Brothers In Arms (DS)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.0 stars Good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 6.0 (3.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Aaron Thomas
• Reviewed on: 06/29/2007
• Released on: 06/21/2007
• Originally published on GameSpot: Brothers In Arms (DS) Review

World War II shooters are plentiful and popular on consoles and even on the PSP, but until Brothers In Arms DS was released last week, Nintendo's handheld had been without a WWII game to call its own. What Gameloft was able to accomplish with Brothers In Arms DS is impressive from a technical standpoint, but it seems that most of the developer's energy was focused simply on getting the game to work, not on making a great game. If you absolutely must have a handheld WWII-based shooter and the DS is your only option, Brothers In Arms will probably satisfy that need. It's still not very good, though.

Brothers In Arms DS is divided into three campaigns, each of which contains half a dozen or so missions. These missions were clearly designed for the person on the go and generally take only around 10 to 20 minutes to complete. The game's not terribly difficult, which means a skilled player could finish the whole thing in around four hours--though you can go back and play the additional difficulty levels that unlock as you progress. Up to four players with their own copy of the game can take part in ad hoc deathmatch and team deathmatch modes. There's very little in the way of customization options, and you absolutely need four people for it to be remotely fun, but the inclusion of multiplayer is appreciated.

The console versions of Brothers In Arms may have focused on providing a strong narrative to suck you into the proceedings, but on the DS there's very little setup before each mission. Once you've started a level, your objectives are conveyed to you via boxes of text. Other than a few short phrases from soldiers here and there, there's no audio dialogue. Another significant difference is that unlike the console versions, Brothers In Arms DS isn't a squad-based first-person shooter. Instead, it's a third-person shooter where your only concern is with the character you're controlling.

And there's plenty of reason to be concerned about controlling your character, because the controls can be quite challenging. You view the action on the top screen, move with the D pad, and fire with the left shoulder button--that's simple enough. Here's the complicated part: You use the bottom screen's touch-sensing capabilities to look around, aim, change weapons, reload, use your weapons' sights, and throw grenades. Reloading your weapon is as simple as tapping the clip icon and dragging the stylus to the center of the screen. Changing weapons is simple as well; you tap the gun icon, which opens a dropdown list of your weapons, and then just tap the weapon you want. Taking cover behind an object or a wall is surprisingly easy, too--you run up to the object and the game places you behind it, so all you have to do is aim and fire. Unless you're using left-hand mode, which uses the face buttons in lieu of the D pad, you'll never use the face buttons at all, and there are no alternate control options.

When you're doing only a few things at once this scheme isn't all that bad, but when the action picks up it becomes quite challenging to manage. Dragging the stylus to aim works OK if you're only dealing with a few stationary enemies, but it takes several swipes of the stylus to turn completely around (there's no option to change the sensitivity), and your enemies are so tiny that it's tough to aim with any level of precision, even with the game's somewhat generous auto-aim feature. To throw a grenade you tap the grenade icon in the lower corner of the bottom screen, and then look at the top screen for the aiming reticle as you drag the stylus across the bottom screen, letting up when you've reached the desired distance.

When it works properly this method is fine, but too often you'll find that the screen didn't recognize that you hit the grenade icon, which results in your character staring at the sky; or, you'll stray off the sensor area and the game will decide you only wanted to throw the grenade a few feet. Either way, it's bad news. Eventually you'll come to grips with the control scheme, but you'll never become physically comfortable with it. You're forced to hold the DS with just one hand--more specifically, with the sides of your fingers while your index finder is crooked over the left shoulder button. After a few levels, the pain can be excruciating to the point where you may have to take a break to rest your hand.

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