Brothers In Arms: Earned In Blood (PS2)

While there are no major enhancements from the first game this game stills hold an attraction for those who want more than just your basic shoot em up.
Take the supression indicators and cross hairs off, don't use the tactical view and it's probably as real as you can get. Killing the enemy is pretty difficult and unlike MOH or COD you cannot just sit there aiming until a head appears in the same place as your gun never stays dead still.

Use of tactics and positioning your squads are key to success and
a bad decision leaves your mates dead.

One improvement worthy of a mention is the skirmish sections, hard or what?

For those new to Brothers in Arms I would just say after these all the other FPS WW2 games are second rate.
Those familiar with Road to Hill 30 this is more of the same but really should have been an add on rather than a seperate game.

The idea is simple: in a series of events running parallel to those in the first Brothers in Arms instalment, "Road to Hill 30", you take command of a paratrooper fighting his way through France following the D-Day landings. Based on real battles and with missions recreated using WW2 photos, there's a strong feeling of authenticity throughout the game. Shells landing nearby will splatter you mud, and the solid recoil motions will kick your gun back considerably, making it important to make every shot count where you have time to line it up.

As a newly-promoted sergeant, you also have command of several troopers (numbers slowly increase as the game goes on). You have to deploy your privates effectively to pin back German soldiers - each enemy has a "suppression gauge", so that if your troops keep firing at them they'll stay hiding behind cover, afraid to move or return fire. What this means in gameplay terms is that covering fire actually works, becoming crucial to the success of each mission. You have to keep your foes on their toes as you outflank and outmanoeuvre them to pick them off from angles where there is no cover. Similarly, it's incredibly difficult to pick off the Germans when they're directly behind cover.

As time goes on, your men earn scars and their uniforms detoriate. Your ongoing use of the same men, who you've pulled through various other tricky missions and sticky situations, makes every loss heartbreaking, and you start to develop a real feeling of camaraderie with your band.

Another improvement on Road to Hill 30 is that the enemy AI has been significantly improved: the Germans will fall back to new positions if you press them too hard, try to outflank you as well, and even charge you in a desperate last-ditch effort if you corner them. This makes the game a rewarding challenge rather than an orgy of mindless killing, and the learning curve is pitched just about perfectly.

However, there are a few small gripes: there are no medikits or health equivalents, and the only way to "save" your in-game progress is to reach a mission checkpoint. These checkpoints, however, are somewhat erratically spaced. Some are very close together, while others require you to battle your way through hordes of entrenched Germans before you can even pause for breath. This adds to the difficulty, and may require you to replay some parts of the mission almost ad nauseum.

Furthermore, there is a "situational awareness map" to allow you to tactically plan your next move. While this is an excellent idea, it's a poorly executed one. The lack of free-rotating camera means you can only look directly at the objectives, allies, or enemies, making a simple area overview almost impossible and long-term route-planning tricky. It's still better to have this feature than to not have it, but it could be more useful.

The multi-player mode is the only other thing to comment on: it's solid enough, but you can't play co-operatively, which is a little disappointing.

Overall, then, a tense recreation of WW2 skirmishes, with excellent gameplay employing strategic thinking. A very worthwhile purchase, but with a few minor blemishes, I recommend this to anyone sick of the bog standard WW2 FPS genre. A real challenge, and a long game with added multi-player life.