Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood

THE BAD:
-Horrible framerate at times.
-Offline multiplayer is not even playable due to extremely bad framerate.
-Some dialogue has been removed.
-The maps are smaller and more linear than the XBox and PC versions.
-Too many little features removed from XBox and PC versions, like buildings, trees, or walls exploding in that aren't scripted.
-You can't have as many people in your squad as you can in the XBox/PC versions.
-Certain Weapons are removed from XBox/PC games.
-Ability to talk to your men between battles is removed
-Sometimes AI is a bit questionable

SUMMARY:
What can I say? I do like this game, but everytime I watch videos of the XBox and PC versions, I can't help but think about how badly the PS2 owners got screwed over with this game. Watch one video of the XBox version of this game, and it will look so incredible with buildings being demolished randomly, trees getting blown out of the ground, people yelling frantically in the middle of the fights all mixed together with smoother graphics. Then you go and buy the PS2 version and you wonder why exactly so many of those things were removed? Sure, your squadmates will yell sometimes in the fights, but they are practically always the same exact things and at the same times.

Not to mention dialogue from some cutscenes has been removed, sometimes causing awkward moments during the conversation between Sgt. Hartsock(you) and Col. Marshall, the man who is interviewing him. The framerate is very bad at times, maybe somewhere like ten frames per second. To put it simply, it just gets ridiculous at times, especially in certain levels, such as the battle at Hill 30. I'm not sure if "grenading" tanks is in the XBox versions, but I do know that it is strangely absent from the PS2 version. Which is a bit of a letdown. It always made me feel invincible in the first game to grenade tanks(which is where you throw a grenade inside the tank) and now it's nowhere in this game. And believe me, I've checked every tank and everyone of them gives the same result. And you also have less people in your squad at a time. In this game, the most men you ever have in your squad is five, and it's only in two levels. The rest of the time you are given four or less. Hell, even in one of the cutscenes before a level starts the main character says there are three new people and then when the level finally begins, there are only two, which is a bit odd.

However, it is hard not to appreciate such authenticity in a video game. You can tell how much work the creators put into making this the most authentic video game ever. And it paid off. And this is one of the few video games where the characters are as realistic as possible. The characters are all interesting and different and they really make you want to know more about them. It really does make you sad when you see them get killed. It makes you feel like you really did lose someone you knew, unlike other video games where you couldn't care less if the characters are picked off.

The squad controls are very simple. If you ask me, every video game with squad controls should have the same type as this. It's so easy to use. And the AI has some major issues as well. A lot of the times I find that my squadmates lack very common sense. I will clear out a path leading to more cover and then tell one of them to go to there, however, they will just run right through all the fire and chaos, usually getting killed, instead of going the safe way. And one thing that bugs me the most is when I try to tell someone to take cover somewhere, I find that sometimes they will actually stand right in front of the cover. It really drives me crazy when I make the right decisions, but bad programming costs me some of my squadmates.

To sum up this entire review, I'm just gonna say that if you have an XBox and a PS2, then definitely get the XBox version. There are really no advantages the PS2 version has. But, if you have no XBox, then you should still get this game on PS2. It is a fun game and beating every level on the "Authentic" difficulty level is challenging, yet still fun.