Brothers In Arms 2: Global Front iPhone Review

Brothers in Arms 2: Global Front is a standard issue World War II themed first person shooter, where the only thing that separates it from the competition are missions in both the European and South Pacific campaigns. You play Corporal Wilson, a tough guy who learns that his brother died under mysterious circumstances and had his Medal of Honor revoked. Thus begins a series of cookie cutter missions that we've seen in other games of this type. That doesn't mean, however, that Global Front's a terrible game. Despite the familiarity, Gameloft succeeded in delivering a visually impressive and fun adventure with single and multiplayer features.

If you have ever played a game set in WWII (whether it's Call of Duty, Medal of Honor and even previous Brothers in Arms adventures), then you've already experienced a lot of what this one has to offer. The majority of the missions involve performing familiar tasks, like setting demo charges on equipment, clearing machine gun nests (and operating the turrets), protecting soldiers from incoming Germans/Japanese infantry and destroying a tank with a bazooka. Through it all, dramatic music (of the Saving Privaate Ryan variety) plays in the background, the Gameloft peppers these levels with plenty of drama, from tanks unloading powerful shells to wounded planes going down in flames.

Meanwhile, the guy who plays Corporal Wilson should have taken his performance down several notches, since he overacts throughout the entire game. But that goes for just about everyone involved, as Gameloft went a bit overboard with the WWII drama.

That said, Brothers in Arms: Global Front is still an impressive video game, largely because it's one of the few WWII shooters on the iPhone and it looks incredible, given the platform. Gameloft shoehorned a PSOne quality experience onto Apple's device, complete with authentic WWII weapons (M1, Thompson), soldiers yelling in their native tongues and plenty of attractive environments, from dense jungles to barren deserts and city streets.

Plus, the controls work surprisingly well. You look around and move with an on-screen d-pad, and then aim down the sights/run/fire/lob grenades/use equipment with accessible icons; the aim down the sights button could've been larger. There's even a useful cover/vault system (also handled with icons), and you shake the iPhone whenever a soldier latches onto you.

Finally, the game comes with six-person multiplayer, available locally or online through Wi-Fi. After connecting, you can enjoy standard deathmatch, team deathmatch and a mode called Domination. Unfortunately, we had some issues setting up a match, but we'll update this review as soon as it works.

Despite the been there/played that design, Brothers in Arms 2: Global Front is a pintsize version of the same WWII first person shooter we've enjoyed for the past ten years. Whether or not that's good depends on your love of the genre and time period, but considering the slick graphics and action packed levels, we suggest saving the free world one more time.