Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30

Brothers in Arms is one of the first person tactical shooter games that emerged in the last years. It has some strong points (tactical view, diverse tactical commands, has a very nice "WWII feeling" to it, well documented and "true to the facts" missions) but also has weaknesses (medium graphics, very dumb AI, repetitive gameplay).

BiA is "one of those WWII" games. It's a good one, still, has its dose of WWII stereotypes: camaraderie, "those nasty Germans", the hero that "had them all", etc. The really bad thing in this squad based tactical shooter is the main attraction: the AI. You'll find yourselves screaming and moaning that your teammates are dead due to a wrong taken path, or simply because they refuse to follow simple (as you may think) orders (mostly because of a deficient pathfinding). You'll also be screaming because your teammates will actually attack in certain situations the enemy, even though the situation does no require any such drastic tactical maneuvers.

The enemy is confined to some fixed/scripted positions. So you must find "solutions" to clear the enemy outposts. It's all there is to it. There is some degree of depth into it, but not that much. The situations you'll find yourself into are a little static and that's a definitive feeling in the game: (outpost, clear outpost) x N, finish, cutscene.

The game has lacks few elements that will make this experience diverse and fun: 8.

Gamespot Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 review.

Flawed Video board

The new system works, except when it's not starting :))

It's true: the video board it's somehow broken: it starts in only about 20% of the power-ons. It's a very strange behavior, I mean, it's working or it's not working? How can this system work very well, but will start just once in a while? I've suspected my wiring, but it was done properly. I've suspected the power source, but that wasn't it (checked two other PSUs, with the same results). I've suspected some incompatibility between the motherboard and the video-board, but at the end, the guys in service told me the video-board does the same in their systems.

So that's that: I don't have a system right now and I wait a graphics card to assemble my system again.

Update: got my new board but this was even broken than the first: even lower start rate, weird sounds from the cooler (fan touching the metal cooler). Sent it back the next day.

One more week of waiting... and an new board. And, like a bad nightmare: same symptoms. This time, I wonder if it really is the videoboard's fault or the motherboard. Having issues with 3 brand new videoboards raises some questions...

For now, I'm a little tired running with my system to the techguys... but I definitely have to do that in the near future.