A silent French village. Empty streets, a deserted square, and abandoned houses are all that's left to show people actually used to live here, otherwise there's no sign of life. The church bell peals and echoes through the stone alleys. Our squad, breathless and primed crouch in the shadows and hedgerows... waiting.

A rumble, faint at first, approaches from a nearby field. It gets louder, more intense, and soon it's upon us. Wave upon wave of Nazis storm through the breach left by their rolling Panzer and all hell breaks loose. Bullets spit across the village. Dozens of Nazis pour in upon us, the tank rips through the church, belching clouds and stone into the air. There are four of us, remnants of the 101st Airborne Division. We're vastly outnumbered, ill-equipped, injured, and yet somehow, when the chaos ends, when the guns are silenced, and the men reassure each other it's fine to issue a cease fire, we're the ones left standing. Battlefield strategy has kept us alive, and it's the most important weapon you'll find in Brothers In Arms. Medal Of Honor this is not. If you want to live, you need to think.

Set over various devious, often brutal WWII campaigns, it becomes quickly apparent that approaching Hill 30 (surely the daftest name we have heard this year) with a Medal Of Honor mindset is fatal. Always outnumbered, almost certainly always outgunned, the only way to ensure success is by the use of suppression and flanking techniques. Enemy groups have red markers above them (optional if you're a sadist) which indicates their current status. Full red and they are unchecked and considerably dangerous, but with a wonderful point n' click order system, suppressing fire can be laid down on their position until their icons turn grey.

Once grey they are effectively inoperable and open to attack. With the squad maintaining suppression, we're then able to creep into a flanking position and attack from two directions. This dilutes their fire power, causes panic within the group, and soon the whole messy episode is over and your men are rummaging through dead men's pockets for smoles.

Although there's little deviation from this tactic, it's used in such wonderfully conceived locations and situations you'll seldom tire of creeping up on a distracted Nazi and peppering him with lead. Wide open fields, labyrinthine back streets, trenches and wind-swept beachheads (all real-world locations) are loaded with ambushes and red herrings. You can fight tooth and claw down a shelled-out street only to be taken out by a lone gunman in a window you've overlooked. This is where tactical play comes in through reconnaissance of the area. To help you, a full field schematic is displayed with a click of a button. This offers a detailed insight into enemy positions, potential traps, and areas to dig in. We preferred not to use it because it detracts from what is otherwise a superb recreation of what these kinds of missions must have felt like (crappy, inaccurate, short-range weapons included). It's through trial and error and careful first-person scouting of an environment that gives the most satisfaction when a kill is made or a yard gained. Gearbox's refusal to arm us with anything other than historically accurate kit is also incentive to take it slow and think. Medi-pacs are non-existent and no, you don't miraculously heal over time or stumble across a BFG.

But Brothers In Arms is not flawless. Sweeping orchestral strings and witty asides from your squad don't add anything like as much depth to the story as it'd like to think. We've been there with the wise-ass 'band of brothers' before. It's a cliché. Protracted cutscenes, which we assume have been used for similar reasons, also fail to engage. Five minutes plus of unskippable intro is pointless - this isn't a movie. Enemies clearly visible through slats of fences can't be got at either. If we're expected to be smart enough to out-flank them, they in turn should have the courtesy to die when we pull a crafty one and slam a fence full of bullets. The game is clearly cross-platform too, possessing the kind of visual impact of Medal Of Honor, a game it so sadly resembles and yet one it's the antithesis of (helicopters in 1945 - sheesh!). Still, these are moot points when you consider the agonisingly beautiful missions and the satisfaction gained from completing them.

Brothers In Arms is a sweeping, faithful recreation of what it must have been like to fight in such a perilous age. What it lacks in instant thrills is perfectly counter-balanced by a structured, considered, and in parts touching take on WWII.

That, of course, and the opportunity it gives you to stretch your brain before it decorates the wall of a French tavern courtesy of a German sniper. Medal Of Honor fans steer clear; Full Spectrum Warrior nuts and just about everyone else, come tuck in.

1. Stunning real-world locations and weapons add a depth to the game that Medal Of Honor can only dream of.
2. Vast mission areas make for some intense gaming and require considerable thought to traverse successfully.
3. Intelligent, 'one-click' orders to the squad mean precision flanks and kills can be made easily. The AI is pretty damned smart too.

1. It's a small thing, but what can't we shoot through fences? The rest of the game is utterly real, so why not this?
2. The smart-ass quips are tiresome and the cutscenes too long! Just get on with the game already!

A compelling, well-designed title. If you're prepared to think first and shoot later, you'll love it.