Arm yourself, arm yourself well
Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes is a good game. It captures everything that you would hope find on the console version of the game. Obviously, there is a graphical difference, but it’s on the freakin’ iPhone, so what are you going to do? Anyway, I think that Gameloft has brought a lot of very nice elements to the table with BIA: HoH, but there is still room for improvement.
First, the good. The gameplay is interesting and simplistic. You get thrown into battle and pretty much know what to do without thinking too much. There are plenty of onscreen indicators when you need to perform something special. For example, in the early levels there is a sniper sitting in the bell tower of a church just waiting to pick you off. You can get a bazooka (that is laying on the ground waiting for you) and properly aim it at the tower. An onscreen indicator goes off (in the lower right) when you’re ready to fire the sucker. It’s kind of a learn as you go approach, but it is suitable for anyone who doesn’t want to think too much about controls. Indicator goes off, you push the button. This is how it works the entire game, which makes it extremely easy to use. That’s important, especially for an audience who wants to play the game, but has no experience with the console version of it. You widen your audience with those type of options and invite everyone to participate.
Another positive about the game is the presentation. Two elements are at work here: A. Graphics and B. Audio. Now, if you’re lucky enough to have some Shure earbuds (aren’t we all?), the experience can only be heightened. The audio is unreal for a cell phone game and really puts a virtual stereo (nearly 5.0) in your ears. You’ll hear Germans yelling at you, your squadron directing you and all sorts of goodies. It truly is impressive to see this sort of love given to a cell phone game. Gameloft has done nothing but impress in this area, if you need another example please download UNO. On the graphics side of things, you get some choppy polygons, but in the scheme of things it’s better than what the DS can output. I’m not sure how they do it (I’m learning Objective-C and some other languages to figure this all out), but Gameloft seems to tap into the iPhone’s processor and graphical capabilities as best as it can. Your army fellow does have a good model to him, but it can’t compare to current console graphics (which would be unfair if we did compare them). It’s a notch below PSP, but definitely right after it. The scaling effects and the gunfire effects are very impressive. Again, it’s very impressive for a cell phone game. You’ll be visually pleased with it.
The depth of the game is good. You get 13 missions that span across different types of scenarios (you get to drive a tank in one), which makes the game competent (at least) for a campaign. The different types of weaponry is very impressive, as you get your variety of WWII options. The only think missing from this game, in terms of depth ,is the ability to do multiplayer. UNO can do it, but I would suspect most people would find BIA more appropriate for that option.
Moving on to the downer of the game. The only bad mark I have to give to this game is the controls can get a bit difficult at times. The main reason for this? For people with long fingers, like myself, they tend to cover part of the battlefield. I think that if they went to a more of Hero of Sparta control scheme, it might make more sense. There just isn’t a good onscreen indicator to help you out and because your character has to move on an X/Y axis, it’s difficult to sort out direction at times. I think that if they release another BIA, Gameloft should consider this notion. This is the only downer of the game, people will probably work through it, but it was difficult for me not to mention it.
For a game that’s only $5.99 in the App Store in iTunes, this is worth the price. You get more positive than negative and it’s a fun game to walk around with or even pass time with. If you’re an FPS fan or just a fan of the BIA series, don’t overlook this.