Gameloft released the much anticipated Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes [App Store] and it’s an impressive effort.
We’ve played the game briefly — enough to give you this gameplay video embedded here.
The game is a 3rd person shooter where you control your character across various missions. As a relatively free-walking 3rd person shooter, the game controls had to be flexible enough to allow you to move across the terrain and also view/aim. The default system Gameloft came up with is a virtual directional pad on the bottom left, which controls your walking direction. Meanwhile, your other hand can swipe anywhere on the screen to change your view direction. Together, the controls take some getting used to be seem to be relatively effective but feels somewhat imprecise. (Note, there are alternative controls which we haven’t explored yet)
Shooting involves hitting a button on the bottom right, and special weapons (such as grenades) appear on the top right. Gameloft has added a number of additional special modes/features that keep things interesting. Grenade throwing and gun reloading uses the tilt control on the iPhone. Sniping and bazookas can be aimed more precisely with pinch gestures.
We haven’t gotten that far in the game, so it’s hard to judge value/difficulty. As you can see in the video, the first level seems relatively easy without much risk of getting killed by simple gunfire (though a tank takes me out towards the end). Gameplay is linear with specific checkpoints that must be reached. We’ll try to provide a more thorough review in the near future.
App Store Link: Brothers in Arms, $9.99
