World War I
and World War II battlefields are an overly popular source of first-person
shooters. In the history of our industry’s trends is a game that broke new
ground at its inception – a game so powerful it just had to be copied. You know
that whole "imitation is the highest form of flattery" saying? The game industry
really takes it to heart.
The FPS in
World War’s gaming past is Medal of Honor, the Saving Private Ryan-inspired
series that has excited our need for battlefield gaming since the 90s. The
cutthroat gameplay and non-stop excitement made it the leading PC and PSone
shooter for several years. Now the series is making its Xbox 360 debut in the
form of Medal of Honor Airborne.
Aerially
Accentuated
Medal of
Honor Airborne is not a mind-blowing, never-saw-it-coming adventure that
redefines first-person shooting. It does, however, take an interesting premise
and implement it more efficiently (and more excitingly) than any FPS before it.
You control
a paratrooper during a battle against the Nazis in World War II. Very little
story details are given – a definite plus for a game that’s more of an
interactive action flick than a story-fest like the film Pearl Harbor. Though
the WWII aspect might sound tiring, the paratrooper element is immensely fun.
You either jump out or will be pushed out of a plane, followed by the
automatic launch of your chute.
From there,
use the two analog sticks to guide your trooper to any location in the level.
The depth of field is flawed (certain buildings pop up as you approach the
ground) but still amazing. You’ll see entire cities, bases, military vehicles,
and anything else below, in far greater detail than in any previous next-gen
game.
Land on a
fortress and see if you can take on the 10+ enemies who are guarding it. Glide
off to the side and land near the bushes to avoid being seen. Enter from behind
a few enemies and hope they don’t notice before you start pumping them full of
lead.
This shows
that the game gives you options, but you also get to choose the order in which
you complete each level’s objectives. In most cases, ally soldiers will land
wherever you choose to fight, giving players a very small amount of help. They
also serve as shields for stray bullets, but may also be a hindrance if they get
in the way (which will happen). Don’t think of your allies as loyal
fighters of freedom – think of them as a distraction tool for the enemy while
you do 99% of the work. That means dealing with hordes of enemies that will
literally run toward you for a solid 5 – 10 minutes per area.
This amounts
to anywhere from 10 to upwards of 40 soldiers that need to be eliminated before
the objective you’re chasing can be completed. The game might tell you to blow
up this or blow up that. But what they’re really saying is, “Kill these guys
first, then you’ll be free to do that other, less significant stuff.” Because
without dead enemies lying on the ground, you’ll be the one that ends up in
dirt.
As much as I
despise the Allies’ AI, which is sporadic and just barely helpful, it does make
the game more interesting – in the long run. The first level forces you to take
out enemies from afar, as the Rambo strategy (run and shoot everything in sight)
will deplete your life meter faster than you can switch weapons. You won’t get a
sniper rifle till the second stage, making the first even more difficult. How
can a player survive using a Thompson and M1 Garand when your enemies are using
base-mounted machineguns from 100 feet away?
To make
matters more difficult, check points are only reached upon the completion of a
specific objective. You could take out 10 snipers, 10 soldiers using
Panzerschrecks, and 20 or so ground troops that will shoot using any weapon from
any location. All that could be accomplished, but if the actual objective (ex:
blow up anti-aircraft weapons) has not been completed and you die, you will lose
everything past the last save point and re-start by parachute. If you’re late
into the mission you’ll re-start at the last check point.
So while
you’re likely to hate the game now, you’ll love it later. The enemy overflow is
only painful until you start making kills. Granted, that could take an hour to
90 minutes, depending on your FPS skills going in. When base layouts are
memorized and enemy traits are learned, you’ll be ready to sniper whether it’s
with a proper rifle or something weaker. And by the third level, that Rambo
strategy will finally have its place. Your skills with a sniper rifle – refined
in the opening hours of Airborne – will actually make the third and fourth
levels easier than the first and second.
The M1
Garand(e) – coming soon to a Starbucks near you.
Good Cop,
Bad Cop
Good: You
parachute from the same location but can end up anywhere, and what you encounter
on foot is never the same twice in a row. So if you land in a heavily guarded
area now and die, there’s a good chance it will contain fewer enemies or a
different placement of enemies the next time you enter that particular area.
