Bronz medal for Medal of Honor: Airborne

Medal of Honor: Airborne is like any of the previous titles in the Medal of Honor series, but with a slight twist: the game starts with your jumping out of an airplane. If that sounds thrilling to you, you're hyping it up too much to yourself -- honestly, parachuting adds only a minor twist to the game -- otherwise it's your typical WWII first person shooter.

Ok, since I seem to get a lot of flack in my reviews (heh, heh) for concentrating on game play rather than the fluff. So here's to the fluff!

Graphics:
Typical of Xbox360 games -- slightly over sharpened graphics which ironically seem less real because of their crispness. Fortunately, the hyped up graphics do not come at the expense of frame rates, which were high no matter what the scene.

One neat effect comes via a weapon's scope site -- there's a tilt lens simulation. Nice. Also, grenades generate a decent amount of smoke & dust in which you can hide.

Sounds:
While the John Williams inspired score gets old, the gun sounds are reassuringly punchy, and the explosions shake the ground. There is little dialog in the game, although game goals are communicated through radio broadcasts to your unit.

Controls:
Medal of honor comes with a few preconfigured joystick layouts and that's it. Why can't we individually map functions to buttons? I did manage to find a layout that was close enough to how I like to play, but for the most of the game, I inadvertently reloaded weapons when I meant to swap rifles. Frustrating...

Kudos to an improved way of sniping. You get better control of a sniping weapon when you *slowly* squeeze the trigger button. I can't describe it well, but trust me, its a very nice system that rewards control versus the usual kneejerk trigger reactions.

The controls are responsive enough except in one area: the ability to jump is pretty much not there. Which is strange being that you jump out of airplanes for a living.

Weapons:
A decent variety of weapons awaits you. All have unique enough qualities that you'll have a compelling reason to choose one over another depending on battle conditions. One criticism: the guns tend to have an annoying amount of kickback that reduces accuracy of automatic weapons almost too much. At least I think so - I've never fired any of these weapons in real life.

Airborne does have a neat spin on weapon handling - it introduces the concept of weapon mastery. As you kill with a particular weapon, your mastery of that weapon increases. Eventually you are rewarded with upgrades to that weapon. Upgrades include less kickback, better weapon sights (including scopes), larger clips, etc.. I think you can get up to 3 upgrades on a weapon.

Gameplay:
The previous Medal of Honor title was an awful affair. The overly scripted game play kept the player from exploring the environment, trying out new tactics, or having any fun. Yes, the graphics were 360 wonderful, but gameplay always trumps eye candy as the poor reviews for Medal of Honor 3 proved.

Gamers can feel better about Airborne; it is a return to more open game play. With the parachute, you can land most anywhere you want (although the game limits you from straying off the map or bypassing certain game goals). Safe zones are marked with green smoke, but you're certainly welcome to parachute into trouble if you like. I played this game twice, and for more fun the second time round, I tried parachuting into problem areas. Don't believe games reviews that say this is suicide - it isn't. But it isn't a walk in the park either. Every level has multiple goals, but in many cases you are free to tackle the mission objectives in any order you please.

Airborne uses save points to save progress. In a few levels, these save points are spaced frustratingly far between - it ain't fun to survive some of these firefights only to get at the very end and have to repeat it all. When you are killed, you parachute back into the action. Intermediate goals you completed are preserved (such as blowing up targets), but your enemies are all resurrected, so you'll still have to fight your way past met objectives just to get back to your the current objective.

I might seem paranoid saying this, but I actually felt that the firefights involving previously killed foes were more intense that the original battles. Maybe they hold a grudge...

In previous Medal of Honor titles, your health regenerated 100% if you kept from taking damage for a small period of time. Airborne refines that feature nicely: health regeneration ability decreases as you take damage. So there is a penalty for reckless playing. Health kits restore you back to 100%. Cool.

Enemy AI characters are pretty good. Grenades will chase you out of any hiding places and into the line of very accurate fire. The same cannot be said of the friendly AI characters, who do nothing but get in the way of your shots, or worse, pin you against a wall or in a doorway when a grenade heads down your way...

I'll confirm previous reviews that some of the bad guys require a lot of bullets to put down. Even headshots don't guarantee that someone's going to die.

Overall the single player mode is fine. A 3 out of 5, a tepid thumbs up. Ho hum. Which is too bad, because it didn't have to be that way. How do I know? The last 2 levels of the game are fantastic. There's a battle in a factory complex chock full of snipers. Wonderful! And the final level involes storming a fortress which sets up the most devilish cross fire situations a bloke can find himself in. Very cool.

Those levels are inspired, and if the whole game played like that, I would just be gushing praise all over. But at $60, there was too much been-there-done-that to impress this fps veteran. Thank Golly for the...

Multiplayer
It can be argued that multiplayer is the main strength of the Medal of Honor series. Good maps, and squadron based play are the hallmarks of this series. Airborne builds upon that foundation with its refined weapon balance, new weapon upgrades, and the ability to parachute anywhere on the map.

Airborne maps reflect the series maturity. There is something for every style of game play. Charge and shoot players will like the open rooms and alley ways, snipers have plenty of accessible roofs, etc.. But what's really commendable is that the map designers kept any style of play from dominating any map. Snipers can use the roofs, but it's not difficult to pick them off when down inside an adjancent building. And most rooms have at least 2 entrances, preventing people from camping at the top of a staircase for an easy kill. Maps demand good team play to succeed, single player heroics on these multiplayer maps will get you wiped out in a hurry.

One niggle: Airborne takes a lot of time to start a muliplayer game. First you have to wait for Airborne to find a server, then players. After that, it's 40 seconds before the game starts, then up to 20 seconds more to enter the map. Get a cup of coffee, walk the dog, write that novel. The game play is worth the wait, but man, it is a wait.