Review: Brothers in Arms 2 - Global Front

Glitches. Glitches. Glitches. This shooter is barely workable.

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5.6

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If there’s any developer which has a wealth of experience in making quality first person shooters for the iPhone, it’s Gameloft. Last year’s Halo-esque effort N.O.V.A. was so impressive that it set the benchmark for future iPhone shooters. It’s unfortunate that Gameloft’s latest FPS effort doesn’t quite match up to N.O.V.A. Brothers in Arms 2: Global Front is an utterly careless attempt to expand the iPhone shooter catalogue, removing many of the elements that made N.O.V.A. such a great play and introducing multiple odd control issues and technical glitches that infest the single-player experience. The result is a barely workable FPS that feels more like a shoo-in for iPhone shooter fans who can’t wait to digest another action title before the next big Gameloft shooter arrives rather than a real shooter designed to impress.

Like many shooters before it, Brothers in Arms 2: Global Front administers the notion of fighting a war which spans various continents. It’s World War 2 afterall. The game has you playing as Eric Wilson, a Corporal whose brother has died and his Medal of Honor mysteriously revoked. It’s up to you now to uncover the truth behind his death and get his Medal of Honor reinstated. And Corporal Eric Wilson might just have the craziest method to uncover what actually happened to his brother. He volunteers his combat services tirelessly to the war in Africa, Italy, Europe and the Pacific as he jumps from lead to lead and questions soldier after soldier to get the story out. It’s a plot that is more of a fairy tale than a serious outline for the single-player campaign, but it works in getting you to different locations to fight the war. Even a fairy tale needs development though. Unfortunately, BiA2 leaps from plot point to plot point without so much of a concern to how Wilson actually gets his information. And when the plot wraps at the end of the single-player campaign, it actually feels like you just finished reading a novel with a handful of pages torn out in between.

The plot has never been one of the important aspects of a World War 2 shooter so a messed-up story isn’t so much of a deal breaker. The crux of BiA2 lies in its action that is spread across 13 missions. All in all, there’s some decent world war action to be had in here. You will find yourself scurrying from cover to cover and shooting a constant stream of enemies. In fact, BiA2 rarely pauses to allow some breathing space and the action is consistently intense. But here is where the game becomes a wreck. BiA2 is simply terrible.

For 2 simple reasons, I suspect you’d enjoy the game more if you leave your brains at home before taking your iPhone out. BiA 2 is completely linear and the A.I. here is non-existent. These are 2 elements which were implemented into N.O.V.A. with great results and it’s a real pity that the tradition couldn’t continue here. Throughout the course of the entire single-player campaign, you’d be taking orders from the game. The game highlights the point where you need to proceed to with green lighted circles on the ground and you HAVE to go to that circle. Unlike N.O.V.A., there aren’t other spaces to explore. And if you even think about walking anywhere away from the green lighted circle, you would die and the mission would fail. It’s a harsh rule which further reinforces the idea that the game DOES NOT support any exploration. BiA2 feels like a step back in time.

The A.I. here also feels dated. While enemies do take cover, they are programmed to run to a pre-destined point and after they arrive at that point, they will not move away – even if you change your position or lob a grenade over. Friendly A.I. is absolutely useless. BiA2 ignores the fact that you’re actually fighting with a group of comrades and more often than not, until you finish mowing down all the enemies by yourself, the game will not proceed.

With such a flawed A.I., you’d think that game would be easy. Unfortunately, BiA2’s woes are far from over. The challenge from the game comes not from enemies who take cover but from serious control issues. The smooth controls from N.O.V.A. haven’t made the jump here and it shows. BiA2 offers mostly the same control scheme from previous Gameloft shooters but rather than improving on an already strong aspect, BiA2 goes on to botch its controls up with odd control issues. For instance, if you run to a cover, you would automatically stick to the cover when you reach it – very much like Gears of War. However, if you walk to a cover, you wouldn’t be engaged under a cover immediately. An extra step in the form of hitting the take cover button is required. This issue proves to be rather annoying especially later in the game when there are more and more enemies firing at you and you need to take cover quickly. I also experienced difficulties in using the sprint button during the earlier stages of the game. For reasons unknown, you can’t sprint straight in the game. The problem does get corrected midway through the single-player campaign though so it isn’t as bad as the take cover control issue.

The main culprits are the controls for the glider and jeep. Glider movements are fully dependant on tilt controls and it’s hard to understand why Gameloft can’t see that the tilt controls are simply too sensitive to be of any use. Driving the jeep is a nightmare as it can only be controlled via a single analogue stick. Try driving the jeep in BiA2 and you would realize that the controls are non-functional. I literally moved the analogue stick in all directions as I struggled to get my jeep to the objective. This is a case where forward isn’t forward, backward isn’t backward, left isn’t left and right isn’t right. When you take a step back and look at BiA2 in general, it really feels like some of the bugs didn’t get ironed out after testing and that’s some serious case of complacency. BiA2 has many serious control issues and it HURTS.

The controls aren’t the only ones to be bugged. Various technical glitches were noticed throughout the single-player campaign. For instance, if you drive the tank to a specific spot on the map, the tank becomes stuck in the spot and can’t move away. And there was once where I attempted to blast a bunker with my tank cannon but the bunker just couldn’t be destroyed. There was also once where I completed my objective but the game refused to proceed. On all 3 occasions, I had to restart the game from the last saved checkpoint and it was irksome. I went through the same situations again doing the same things and the game allowed me to proceed. It’s obvious that those were technical glitches that should not even have made it out of testing.

Presentation-wise, BiA2 loses the shine of N.O.V.A. The entire game is represented by blocky models, poor textures and stiff animations. The fact is that BiA2 is an ugly game – especially since after the iPhone platform has matured in the past years. Cut-scenes are littered generously throughout the game but at times, I had to ask myself why those cut-scenes were even necessary at all. Does a cut-scene of enemy soldiers closing in on your location add value to the game at all? No. Aurally, the game is respectably good with a score that serves to complement the action decently.

After completing the horrible 4 hour single-player campaign, you can hop online for a match or play local multiplayer. This is the ONLY aspect of N.O.V.A. that Gameloft has improved upon. There are more modes, more maps, and more supported players. More of everything is always good, right? If anything, the multiplayer component here shows how far shooters on iPhone have progressed on the multiplayer front.

Closing comments
Brothers in Arms 2: Global Front suffers a very sad fate. In an attempt to quickly expand the iPhone FPS catalogue, Gameloft rushes this game out with a whole box of problems dropping out of the cart from the get-go. The plot is utterly unbelievable with huge gaps in between. The game is completely linear, even going as far as to punish curious exploration with deaths and failed missions. The A.I. is anciently horrendous. And serious control issues, including a non-seamless cover system, a flawed sprint button, barely functional tilt controls for the glider and busted jeep controls and a handful of technical glitches which made it out of testing bug the game from start to end. BiA2 is also an ugly game, saved only by a respectable score. There’s absolutely no reason why anyone should torture themselves with this game when there’re other better shooters like N.O.V.A. and Modern Combat: Sandstorm, all Gameloft’s previous gems.