steve kwan user experience designer

Review: Medal of Honor: Airborne

(September 16th, 2007 - 1:38AM)

(4 / 5 stars)

One sentence summary: A polished game with some nice touches, but I can't help but feel like it's just another WWII shooter.

Things I liked about Medal of Honor: Airborne:

• Excellent single player campaigns.

  If you've read the Metacritic reviews for this game, my review should seem familiar. That's because I agree with a lot of the points in the other reviews and have repeated them here.

  Airborne consists of about a half dozen lengthy campaigns. Although the first few are unremarkable, the last three campaigns are unique and a lot of fun.

• Parachuting into the level is a nice effect.

  You begin each campaign by parachuting onto the map. This allows you to start the level wherever you want, rather than in a fixed place. Although this barely makes the game less linear, it adds a new dimension and is certainly a positive development.

• The weapon experience system works well.

  As you use the weapons in Airborne, you get more experienced with them and gain upgrades. These improve your aim, damage, reload speed, and more. Although the weapons get more powerful as you use them, they're still powerful at the beginning and don't feel crippled.

  Upgrading your weapons adds an RPGish element to the game. It also increases replay value, as you'll want to replay the game to upgrade your weapons.

• Great duck and cover system.

  Most recent WWII shooters allow you to zoom in by looking down the sights on your gun. Airborne improves this by allowing you to lean while you're zoomed in. Most FPSes that allow you to lean have separate buttons for leaning left and right. In Airborne, you lean by just pressing left or right while zoomed in.

  I'm a big fan of minimizing the number of controls required to play games, so removing two unnecessary buttons is a good idea to me.

• Pretty graphics.

  Although Airborne isn't as pretty as games like Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, it has great lighting and character models.

• Great gunfire sound effects and voice acting.

  The sound in this game is quite good. This is to be expected from EA.

Things I disliked about Medal of Honor: Airborne:

• Enemies don't react when you shoot them.

  This is one of my pet peeves in shooters. When you shoot a guy, he should react. When you shoot a guy in the head, it should jerk back. When you shoot him in the knee, it should buckle. In Airborne, when you shoot a guy he doesn't even move.

  As if to correct this problem, a little red marker appears on the screen when you shoot someone. This seems to me like a workaround. You should be able to tell if a shot's registered by looking for blood or movement.

• You can't skip briefings.

  This irritating if you're playing a campaign for the second time.

• The compass is a cheap advantage.

  You have a compass that acts as a radar by showing you where your enemies are. This is an incredibly cheap trick, as you're better off looking at the compass than looking ahead. This pulls you out of the action.

• It's difficult to distinguish between friend and foe.

  I know that this is a historical thing, but it's difficult to tell your allies from your enemies because they look similar. It would be nice if the character models were a bit different so you could tell who to shoot at.

• Your teammates run into your line of fire.

  This isn't a huge issue because there's no friendly fire in Airborne, but it's a pain in the butt when you're lining up a shot and your teammate runs in front of you.

• Lousy explosions.

  The graphics in this game are generally good, but the explosions are weak.

• Single player campaign is short.

  I don't know if this is a bad thing, as WWII shooters are a bit old, and I don't need to play a 20 hour campaign.

• Ultimately, it's just another WWII shooter.

  Although Airborne has a few nice touches that differ it from the competition, at the end of the day it's just another World War II shooter. It would be nice to see some diversity.