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Be Still My Pounding Heart Brothers in Arms is truly remarkable on so many levels it's difficult to know where to begin, however I guess I should start by saying that this is an ADULT title and not for the wee ones in your clan. The language is saucy to say the least with the "mother of all swear words, the F-dash-dash-dash word" being sprinkled around in liberal doses, so liberal in fact that in the beginning of the game the language (was to say the least) a trifle off-putting even for a guy who on occasion has been known to throw expletives around like Julia Louis-Dryfus on a bender. That said however, it is war after all and I can't imagine nearly having my head taken off by a German machine gun without some form of colourful metaphor slipping through my clenched teeth. The violence is fairly intense as well, but nothing we haven't seen in games like Call of Duty or Splinter Cell. Those issues taken care of lets get down to the nitty gritty of this outstanding title. The game play is riveting as you are quickly called upon to lead a fire-team through the Normandy countryside. The action ramps up gradually enough to allow you time to acclimate to your weapons and commands without getting taken down in every open street. Ordering your team to direct fire on specific targets, to re-group or go to a location is fantastically executed; a simple right click of the mouse illuminates an onscreen icon, one for "go to a location" or "concentrate fire". The amazing bit of danger here however is being swallowed up by the fog of war as bullets zip over your head, while you're screaming orders to your comrades, in fact it's easy to get sucked so tightly into the action that you're lost with a deadly case of tunnel vision, and there in lies the vane of gold that runs through Brothers in Arms. Unlike any other combat game ever produced, you start to take it very personal when you've sent your boys on a fools mission just to have them gunned down in the middle of the street, you're in charge and you feel like it and frankly when someone gets killed because you've cracked under the pressure it p#@%es you off in a big way! You're responsible and it's easy to start thinking that maybe it's up to you to win every battle on your own so the kids under your command can go home in one piece, but that doesn't work either, this is a team based experience and you have to act as a tightly knitted team or get wiped out in the process. On first blush the graphics seemed to stumble a bit but after 30 seconds who's noticing anything but the blazing flash from that MG down the street anyway? Compared to Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (being a 10 graphically) Brothers in Arms offers a solid 8, but the way the levels are designed and the way the action moves, the images sometimes feel too real as German soldiers leap over a split rail fence cast against the horizon, it's a deadly mistake and one you'll take full advantage of but remember not to be caught in the same position yourself or face the dire consequences. Brothers also takes you behind the iron sites of your weapon, no crosshairs here, you stick you're M-1 under your chin and squeeze off a round, several rounds and guess what, sometimes you can't hit the broad side of a barn, that's because it's real, it's intense, war is imperfect and sometimes the guy on the other side of that hedgerow has a better aim than you do and you die. Sound design is well executed, the snap of rifles cracking in the distance, or down tight alley ways is stunning and ear piercing and although 5.1 surround is stellar, wearing headphones offers a strange claustrophobic effect as you scramble with your rifle, crack-crack-cracking through the morning haze, you can hear your men screaming from somewhere behind you (or in the murky distance) that they don't have a shot or they're wounded, and the German's call out from behind sand bags... Bother in Arms is one wild ride indeed! Performance is top notch on my system (Compaq Presario 8000T, Pentium 4 - 3.20E GHz processor, XP Home Edition, Radeon 9800, 1 GB DDR / PC3200 Ram, 160GB 7200 rpm Hard Drive) with every thing pushed to the firewall, no lag, no slow down just hours of white-knuckle thrills. Brothers in Arms might be just a video game, but hopefully it's the closet our kids will ever get to real combat... if only we could fight all our battles from our desktops.