User Review : Medal of Honor: Airborne

Entertaining, but Nothing New.

Medal of Honor: Airborne was released back in 2007, and I somehow skipped the game due most likely to the release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare at the time. I've decided to review the game in 3 areas, Gameplay, Presentation, and Story. I also have two other brief sections, which are ''Introduction'' and ''Verdict''. Enjoy the review :)

Introduction
The MoH series, not too long ago, was known as the best WWII FPS series. Over time, the developers left to make another series, called ''Call of Duty'', abandoning their previous series to EA. EA has proven that they couldn't pay justice to the series with some disappointing releases in the past holding the Medal of Honor name like MoH: Vanguard which was a disgrace to the series. The reason for this is because First-Person Shooters have changed so much over the years and EA didn't mix up the formula enough to keep the gameplay up-to-date. These days, there are so many FPS games (especially WWII ones) that give you some straightforward objectives, and in the process killing hundreds of (usually) brainless nazis that make you seem like an invincible superheroe that can save the Allies by destroying the whole nazi army. Okay, maybe I went a bit far there, but its a very similar scenario in every game. Big events in FPS games like D-Day or Market Garden have been played out so many times that people can already imagine how certain missions will play out before they even play them. Has MoH:A changed this one bit? Find out below.

Gameplay
I'll just say this right now to get it over with, MoH:A is just like many other FPS games out there. Even the first Call of Duty game plays out similar to MoH:A. Although, MoH:A does surprise with a few neat ideas that games have never tried before, which is what made me complete the whole game in one day (it's addictive, but still very short, it was about 6 hours long for me on my first playthrough). The prime example of this, is the fact that players can go airborne and land anywhere on the map in every mission of the game. Heres some details to help fill you in: In the 5 cities throughout the game, you can jump out of a plane and go airborne at the beginning of a mission and after every time the player dies, you can get caught in trees and such, but thankfully I never got stuck once in the game. This gameplay element allows the player to land near green smoke (a safe area with allies in the area) or right in the middle of a Nazi Headquarters (which causes you to die 99% of the time), it stays fresh and new throughout the whole game, but can be repetitve at times if you continually die alot. The time it takes to parachute down to the ground is pretty short, but if you want to finish a part of the game which is causing you to die alot quickly, this can just add to the frustration. It helps the game stand out a bit more, and makes multiplayer slightly better than decent, but it's still nothing huge.

Everything else in the game is really familiar gameplay-wise. It doesn't surprise me that the game got trapped in COD4's shadow. I may as well explain the structure of the game, since everything else plays out just like about any FPS game out there. After you complete the tutorial, you will start to notice that before starting every mission, there will be a short briefing scene explaining the mission. This isn't really needed though as the game has 5 very large events of WWII going on, one of each in every mission. If your wondering about the locales, the first 2 are in Italy, the third mission is in France, the fourth is in Holland (The Netherlands), and the last is in none other than Germany. I personally found the first and last missions of the game to be the most entertaining, and the rest were just average, but maybe thats just me. The enemies in the game that you'll be encountering are (for the most part) the same nazi soldiers in every other WWII game (that lack any intelligence it seems). There are a few exceptions like a few tanks and halftracks, along with one particular kind of soldier that is kind've like the Helghast dude in KZ2 with the minigun, but that's it. Don't expect to be amazed about anything, except for the epic mission at the end, which can be frustarting, but pretty awesome at the same time. I don't really have anything else to explain about the gameplay, if you've played past MoH games, past COD games, etc., then just expect more of that.

Story
MoH:A doesn't have any story at all. The game doesn't even show some soldiers' diaries like in COD2, just expect to play through some big events in WWII. I should also point out that in every mission, you'll be playing as a paratrooper of some sort, even though that's pretty obvious, hence the name ''Medal of Honor: Airborne''.

Presentation
MoH:A looks alright, but it doesn't look as good as games like COD4 or Bioshock (two games released near the same time as MoH:A). Theres usually a low number of soldiers on-screen at once unless you dropped right in the middle of a nazi-infested area, and it can be hard to even find allies at times. For the size of the levels, I guess the graphics are pretty good, if you look at it that way, but it still isn't anything worth calling ''eye candy''. The only thing in the game thats worthy of being called ''eye candy'' is probably the physics of enemy soldiers when they die. That was one of the few aspects, COD4's graphics lacked, and it looks pretty awesome to see running enemy soldiers fly a a metre or two when they die. It also made the overall sensation of shooting and killing nazis constantly a bit more satisfying and less repetitive, so it was nice for that to be implemented into the game.

The sound in MoH:A, surpassed COD4 in many aspects, but it isn't anything ground-breaking. The sounds effects of guns sound great, but the rare voice-acting in the game isn't memorable or exciting like in some other WWII shooters, for example the Brothers in Arms series. I guess the sound is good in MoH:A, it's just not amazing for 2009 though, but at the time(2007), I'm sure it sounded pretty good, possibly even better than COD4 when it comes to the sounds of the guns. If your wondering about music, its pretty basic WWII stuff, nothing else worth pointing out.

Verdict
MoH:A isn't too special, and thats why it wasn't looked at much when it came out in 2007, but it can be still an entertaining WWII FPS. A sequel to MoH:A could be really good, since it has alot of untapped potential, although if you want a top notch WWII game expierence, you should go check out Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty: World At War, Wolfenstein games, or the older MoH titles. MoH:A is a good game if you want more of the same nazi killing in the games I listed, with a little twist, so it can be very fun the whole way through for those of you that still haven't got their WWII dose of video games out there (believe me, there are plenty of them to choose from other than the ones I listed). If your interested in the game, I suggest buying it for a low price. I hope you enjoyed reading, and expect more reviews from me in the near future. 3/5 Penguins
-Anthony (Dcpc10)

Score

7.0

Graphics

7.8

Sound

7.0

Gameplay

7.2

Fun Factor

Overall

7.0