00:11I'm here in the heart of London at the Century Club
00:14to get my hands on Brothers in Arms, Hell's Highway
00:17the third in the World War II first person shooter series
00:20developed by Gearbox Software
00:22so without further ado, let's go and have a chat to the Gearbox guys
00:41Hell's Highway tells the story of the 101st Airborne Division's role
00:45in September 1944's Operation Market Garden
00:48Randy Pitchford fills me in on the history
00:51The plan was an offensive plan
00:53the Allies were going to drop every paratrooper they could get together
00:57along this corridor through Holland
00:59to capture a series of bridges
01:01and then they were going to race the British 30 Corps tanks
01:04along this corridor trying to punch through the German lines
01:07punch right into Germany across the line
01:09and in their hopes that they would continue that
01:11and hopefully end the war by Christmas
01:14the paratroopers were dropped
01:15and they captured their objectives
01:17the 101st Airborne was at the base of this whole operation
01:20unfortunately the Germans had a lot more elite troops in that area
01:25than intelligence understood or anticipated
01:28and they swiftly counterattacked and surrounded and crushed the corridor
01:32and to the men that fought there it became known as Hell's Highway
01:36racing down this corridor trying to punch through the line was the highway
01:39and as the Germans counterattacked and crushed it
01:42what was supposed to be a two-day operation
01:44extended into five, six, eight days
01:47these men were overextended
01:49they were out of ammunition, out of supplies
01:51they'd been fighting longer than they were supposed to
01:54and then they had to retreat, they had to withdraw
01:56and the 101st Airborne had to hold the base of that operation
01:59in order to get everyone out
02:01not exactly a happy time then
02:03so why choose Market Garden in particular?
02:07there's a few reasons why Operation Market Garden is interesting to us
02:10first, it's the largest airborne invasion in the history of the world
02:13there's never been anything before or since
02:15that even comes close to the scope of this
02:16secondly, it was the last great German victory of the war
02:21it was a strategic defeat for the Allies
02:23so it's a traumatic backdrop for these guys
02:28I mean, our squad is literally between a rock and a hard place
02:31it's one of the three major engagements
02:33that the 101st Airborne were involved in
02:35the first one being D-Day
02:37and when I was working on Brothers in Arms Road to Hill 30
02:40which was about the paratroopers in D-Day
02:42I often talked about comparing it to the film Star Wars
02:45because the Nazis were like the evil empire
02:48and these guys had to fight outnumbered and outgunned
02:52and there was a city called Karentan
02:54which was like the prize of the beach landings
02:56and I equated that to the Death Star
02:58and very much that was like Star Wars
03:00Operation Market Garden is kind of like Empire Strikes Back
03:03and if you're a self-respecting fan of the original trilogy like I am
03:08Empire is my favorite of the three films from the original trilogy
03:12and it's a neat one because it was that dramatic backdrop
03:16the Empire turned out ahead on that
03:18I mean, you know, Han's gone, he's frozen
03:22Luke loses his hand, Ben's dead
03:24you know, it's like the situation's tough now
03:28and these guys are going to have to rally for the next installment of Star Wars
03:33which became Return of the Jedi
03:35and of course Baker will have to get through this
03:38and we have to learn is this going to crush him
03:39or is he going to be able to stand up and lead his men?
03:42Yes, Matt Baker, squad leader from Road to Hill 30
03:45returns for Hell's Highway
03:47but things are different for him this time out
03:49Baker is attached to the 101st as a recon unit
03:53which means he's attached at headquarters level
03:56and he has access to new resources he didn't have before
03:58so this gives the game the ability for us to introduce
04:02things like a bazooka crew that he can command
04:04or a machine gun crew
04:05and machine guns are wicked things
04:07I mean, they're a very fast rate of fire
04:09they're big, huge bullets
04:10we've added some other features to Hell's Highway
04:12to make the use of these teams more interesting
04:15a new destructible cover system
04:17a wooden fence in Road to Hill 30
04:19and in most video games you play
04:21is impenetrable
04:22you play all the other military games
04:24and even the fantasy games
04:25and a wooden fence, a bullet, can't go through it
04:27in Hell's Highway
04:29if you shoot at wood
04:30it shreds splinter by splinter
04:33and a machine gun makes quick work of that
04:36it's a new part of the decision making
04:37not only on what weapons you can use to tear apart the enemy's cover
04:41but also what cover you should choose to hide behind
04:43and when you're attacking
04:45there's now time as a factor
04:46not just what's the best position
04:48but how long will this position survive
04:50if I'm under attack
04:51the bazooka's great
04:52because while a machine gun and small arms
04:55can start to splinter wood
04:56machine guns and small arms can't do anything against sandbags
04:59but a bazooka can display sandbags
05:01and can knock out harder cover
05:02and so by using these different weapons
05:04I can have some different options
05:05for getting through the tactical problems on the battlefield
05:09The game is looking spectacular
05:11How does that work, Randy?
05:13We've licensed the Unreal Engine 3 from Epic
05:15and these guys are amazing
05:17the technology is great
05:18and one of the advantages that we have as a licensee
05:21and coming out when we are
05:23is not only can we have the technology that they've created
05:27but they themselves, Epic and Gearbox
05:30have each been doing things to improve this technology
05:33since Gears of War launched
05:35their technology is improved by their own efforts
05:39and we've been able to use the technology as a licensee
05:42to do things that are different from the efforts they're doing
05:45and so the sum of that is that
05:47yeah, licensees like Gearbox
05:49and hopefully some of the other guys
05:51that are getting good use out of Unreal Engine 3
05:53can take it a step further
05:54and actually can produce even higher fidelity results
05:58better optimization for the hardware
05:59than even what we saw with Gears
06:01and I know it's hard to believe
06:02because Gears was such an amazing looking game
06:04but the truth is that Epic and Gearbox
06:06and other guys that are at the top of the game
06:08using this technology
06:09are actually producing graphics
06:10that are even better than that
06:11and Hell's Highway is a great example of that
06:14So there you have it
06:16Hell's Highway has been on the radar for a long time
06:18and it's great to see that the game is coming together so well
06:21Frag Dolls are seriously looking forward
06:23to its release later this year on the Xbox 360, PC and PS3
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