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| | Genre: Action | | Min OS X: 10.4  CPU: Intel @ 1800 MHz RAM: 999 MB Hard Disk: 8000 MB DVD-ROM Graphics: 128 MB VRAM |
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Requirements: Mac OS X: 10.5 | CPU: 1.8GHz Intel Mac | RAM: 1.5 GB |
Hard Disk: 8 GB | DVD drive | Graphics: 128MB Video Card (The game supports the latest generation of MacBooks and Mac Minis with nVidia 9400M cards or better)Review: One of the most common games to be released over the past few years has been the World War One or World War Two military first-person-shooter. They're almost always along the same lines, a level-based shooter with cover mechanics. Due to the lack of variety, it has become really hard to enjoy these games unless they bring something new to the table. The question is, does Brothers In Arms: Double Time (BIA) from Feral Interactive do that or is it just another generic war shooter?At this point the answer is both yes and no. BIA brings a very immersive experience and semi-realistic combat to the table, but its multiplayer choices are GameRanger and LAN play. This wouldn't be too bad, but GameRanger doesn't currently support BIA servers. As a result, there's no way to test or enjoy the multiplayer gameplay. This will more than likely change after a month or two, but for now the only experience is the single-player one. On the plus side, the single-player experience is quite good. It follows the skirmishes of Sergeant Baker in Road To Hill 30 and Red in Earned In Blood, respectively. The plot is pretty self-explanatory, a quest to kill Germans to secure various objectives, but the scenarios can be quite interesting. They take full use of the cover mechanics, of course, but they also often offer multiple ways to approach the statically placed German squads. There are a few issues with Double Time's gameplay, though. The main one is that the Germans never move once they reach their target positions. They do move to different sections of the same piece of cover, but you can always find a good way to shoot them in the side. In addition, the cover takes shape in about eight different pieces of scenery that are reused everywhere. The lack of variety makes some levels seem old as a result. In addition, your teammates aren't anywhere near as good as you in going from cover to cover and tend to get mowed down on the higher difficulty settings. The difficulty of the levels also seems to be random instead of increasing over time. Some levels near the middle of the game are extremely easy, particularly the ones where you're given control of a sniper rifle, but there are also quite a few near the beginning that are designed to get you killed. Even with the cover fire of your teammates (which is all that they're good for), you generally get picked off quite often before you get lucky enough to get a clear shot. This issue isn't quite as serious in Earned In Blood, thankfully, as your teammates will replenish your ammo infinitely giving you plenty of time to snipe the more dangerous positions from a distance.
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