hells-highway posts (Subscribe to this feed)

Next week, gamers will finally be able to unlock an Achievement in Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway worth 50 Gamerscore points if they play the game at any time on September 17, while connected to Xbox Live. The Achievement -- Remember September '44 -- references the War War II mission that sent Allied Airborne troops into the Netherlands to kick-start Operation Market Garden, which is also the basis of the game's story.

Since Ubisoft's tactical shooter was delayed from its original Holiday 2007 date into late September '08, the Achievement has never been available for players to unlock. Until now. So on Thursday, September 17, grab a copy of Hell's Highway and fire up those Xbox 360 consoles. Because who can say "no" to freebie Gamerscore points?

Best Buy is giving out a free beanie hat with purchase of Guitar Hero World Tour, selling Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway for $40 and offering Blitz II for $50. Target stores only have one good deal and that's a free $25 gift card with purchase of an Xbox 360 Arcade console. Circuit City is dishing out the gift cards (as has become the norm), giving away a free $10 gift card with purchase of Fable II, Golden Axe, Far Cry 2, Dead Space, Saints Row 2, and Hell's Highway. You can score a free $10 gift card and mini strategy guide with purchase of Fallout 3 (CE), a free $15 iTunes gift card with purchase of Guitar Hero World Tour and a free t-shirt with Legendary. Phew ... happy shopping!

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway is a relatively new title. It was just released almost exactly one month ago. It's a first-person shooter, which means it's a dime a dozen; there are already a lot of them to go around. To help make it stand out of the crowd and appear more visible, Amazon has the title discounted by 33 percent with a $20 savings. If you're looking for a new World War II shooter and are on a budget, $40 for Hell's Highway doesn't sound too bad.

[Thanks Juan P.!]

Newly available on the Xbox Live Marketplace is a Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway demo that (unlike the game's title sort of suggests) doesn't involve Satan or let you pave roads. The demo requires roughly 1.32GB of hard drive storage and should give you a taste of the look, feel and amount of violence the retail version of Hell's Highway has in store. Go ahead and give the demo a try because, really, what's the worst that could happen? A few gigs of your hard drive lost, a few hours of your life wasted and the corruption of your gaming soul?

No one ever said paving Hell's Highway would be easy, but Gearbox has wicked the final bead of sweat from its brow, relieved to announce that the next Brothers In Arms is complete and will ship on September 23rd. Today's definitive confirmation brings to an end a number of construction setbacks -- officially totaling umpteen -- that delayed the project for two years. That's right, remember when Hell's Highway was on your holiday 2006 list?

While development was on par with real-world highway building, Hell's Highway is, unfortunately for its creators, not an actual roadway surface, but a World War II shooter -- a genre that has seriously diminished in relevance over the past 24 months (not that highways aren't also struggling -- gas is how much per gallon now?). The best thing about Brothers in Arms imminent release might be reassurance that we're one step closer to playing Gearbox's Aliens game.

The paved, petulant path past purgatory has been politely pushed to September. Speaking to Shacknews, Gearbox president Randy Pitchford said Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway will miss its August 26 release date.

A precise date is as-of-yet undecided, but Pitchford noted that "late September is the anniversary of Operation Market Garden, so I think it would be really poetic if the game launched on the anniversary." Market Garden serves as a basis for Hell's Highway and occured September 17 to 25, 1944. Online retailers Gamestop and Amazon are listing the game's release for September 23.

Update: We've clarified that, while Treyarch is owned by Activision, Heller is in fact an Activision – and not a Treyarch – employee. To that end, Treyarch's Community Manager posted a classy message on the Xbox.com forums distancing their team from the Activision rep's comment and stating, "We have nothing but respect for the guys and gals at Gearbox." Nicely handled, Treyarch!

Original: We normally don't like it when developers start taking potshots at each other, it's really not the sort of -- oh, who are we kidding? We love it when developers take potshots, it's one of our absolute favorite things, and this video interview from Eurogamer has a doozy courtesy of Treyarch Activision senior producer Noah Heller.

