Last night I brought the Holocaust to my video game shelves, and sacked up a bunch of stuff I was never going to finish/play again. Today I traded everything for about $95, and put the money towards BiA Hell's Highway for 360, and BiA Double Time for Wii. Here are my initial impressions about both games.
DOUBLE TIME - This is basically a Wii port of the first two BiA games, Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood. It's even broken down into two discs, one for each game. They've taken out the multiplayer and added Waggle controls. BIG SHOCK - it doesn't suck. The graphics approach Xbox1 levels, it's in true widescreen (not that black border crap they try to pass off as widescreen in some games), and the pointer control isn't bad at all. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's better than previous console versions. You can actually hit a motherfucker in this version. There are two control layout options, and sensitivity tweaks. Otherwise it's the same pair of games, minus the multiplayer (which, to be honest, I never played much anyway). Yeah, it's a stripped-down port, but it's done very well.
I only bought this because Earned in Blood won't run on Vista without some ass-around-elbow hacking (and even then it is prone to crashing, from what I've read), the Xbox versions aren't BC (let's face it, at this point they never will be), and the PS2 versions of the games are fucking horrendous. I thought I was just pissing away store credit, but was pleasantly surprised. I would never have paid $50 actual cash for this game(s), though.
This game has had next to no marketing, and even though it just released today not many stores are stocking it (my Gamestop only had one copy). I'd say wait until it drops to $30, if you can find it on shelves then. It's worth that much to finally be able to hit what you're aiming at, and if you've never played the first two games, well, now you have another FPS to play on your Wii that isn't barrel-bottom-scraping wretched.
HELL'S HIGHWAY - This game has been getting "middling" to "okay" reviews, but as someone who was never the biggest fan of the first two games I really don't know why. Almost everything I had a problem with in the first two games seems to have been improved - the aiming, the AI pathfinding, the voice acting, etc. Granted, I've only played it for half an hour or so, but I can't see where any of those improvements would get worse as the game goes along.
The story is much more mature this time, and even though I can tell it's going to get pretty maudlin later on, it flows naturally, and the amateurish overacting from the first two games is gone. There are even touches of subtlety here and there, which is appreciated over the eyerolling dialogue from the first two.
Graphics-wise, I have to wonder if these reviewers are looking at the same game I am. I think the problem might be that there are parts of the game (so far) that are truly beautiful to look at, which makes any lower-res textures or jank glitches that much more apparent. Facial animations are well done, but some of the running animations are kind of jerky. Some of the cover can be destroyed, and it's well done - but not everything can be shot up, which I really don't have much of a problem with although some reviews have mentioned it as a drawback. Those dudes must think they're playing on some kind of supercomputers instead of 360s and PS3s. It also has some framerate dips that are pretty noticeable. You can tell Gearbox had an awful time working with UE3, and tried to make the best of it.
The controls are very customizable, and work well. Surprise, another BiA game (on the same day!) where your bullets go where you're aiming. I was picking off germans with just the very tips of their helmets showing. There is also a cover button, and pressing it immediately slides you into position behind whatever you're near. Very smooth and intuitive. There's no real health system, just your screen turning red and flashing a bit when you're about to get lit up - it's okay, but I think stuff like that is distracting when you're in a panic situation and tends to get you killed more than it helps you.
I haven't tried the multiplayer yet, but from what I've read in the manual it seems pretty barren and featureless, something added so they could slap that INCLUDES 20 PERSON MULTIPLAYER in red letters on the back.
Anyway, I went in thinking I would walk out with a sack full of fail, and ended up with two decent games.
