and that is, not to have the enemy show up when using it.  

If you listen in the demo, the host explains how in real life the military would conduct aerial recon and take pics of the area the military was going to infiltrate, thus justifying the reason behind this feature.  That's fine, but I think it would have been more realistic if it would not show you the enemy b/c it "kind of" acts as a cheat, knowing where the enemy is going to be.

Even if you say, "well if you take aerial pics of the ground in real life, you can actually have the enemy show up in the pics", the problem with this is....people move around, they walk here and there and displace etc...so that reason doesn't necessarily hold water.

Instead, during game play, SP or MP, if you are approaching a zone that make look suspicious to you, then use the Situational Awareness feature, it should only show you the terrain with no enemies on it, this way it rids the possibility of cheating and you still know where to displace you and/or your team to, meanwhile, having to maintain caution (looking out for enemies) as you execute your planned decision.

[Mr. Lothario]

     Noms, I think the SA only shows enemies which your character either knows are there or suspects are there, which makes sense. I didn't like that it showed their exact attitudes (the guy hiding behind the wall), which you shouldn't be able to see if they're out of sight, right? But that's not too big a complaint.

     Two things that really struck me as annoying/bad were the extremely incompetent enemies and the extremely incompetent friendlies. Sure, they both moved and fired well, but even when the retard playing was standing in the middle of the road looking at three enemies who were looking back at him, they couldn't hit him. Later, when he sent his fire team in to take out the MG42, one German with a bolt-action took out two Tommy gunners in face-to-face close quarters combat. Gotta love that airborne training? If the AI remains that bad on both sides, it means that the assault squad will be useless. Use the fire squad for suppression, and charge in yourself. If I can't trust my AI squad, I'd rather not have them in the game. So hopefully that was an early demo version and they're polishing the AI as we speak. One other thing, why the hell didn't those Germans behind the overturned horsecart grab his grenade and throw it back? Sure, it makes a lot more sense to "run away" from the grenade by moving three steps and squatting on top of it, yeah. That broke my suspension of disbelief quite nicely. Don't even get me started on the sounds. They all sound like you're hearing them through a tunnel.

      Things I liked: the birds being disturbed by his fire, the SA mode, the interface for moving your squads, the fact that your squads were usefully skillful at movement (if not at firing, in the case of the assault squad), the concussion effects, the fact that bombers flew through, the overall look and feel, the designer getting frustrated by the guy who was playing's total lack of ability or sense.

[alaric]

Two things that really struck me as annoying/bad were the extremely incompetent enemies and the extremely incompetent friendlies. Sure, they both moved and fired well, but even when the retard playing was standing in the middle of the road looking at three enemies who were looking back at him, they couldn't hit him. Later, when he sent his fire team in to take out the MG42, one German with a bolt-action took out two Tommy gunners in face-to-face close quarters combat. Gotta love that airborne training? If the AI remains that bad on both sides, it means that the assault squad will be useless. Use the fire squad for suppression, and charge in yourself. If I can't trust my AI squad, I'd rather not have them in the game. So hopefully that was an early demo version and they're polishing the AI as we speak. One other thing, why the hell didn't those Germans behind the overturned horsecart grab his grenade and throw it back? Sure, it makes a lot more sense to "run away" from the grenade by moving three steps and squatting on top of it, yeah. That broke my suspension of disbelief quite nicely. Don't even get me started on the sounds. They all sound like you're hearing them through a tunnel.

I am almost sure they had the AI on the absolute easier difficulty setting. I would never do a demo on anything else. Playing and talking about it is hard enough, but when you're an inexperienced dipshit like that guy was, you'd be insane not to nerf the AI for the demo.

As for the friendly AI being inept, I didn't get that feeling at all. Attacking up stairs is one of the most difficult things you can do in CQB fighting judging by the video the first guy got camped at the top and the second got nailed at the bottom. Rifles make excellent beating sticks. And maybe the german just got lucky.

The squatting nade comment is just silly though. Think about how many times you've accidentally sat on a nade in a game that you either didn't realize was there or didn't move fast enough to react to.

So basically I attributed these issues to having the AI set to Kindergarten mode.

The sound was likely due to the compression of the video for the demo. I'll reserve judgment until I can play the game myself.

And that wasn't the designer who was getting frustrated it's was the Military Advisor they brought on to help with historical and military accuracy. And yes, he was damn funny.

I just had another thought: maybe the SA function is affected by the difficulty setting also. So you can see more on easiest than you could on harder settings. That would make sense from a gameplay standpoint.

[|MP|Nomad]

I just had another thought: maybe the SA function is affected by the difficulty setting also. So you can see more on easiest than you could on harder settings. That would make sense from a gameplay standpoint.

Good point!  Let's hope that's the case.

Also, yer right, I bet it was on Easy level and that host guy was not a great person to have demonstrated, he kinda sucked.

[|MP|Nomad]

Well I'm not a happy camper today    Last night was the release date for BiA and when I called the gaming store to reserve a copy, they told me that the release date has been pushed......until FEBRUARY!!!!  I was so pissed, I been waiting for this game a long time and now I have to wait 4 more months!!! thats not a push thats out of bounds!!!

[crypt]

Who is developing this?