MRG
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- Mar 24, 2007
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Greetings all,
Several years ago, (8 in fact) my brother-in-law introduced me to a then in development, WW2 themed FPS, by the name of ?Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault? It only took me watching a single video that had been taken in-game during the development stage, that caught my attention & made me closely follow the remaining development of the game itself & excitedly await it?s release. Over the next few years, several expansions would be released as well as several MOH titled games for the different consoles out at the time. Each expansion &/or game would add more & more content to the original and build upon an already excellent FPS. Then along came the next evolutionary step in the MOH franchise, otherwise known as ?Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault? In my opinion, a great game, built on a new engine. This time throwing you, the player, into the Pacific theater against a new & deadly enemy: Imperial Japan.
Which brings us to the newest installment in the MOH universe, ?Medal of Honor: Airborne?.
MOH:A places you into the boots of Private First Class Boyd Travers, a member of the famous Army 82nd Airborne Division.
Game play
The game itself consists of only 6 missions, a shockingly low number for the price you pay for the game itself. The game will take the average gamer, only about 10 to 12 hours to complete. For some, this combined with the rather steep price, will put gamers off buying the game (if ever) until the price lowers. Before starting on my own mini review, I read a few of those released by big name websites & was surprised to see that apart from the 2 blaring Con?s (SP Shortness & Price) that MOH:A had right off the bat, that it still got rather low reviews across the board. So with the cons that they mentioned in mind, I went in-game to see how I would feel about the game & in the end, I ended up having a total blast. Being a rather large fan of everything having to do with WW2, I was not one of those that groaned when I learned that yet another WW2 themed game was released. Instead, knowing how fun the previous games in the MOH series were, I was only too excited to get to grips with the enemies in-game & to thus enjoy myself. For the most part, it is my own opinion that MOH:A delivered.
I very much approve of having to parachute in at the start of each mission. Like the games official features states, it opens up a fully non-linear approach which allows you to choose where you want to start the mission. As you progress through the game, using different weapons more than others will unlock special features such as faster reload or improved accuracy & other enhancements that I?ll let you find out for yourself. When you reach a certain level with any given weapon, & get the ?upgrade? something happens in-game for only a few seconds that will no doubt be made into a Mod, which I will most definitely be downloading & using. What happens at this time, I will let you find out for yourself. A nice feature that was implemented, was the ability to ?cook? your grenades which basically means that after pulling the pin, you hold the grenade for a few seconds before throwing it. This way, you don?t give your enemies time to take cover. This is a great tactic to use when trying to reach hard to get enemies. As you explore the levels, you?ll find bonus areas to parachute into, however, the point of finding them AFTER you have already parachuted in and have thus begun exploring the level, is I feel a little backwards. I guess they (the developers) feel that you?ll be restarting the missions a lot and so you?ll attempt to land in the bonus areas hidden in the map after you find them. As to how each mission plays out, I?ll not spoil that for you. While I could bloat this review and give you a play-by-play for each mission, I?ll let you do that for yourself.
I was sad to see that the AI was severely lacking in MOH:A & that?s for both sides. From time to time the Allied & Axis troops will do a good job, but then you?ll come across the random ?Lethal? across the map headshot when some enemy in front of you, can?t hit the broadside of a barn & when he does hit you, you take almost no damage, even on the ?Hard? setting. More times than not, an enemy will while not shooting at you, jump back & forth, as if dodging your shots, even when you aren?t firing. Kind of funny the first 2 or 3 times I saw it, but then it got old. I guess what they are saying about this game was True. That this game was built to be MP, but then had a SP tacked on at the end. The MP is a lot of fun, however that is only when you can find people online.
Audio
Since I am a married man, I am poor. I still have not upgraded to an X-Fi sound card, even though I know it?s much better than my ageing Audigy 2 ZS. Along that same thought (of being poor) I have an equally old set of Z-640 5.1?s that to this day I can?t seem to set up to work correctly. So even though I had them set to play in 5.1 via the Creative audio control panel & set to 5.1 in the games setup, once I was actually in-game I was not impressed by the audio. Weapons & explosions sounded 2D & the positional audio was non-existent. I believe this to be an issue on my end, because once I switched everything back to 2.1 & cranked up the Bass, the game sounded great. Each weapon had its own sound as it was fired & the constant chatter from both sides added a lot to the overall games wartime ambience. While I?m no audiophile, it doesn?t take one to realize that a lot of effort went into making every little sound in the game to stand out. From your footfalls & those around you, to the ?Ping!? of your spent Garand?s clip ejecting. I swear I heard the empty cartridges of random weapons hitting the ground, though it was a little hard to pick them out from everything going on around me. I do wish that they could have added a little more punch to the sounds of the weapons firing. The K98 sounded great, but at times the M1 & others sounded a little flat. Again, this might be an issue with my older hardware.
Graphics
The visuals in MOH:A have a lot of people on the fence. They either love them or complained about how they weren?t ?Next Gen?. Regardless of which way you leaned, you can?t deny that they are the best looking to date to be found in a MOH game. I am a fan of motion blur & while my old 6800 Ultra has a hard time running pretty much every new game out, I still insist on having it enabled if there is an option to. Even at the cost of overall performance. The game does a good job of not overdoing it though, but blends in with the crispness (I KNOW the games graphics are not Next Gen so lets move on shall we?) of the visuals (if you have them cranked up that is) to the slight blur as you look & move around. As you take damage your vision turns red, at times white & dims, an effective feature when mixed with motion blur provides an incentive to keep yourself out of harms way since you?ll not be able to hit anything since you can?t see.
Official Website:
http://www.ea.com/moh/airborne/index.jsp
Official Demo:
http://www.ea.com/moh/airborne/demo.jsp
Final Score: 3.5/5 Stars ? Short, but sweet.
