Brothers in Arms 2: Global Front Free+ Review

Things have changed since the last time we went into virtual battle. Instead of gathering grenades, stockpiling ammo, and grabbing health kits from behind every piece of cover, now it's necessary to duck out every now and again for a quick trip to the Guns ’n’ Ammo superstore.

You see, Brothers in Arms 2: Global Front Free+ is no mere update of the original Bronze Award-winning Gameloft title. This time, the ageing World War II shooter comes with some in-app finagling.

While the core FPS gameplay remains solid enough, nothing disrupt your sense of immersion like regular trips to the Android version of Asda.

Based loosely on Ubisoft’s Brothers in Arms series, the game takes more of its design cues from the Call of Duty brand - particularly Treyarch’s World at War.

Across four campaigns (Africa, Sicily, Europe, and the Pacific), you step into the mud-stained boots of US Corporal David Wilson as he battles both the Nazis and the Japanese, all the while searching for the grim truth behind his younger brother’s untimely demise.

It’s a well-told, if rather lacklustre, tale - with some decent action set-pieces along the way. It’s just a shame you’ll barely get to see any of it.

This Free+ edition tempts you with about half-an-hour of action before you run out of the Medals needed to buy health packs and other combat essentials, not to mention better weapons and kit. Replaying levels to collect Dog Tags and earn XP can buy you a bit more time, but there’s only so many times you can look at the same Game Over screen.

Before then, you’ll probably quite enjoy the tight controls (with lots of layout options and moveable buttons to tinker with to get your perfect setup) and the relatively full-on firefights.

There’s multiplayer built in too via Gameloft Live, but we kept getting a ‘Connection request failed’ message when trying to login so couldn’t test out the modes (or see how in-app purchasing would be integrated - maybe there are funny hats).

While derivative of Call of Duty and its ilk, Brothers in Arms 2: Free+ remains a robust enough shooter, but Gameloft’s overreliance on in-app purchasing quickly saps your enthusiasm.

With packs of Medals costing anything from £1.60 to over £35, you’d be far better off waiting for one of the publisher’s many sales and picking up the full game for under a quid.