Brothers in Arms - Earned in Blood Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

This is an enjoyable war game where you take control of tanks and rocket launchers as you advance through enemy lines and try and take the Allied forces to victory.

The war game genre has enjoyed a recent resurgence thanks to some great console titles and Brothers in Arms is the latest to cross over into the wonderful world of mobiles.

Graphically the game is pretty solid. The sprites are large and have sufficient detail to be interesting. They are in a type of cartoony Metal Slug style that has become so popular lately. The game is colourful which makes it easy on the eye as the colours are bold and bright. Backgrounds have some detail although not that many as often it??s just terrain of some kind. The animation is fairly smooth although once you get into a tank be prepared for some slow moving!

The sound is not bad; there is a tune that plays when you load the game which sounds very military-esque. It doesn??t play in the game which is a shame. There are some shorter tones between levels and when you are selecting things or die. There are also some sound effects during the game when you are shooting and when you are in the tank but these are minimal. Gameloft games always seem to pay more attention to the sound than most and this is only let down by the fact the main tune doesn??t play in game.

The controls are pretty simple, use the directional or key pad to move around. 5 or the main button will shoot and zero will lob grenades. When you are using the machine gun, it autofires so you just have to point in the direction of the enemy. The one thing I had with the controls was that the diagonal movements on the pad are not that easy and so moving diagonally and shooting using the keys was a little tricky. Still, the controls are not overly taxing and you should pick them up pretty quickly.

The gameplay is good. I always enjoy killing people (in games, not in real life ) and this game makes it fun. There are plenty of levels to keep you entertained and while the missions don??t vary (you usually just have to get somewhere) the use of tanks, grenades and machine guns help you mix it up a little. Another enjoyable aspect of the game is using the background objects to create more chaos as there are plenty of flammable oil drums lying around. You get combos when you kill people in quick succession via shooting or explosions and there are scores at the end of each level. The game doesn??t offer anything new in terms of gameplay or innovation but is just solidly made so is fun to play.

The lastability is average. There are plenty of missions to keep you going but there aren??t any specific modes or extra things. The missions vary a little and there are some cool quotes about war in between levels, but there is nothing in particular to have you salivating about the game. The game does autosave and you do increase rank as you go through. You can collect medals as well if you perform well which is a nice aspect if you??re trying to beat your previous scores. It??s not Metal Slug but then it??s not bad either! Worth a look if you??re into the genre.