Bad: 10% of
enemies wait for you to reload. With a weapon in hand and pointed directly at
the player, they stand (or squat) and stare into the barrel of your gun…like a
deer in headlights.
Good: Thanks
to enemies that “learn” your most recent attack position, you are encouraged to
alter your strategy after every death. If you’re snipering from a rooftop and
get picked off, enemies will be waiting for you to return to that rooftop the
next time you parachute in.
Bad: Some
enemies turn their backs on the player and allies. They occasionally run past
the player – who was in plain view as they run by – to go after an AI-controlled
Ally. By ignoring the player’s presence, it’s the perfect opportunity to take
them out. The opposite happened as well – an enemy would run past my ally to get
to me. The difference is that the Ally doesn’t do anything about the situation.
He leaves me to handle it myself. Also, I came upon several rooms where an enemy
had his face to the wall, allowing for an easy kill.
Good: At
long last, force feedback has a place in games again. After feeling Airborne’s
rumbles, you’ll wish the other next-gen consoles came with equally potent force
feedback.
Bad:
Re-spawn via parachute or in hell. Once you’ve reached a certain point, the game
no longer allows you to jump back into the stage. You’ll re-enter from the check
point, just as in the other Medal of Honor games. That’s Ok until you realize
that you are now in the middle of a hellacious battlefield, one that’s likely to
get you down for a good 30 minutes – if not longer.
|
|
Gameplay: 8.3
Excitement. Pure
excitement. The Medal of Honor series would be nothing without it. That has
never been truer than with Airborne, a game that revels in action to entrap its
audience – thrill-craving gamers that want to blow stuff up and feel like they
accomplished something when they do it.
Bear in mind
that while the parachuting element is unique, this is still a Medal of Honor
game. It doesn’t take first-person shooting to new heights. If you expected
something else – if you anticipated next-gen innovation – you’ve forgotten that
we live in a time where graphics are currently the most likely game feature to
receive an update.
Graphics:
8
There are moments
of “Wow” and moments of “Eck, how’d that get in there?”
Sound: 8.5
Michael Giacchino
returns to Medal of Honor with an epic score that, strangely, has more in common
with Revenge of the Sith than his own previous creations (Lost, Alias, The
Incredibles, etc.). Airborne contains very slight hints of his other work,
primarily his last Medal of Honor game (Frontline). Sadly, most of his music is
drowned out by the sounds of explosions and gunfire.
Difficulty: Medium
You’ll be tempted
to dummy down the difficulty setting from normal or expert to “casual” (easy
mode), but don’t. Doing so would kill what the developers have set out to
achieve – a first-person shooter that doesn’t just kick butt as a game, but also
kicks the crap out of its players.
Concept: 7.8
Excellent
parachute feature, but it’s over in a couple of seconds. You don’t have much
time to think. You have to go with the flow and take in the sights while they
last. There’s a new True Trigger feature that makes snipering more precise – to
activate it while sniping, gradually depress the right trigger until crosshairs
are formed on the left side of the screen. When the crosshairs turn red, the
scope slows down to provide greater control. But as nice as this feature is, I
didn’t discover it until the game was half over. Airborne makes no mention of
its existence. Only after perusing the manual did this feature become apparent.
The rest of
the game is essentially Medal of Honor Frontline turned next-gen (with new
levels but similar objectives).
Multiplayer: 7.6
Nothing
spectacular, just the usual array of free-for-all and capture-the-flag modes. Up
to 12 players can battle via Xbox Live, but that pales in comparison to what
other World War II shooters have accomplished.
Overall: 8.2
Medal of Honor
Airborne gives you a lot to love and a lot to be disgruntled with. Whether
parachuting into a level for the first time, climbing ladders to sneak around
rooftops, or going in with guns ablaze, Airborne is a great shooter. It’s
technologically challenged and features AI that’ll have you questioning the
game’s intelligence. But going back, every Medal of Honor game has had these
flaws (especially if you play them now, several years after their release – they
no longer feel like the advanced games we once believed they were). That’s no
excuse, and for the series’ long-awaited next-gen offering, you’d think the game
would be flawless. And it should have been.
In spite of
those mechanical mistakes, Airborne is a very exciting and enjoyable shooter,
leading me to believe that EA is capable of consistently producing great World
War II games. Now it just needs to learn how to polish them before they’re
released.
