Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30
I've heard nothing but good things about this game and it is...good. I think it was perceived better at the time of release, but now it's a little rough.
The graphics aren't great, as it's obvious the PS2 was the lead platform. I love France, but the whole game is green and brown, and almost never changes scenery. This makes sense from a story perspective, but the reuse of assets is what really hammers home the repetitiveness. The game controls well, but hitting an enemy can be spotty. I can make a headshot clear across a field, yet pump two or three point blank shots in their head and/or chest and they don't react at all sometimes. Commanding troops works well, for the most part. Outside of directly pointing to a spot you might want them, they may choose poor cover or make ill advised moves with the general orders. Tanks can be particularly finicky to get where you want them and attack when you want them to.
The game blatantly rips off 'Saving Private Ryan' in aesthetics. That's not necessarily bad, since that movie is one of most accurate portrayals of the war, but the music almost sounds ripped from the movie, as are your troop mates' personas. Early on I was being really careful not to put the other soldiers in harm's way, but since they're tied to the narrative, it doesn't matter if they live or die during any given mission. Some of the intended strategy goes out the window when it's possible to brute force forward and sacrifice troops without consequence. It's a true story too, but only a couple of the characters were real life figures. I also wish there was a sprint and prone actions. Your character runs real slow, and enemies have the advantage at times firing on you. Often times I was in a direct firefight with an enemy and he could fire through his gate and hit me, sometimes they clip through the environment and land shots, but I'm not afforded the same abilities. At times there are invisible walls if firing too close from out of cover where, even with a clear shot, nothing hits. And there aren't bullet marks, so it's not easy to tell if you're hitting your cover's hitbox or nothing at all.
Overall, though, I did enjoy the game. I imagine the higher difficulties would be appropriately brutal, but, oddly, for a game so obsessed with historical accuracy (the behind-the-scene unlocks are very interesting), there are cheats unlocked for completing certain missions on a certain difficulty. Which makes for some reliability for an otherwise pretty short game.