-MRG
Several years ago, (8 in fact) my brother-in-law introduced me to a then in development, WW2 themed FPS, by the name of ?Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault? It only took me watching a single video that had been taken in-game during the development stage, that caught my attention & made me closely follow the remaining development of the game itself & excitedly await it?s release. Over the next few years, several expansions would be released as well as several MOH titled games for the different consoles out at the time. Each expansion &/or game would add more & more content to the original and build upon an already excellent FPS. Then along came the next evolutionary step in the MOH franchise, otherwise known as ?Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault? In my opinion, a great game, built on a new engine. This time throwing you, the player, into the Pacific theater against a new & deadly enemy: Imperial Japan.
Which brings us to the newest installment in the MOH universe, ?Medal of Honor: Airborne?.
MOH:A places you into the boots of Private First Class Boyd Travers, a member of the famous Army 82nd Airborne Division.
Game play
The game itself consists of only 6 missions, a shockingly low number for the price you pay for the game itself. The game will take the average gamer, only about 10 to 12 hours to complete. For some, this combined with the rather steep price, will put gamers off buying the game (if ever) until the price lowers. Before starting on my own mini review, I read a few of those released by big name websites & was surprised to see that apart from the 2 blaring Con?s (SP Shortness & Price) that MOH:A had right off the bat, that it still got rather low reviews across the board. So with the cons that they mentioned in mind, I went in-game to see how I would feel about the game & in the end, I ended up having a total blast. Being a rather large fan of everything having to do with WW2, I was not one of those that groaned when I learned that yet another WW2 themed game was released. Instead, knowing how fun the previous games in the MOH series were, I was only too excited to get to grips with the enemies in-game & to thus enjoy myself. For the most part, it is my own opinion that MOH:A delivered.
I very much approve of having to parachute in at the start of each mission. Like the games official features states, it opens up a fully non-linear approach which allows you to choose where you want to start the mission. As you progress through the game, using different weapons more than others will unlock special features such as faster reload or improved accuracy & other enhancements that I?ll let you find out for yourself. When you reach a certain level with any given weapon, & get the ?upgrade? something happens in-game for only a few seconds that will no doubt be made into a Mod, which I will most definitely be downloading & using. What happens at this time, I will let you find out for yourself. A nice feature that was implemented, was the ability to ?cook? your grenades which basically means that after pulling the pin, you hold the grenade for a few seconds before throwing it. This way, you don?t give your enemies time to take cover. This is a great tactic to use when trying to reach hard to get enemies. As you explore the levels, you?ll find bonus areas to parachute into, however, the point of finding them AFTER you have already parachuted in and have thus begun exploring the level, is I feel a little backwards. I guess they (the developers) feel that you?ll be restarting the missions a lot and so you?ll attempt to land in the bonus areas hidden in the map after you find them. As to how each mission plays out, I?ll not spoil that for you. While I could bloat this review and give you a play-by-play for each mission, I?ll let you do that for yourself.
I was sad to see that the AI was severely lacking in MOH:A & that?s for both sides. From time to time the Allied & Axis troops will do a good job, but then you?ll come across the random ?Lethal? across the map headshot when some enemy in front of you, can?t hit the broadside of a barn & when he does hit you, you take almost no damage, even on the ?Hard? setting. More times than not, an enemy will while not shooting at you, jump back & forth, as if dodging your shots, even when you aren?t firing. Kind of funny the first 2 or 3 times I saw it, but then it got old. I guess what they are saying about this game was True. That this game was built to be MP, but then had a SP tacked on at the end. The MP is a lot of fun, however that is only when you can find people online.
Audio
Since I am a married man, I am poor. I still have not upgraded to an X-Fi sound card, even though I know it?s much better than my ageing Audigy 2 ZS. Along that same thought (of being poor) I have an equally old set of Z-640 5.1?s that to this day I can?t seem to set up to work correctly. So even though I had them set to play in 5.1 via the Creative audio control panel & set to 5.1 in the games setup, once I was actually in-game I was not impressed by the audio. Weapons & explosions sounded 2D & the positional audio was non-existent. I believe this to be an issue on my end, because once I switched everything back to 2.1 & cranked up the Bass, the game sounded great. Each weapon had its own sound as it was fired & the constant chatter from both sides added a lot to the overall games wartime ambience. While I?m no audiophile, it doesn?t take one to realize that a lot of effort went into making every little sound in the game to stand out. From your footfalls & those around you, to the ?Ping!? of your spent Garand?s clip ejecting. I swear I heard the empty cartridges of random weapons hitting the ground, though it was a little hard to pick them out from everything going on around me. I do wish that they could have added a little more punch to the sounds of the weapons firing. The K98 sounded great, but at times the M1 & others sounded a little flat. Again, this might be an issue with my older hardware.
Graphics
The visuals in MOH:A have a lot of people on the fence. They either love them or complained about how they weren?t ?Next Gen?. Regardless of which way you leaned, you can?t deny that they are the best looking to date to be found in a MOH game. I am a fan of motion blur & while my old 6800 Ultra has a hard time running pretty much every new game out, I still insist on having it enabled if there is an option to. Even at the cost of overall performance. The game does a good job of not overdoing it though, but blends in with the crispness (I KNOW the games graphics are not Next Gen so lets move on shall we?) of the visuals (if you have them cranked up that is) to the slight blur as you look & move around. As you take damage your vision turns red, at times white & dims, an effective feature when mixed with motion blur provides an incentive to keep yourself out of harms way since you?ll not be able to hit anything since you can?t see.
Official Website:
http://www.ea.com/moh/airborne/index.jsp
Official Demo:
http://www.ea.com/moh/airborne/demo.jsp
Final Score: 3.5/5 Stars ? Short, but sweet.
-MRG
