Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood: A World War II Based PC Game
Earned In Blood takes off at the same time of Road To Hill 30 and if you played the first game one of the scenes will even look familiar. Earned in Blood takes place at the same time as Road To Hill 30, the two weeks when the Airborne landed behind enemy lines in occupied France and is from the view point of another group of American soldiers. This time you pick up the fight in Sgt. Joe “Red” Hartsock, who also made a couple of appearances in the first game.
The creators have come up with a unique way to add a sequel to a game without going over the same ground or rehashing the same events into boredom. The same scene from the first game is even different enough that it is fun to fight through, you save the first games group of soldiers by outflanking the huge group of attackers coming at them from the front as they hunker down and fight from a trench. In the first game you have Hartsock’s squad save your bacon at the time when you thought all was lost and many of your friends are getting hit from the overwhelming odds.
This different perspective of the same time period and the same fight doesn’t get boring or repetitive and is unique and fun. The game doesn’t go over the same scenes or use exactly the same weapons either. You get a few additional weapons to try your hands at and the scenes are totally different except for the one that starts out the same. Even that one has different ground that you cover as in the first one you stayed in the trench and fought against troops coming at you while this game has you outflanking from a different direction than you came in on the first one.
Confusing enough for you, well it shouldn’t be if you played the first game, Road To Hill 30. Even if you haven’t, all it means is Gearbox has gone to a great deal of effort to take a winning game and add to the excitement, confusion and feel of squad based first person action in World War II in a different and unique way.
The game is played easily in first person with the usual weapons of World War II while the squad based commands are easily accomplished with point and click commands that order your men to where you point and concentrate fire by point and click with different keys. The whole basis of this command of units is squad based tactics that were developed during the initial conflicts of World War II. Outflanking tactics were just a new concept in fighting and the men doing this new style of fighting were having to come up with on the fly and under fire.
Brothers IN Arms: Earned In Blood has the same system requirements as the first with the only difference being the newer video cards that are supported.
System Requirements:
Supported OS: Windows 2000/XP (only)
Processor: 1.0 GHz Pentium�® III or AMD Athlon(TM) (2.5 GHz Pentium IV or AMD Athlon recommended)
RAM: 512 MB (1 GB or more recommended)
Video Card: 32 MB DirectX�® 8.0 compliant (64 MB recommended) (see supported list*)
Sound Card: DirectX 8.0 compliant (EAX recommended; PC audio solution containing Dolby�® Digital Live required for Dolby Digital audio)
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (included on disc)
CD-ROM: 4x CD-ROM or faster
Hard Drive Space: 3.5 GB
Peripherals: Windows-compatible mouse and keyboard
Multiplayer: 56 Kbps connection (broadband with 64 Kbps upstream recommended)
*Supported Video Cards at Time of Release
ATI�® Radeon�® 8500/9000/X series
NVIDIA�® GeForce(TM) 4/FX/6 series (GeForce 4 MX not supported)
Laptop versions of these chipsets may work but are not supported.
Road To Hill 30 was definitely a great game and well worth the cost, Earned In Blood is no different. While the game play is basically the same it is over new territory and with new and unique missions that are both fun and challenging. Earned In Blood has all the different aspects of a PC game that are required to make an exceptional video game. The graphics and sound are great, the story behind the entire game is engaging but not totally necessary to play the game, the gameplay and action is fantastic and the control of your character and squads is easy to handle. The game is a winner and not only by just me. The average rating out there for Earned In Blood is above 80% with some going as high as 95%. So it’s not just me that thinks this is well worth your time and money.
The game has some extra features that you can download to add to the enjoyment and gameplay of this World War II action packed thriller. The SDK or Software Development kit contains many of the tools and utilities used to create the game by the professionals and you can try your hand at level design or at least altering. I love to get the mission editor for a game and play around with various aspects of the different levels and make them unique and different. I also like to change things around in the included missions to make them a little different and in my opinion better.
The SDK comes with a mission or level editor, tools and utilities to create textures and objects and all kinds of help and useful links to resources to design and edit levels of the game. You can also download three new levels available for Earned In Blood created after the games initial release.
I also use the level editor to cheat, yep, cheat. I sometimes find that a mission has, not a tough section or area but one that I don’t really care for so I change it somehow. I really like to use sniper rifles so many times I have just switched weapons and used a sniper rifle instead of the standard weapon given to the character at the beginning of a particular mission. This is both easier and harder. The sniper rifles are way more accurate but they are one shot weapons so you have to work quickly or from some distance which is not always possible. I usually leave my squads behind when I use a sniper rifle as I don’t have the time to give orders while I’m working at taking out the enemy.
Or if you’re really desperate you can go whole hog and cheat by using the console commands just like the level designers did when they were testing their level creations. You can change a few lines in one of the pages of notes for the game, make sure you make a copy in case you really mess something up and want to go back to the original configuration though. You then just hit the “~” key and the console line comes up, then you enter one of the cheats like GOD or LOADED to get invulnerable or all kinds of ammo.
Many people use these to get through tough parts and I know I use them when reviewing games so I can go to all the game and do a good job of reviewing the game in a short period of time, we do have deadlines as video game reviewers. Yes, I do have a sideline job that I do, I review video games for a web site called Game Chronicles Magazine and review about a game every two weeks. So I do play a lot of video games and I like to think I know what I’m talking abot when it comes to good games.
This is a very good game. The ease of use for controlling the units assigned to you is just one of the reasons. I have found there are a few things that make not a good game but a very good complete package for a PC game. Good graphics, sound and gameplay are some of them but it is more of a feel when you play the game. Having a good and imaginative story or background to the game with ease of use for the game controls are also essentials.
It’s very nice if you don’t even need to use a tutorial; that means the game is easy to use and the designers have done their jobs to create a user friendly game. No bugs or errors that detract from the game is also important and not having a hard time loading the game is also another. Mainly it’s the good graphics, sound and good imaginative gameplay without having any problems or glitches with the game.
Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood is a great PC game, it plays along the same time as the other in this series Road to Hill 30. With a unique way to run a sequel Gearbox has come up with another great first person shooter with great gameplay, graphics and sound that make you feel like your there and a story that makes you want to find out more about the 502nd Airborne and their D-Day invasion experiences.