When asked about Gearbox's forthcoming Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, Heller said they didn't consider it during development of Call of Duty: World at War, dismissing Hell as "a crappy war game." Continuing the burnination, Heller added that Gearbox "isn't even the same league" as Treyarch's effort. You might think we're misrepresenting the quote by taking it out of context, but it's somehow even more MEGAowch when watched in context (at about 1:00 in).

[Thanks, Jordan]

Ubisoft announced today that Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway is indeed going to make its previously projected August window and come out August 26 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC (via GameSpot). Gearbox's Nazi neck-stabbing World War II shooter tells the story of two soldiers trying to secure a piece of German-controlled road that may or may not be owned by a certain Prince of Darkness.

If you're interested in owning an HD copy of the Beyond Good & Evil 2 teaser trailer (and really, who isn't?), our file sharing friends at BigDownload (Update: and GameDaily) are offering all the HD trailers from yesterday's Ubidays 2008 event as, erm, big downloads. Check out all the trailers below, including two Prince of Persia speed sketches of the Prince and Elika (here's a game: count the number of times the artist changes brush settings).

• Beyond Good & Evil 2 teaser (217 MB)
• Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway trailer (111 MB)
• Prince of Persia teaser (62 MB)
• Prince of Persia speed drawing: Prince (9.4 MB)
• Prince of Persia speed drawing: Elika (13 MB)
• Raving Rabbids TV Party gameplay trailer (59 MB)
• Raving Rabbids TV Party teaser (55 MB)
• Tom Clancy's EndWar trailer (111 MB)
• Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. trailer (181 MB)
• Shaun White Snowboarding intro (150 MB)
• Shaun White Snowboarding trailer (110 MB)
• Soul Calibur IV Yoda gameplay trailer (25 MB)
• Soul Calibur IV Darth Vader gameplay trailer (31 MB)
• Soul Calibur IV cinematical trailer (106 MB)

Rabbids, Persian Princes and Beyond Good & Evil 2? Check out all our coverage (and a bountiful amount of screenshots) from Ubisoft's Ubidays 2008 event.

Ever since BIA went MIA last fall, we've been waiting for an update on the construction of Hell's Highway. Turns out the interstate paved with the hardened souls of the damned will open this summer, as a new trailer (embedded after the break!) announces Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway is "Coming August 2008." And yes, Nazi neck-stabbin' confirmed, finally.

In addition to today's video announcement, Gearbox has apparently been working on a "totally redesigned online component" for the game, reports Eurogamer. Hell's Highway will supposedly feature "dozens" of players on each team and somehow incorporate the squad-based gameplay that defines the single-player campaign (that is, if you're willing to take orders from foulmouthed tweens).

Update: Wouldn't you know, the August release is true. Confirmation of the release is revealed at the end of the new Hell's Highway "Face Stab" trailer which we embedded after the break. Thanks, Mr Gooooly.

So, here's the story. Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway has been on the fast track to delays-ville, where its release date has been speeding through delay after delay since 2007. Then, last September, we learned that 2007 would see no Hell's Highway release and a general 2008 release was set. Now, according to Gamersyde who didn't list their news source (for shame!), Ubisoft is slating Hell's Highway for an August (European?) release. But so far we've spotted everything from April to May to June release rumors across the interwebs, so we don't know how much validity we can give to this latest August rumor. Though, if this August release turns out to be fact, you can color us impressed. We have $20 riding on the game being delayed into 2009.

[Thanks, Hooligunn]

Just in case you were eagerly awaiting Ubisoft's WWII shooter Brothers in Arms Hell's Highway (which was tentatively scheduled for release this holiday) you can quit being eager, because it has been delayed into next year. Ubisoft revealed that Hell's Highway won't be finished for release this year instead targeting it for a fourth fiscal quarter release which should land somewhere between January and March of 2008. But good news Brothers in Arms fans, Call of Duty 4 is good times and will be available this November. Don't worry ... you can thank us later.