Medal of Honor: Airborne Review

By Kristan Reed Published 4 September, 2007

Up in the sky.

Version tested: Xbox 360

Today is a good day. Today is a day we don't have to begin a Medal of Honor review with a tired reflection on how there are too many World War II games, on how many Germans we've shot over the years, or on how the series went downhill as soon as the ranks that make up Infinity Ward jumped original developer 2015's ship. No. Today, we'll just get on with telling you how much we really enjoyed Airborne. We're as surprised as anyone.

Presumably it's down to critical violence. That is, if you verbally beat EA around the face and neck often enough, they actually pay attention to the feedback people give them. That's certainly the impression you get from playing Medal of Honor: Airborne, because it systematically addresses so many of the niggly flaws that we've all harboured for years. However hardened your cynicism might be for the series - and WWII games in general - Airborne is refreshingly engaging from start to finish.

You play Boyd Travers - Private First Class of the US 82nd Airborne Division - or, in other words, a random young chump who's booted out of aircraft for a living and tasked with parachuting into the heart of enemy strongholds to kill men with different hats. You, as Boyd, fight six distinct real-life battles during the latter stages of the war, from Operation Husky in the Sicilian village of Adanti, through mainland Italy along the Amalfi coast, through to a 'D-Day in reverse' mission on the approach to Utah Beach. From there the game takes in other famous battles, including Operation Market Garden in Nijmegen, the epic Operation Varsity in the heart of a war factory, through to the hugely memorable climax in the concrete behemoth of Der Flakturm (the flak tower) - without doubt one of the most intense World War II missions you'll ever play.

'Medal of Honor: Airborne' Screenshot 1

That's not a parachuting church (it's a space station).

One of the much-vaunted features is the apparent freedom to 'engage anywhere' from the point where you leave the aircraft. To a certain extent that's true, but obviously within certain parameters. For example, you might have five different objectives marked on your mini-map, and what the game allows you to do is parachute towards any one of those and tackle the tasks at hand in the order of your choosing. Helpfully, there's green smoke billowing to indicate the 'safe zones' to land in, but if you want you can simply land right in the hot spots and take your chances. If you're feeling really brave, you can even kick a Nazi in the chops on your way down. In fact, you get an Achievement unlock for doing just that.

What you'll appreciate from the word go is a remarkable sense of freedom - more so than most shooters full-stop, never mind the linear-to-a-fault World War II game. There's an appreciable next generation leap here, with large, open environments to explore, and no more stupid, narrow corridors and artificial walls to restrain your gameplay creativity. If you want to work your way onto a rooftop and snipe at everyone, that's fine. If you prefer a more up-close-and-personal approach and want to go around pistol-whipping and stabbing everyone to death, again, it's your call. Also gone are the horribly scripted enemies who take up the same cover points and provide no real challenge. In Airborne, you'll soon appreciate that AI behaviour is refreshingly dynamic, and more than capable of running rings around you if you're not smart enough to second-guess their intentions.

'Medal of Honor: Airborne' Screenshot 2

Green smoke indicates a safe landing zone.

For example, it's relatively rare to see them just blundering like lemmings out into the open, like so many so-called cinematic WWII games. These guys know how to make good use of cover points, running between them and waiting for the right time to fire back. They certainly have a decent grenade-throwing arm too, and constantly flush you out from your own hidey-holes in a way that's delightfully reminiscent of the AI in the original Half-Life. Thankfully the default normal difficulty doesn't stray too far into the realms of uber-realism, and hits that accessible mid-point between fun and credibility square on the nose. Simply the way the AI is rated in terms of their abilities (visible on the game's loading screen prior to the level) gives you a clue to the kind of challenge you'll face. Needless to say, at the start of the game it's fairly forgiving, but by the time you hit the latter half of the campaign, you'll know you're in for a fight.

Another part of the game that has been buffed-up considerably is how Airborne deals with weapons. Rather than just boringly give you a standard load-out of Axis and Allied weaponry to choose from, the game actually tracks how much you're using a specific firearm and automatically rewards you with three tiers of upgrades as you go along. Say, for example, you really wanted to prove your worth with the various pistols in the game, you'd eventually find those weapons becoming more useful. A scope might be added, or you might be able to reload quicker or benefit from reduced recoil. Although you might argue it's not especially realistic, it's not outside the bounds of credibility, yet gives an added incentive to try things differently, and play around with various weapons throughout the game to see what the upgrades are like. In addition, it adds an even greater degree of variety by effectively tripling the amount of weapons available in the game, with the ability to remove upgrades as you see fit. In a sense, EA has massively improved an area that has been neglected ever since it created the sub-genre, and leaves the competition with work to do to improve on this excellent new system.

And underpinning the delightful sense of freedom, the excellent combat, and the buffed-up weapons system is a control system that has to rank as one of the best ever devised for a console FPS. Essentially borrowed wholesale from the long-forgotten European Assault, the so-called Ironsights system is easily the most flexible and intuitive method anyone's come up with, allowing the player to easily duck, lean and pop up from behind cover without resorting to complicated button combos. Simply holding down the left trigger enables your gun sights, and from there you can use the left stick to peek up, left or right from behind cover. Used when crouched, it's an exceptionally useful action to be able to perform in a game which demands that the player makes sensible use of any cover points you come across. And as well as being easy to pull off, the sensitivity is set perfectly, allowing you to lean out just as much as you need to - vital when you're sniping and need to nail that git right between the eyes.

If this is sounding improbably impressive, then the fact that the graphics engine does the business only adds to your overall appreciation that EA has really pulled out all the stops to get the Medal of Honor series back on top of the WWII pile. The sense of awe as you dive from a plane is certainly something that never gets dull, with jaw-dropping detail levels, flawless draw distance and none of the horrible pop-up glitchiness that used to jar the immersiveness in past WWII efforts. We're used to cinematic chaos in WWII games, but this definitely cranks it up to another level, with so much going on you'll struggle to take it all in.

'Medal of Honor: Airborne' Screenshot 3

Land on a German's face for extra bonuses! [Are we sure this is correct? - Ed]

Up close, the general architectural craft and ambition on display is so far beyond the kind of limiting rubbish we're used to that you want to shake the level designers by the hand for finally taking the shackles off. While there are, of course, still limits to what you can do and where you can go, it's now big enough, and sufficiently multi-layered to give such an incredible depth to each of the game's six campaigns that you don't need it to be any bigger. By the time you feel like you've seen everything there is to see, you're whisked away somewhere else, and have fun exploring all over again. The best feeling, though, is piecing together a map of your environment in your head as you go along - that simply never happened before in WWII games, but now there's this real sense of place when playing Airborne. It's the same feeling of playing multiplayer in an intricately constructed map, only with the focus and immersion that comes with a good single-player campaign. The vistas you look out upon don't hurt, either, giving the impression of proper geometry, rather than some cheap bitmapped cop-out. It's a title with a lot of love lavished on it. Being extra critical, the environments still lack that extra degree of destructibility that we call long for, but that's arguably one for the next generation. Let's not get too picky.

'Medal of Honor: Airborne' Screenshot 4

Der Flakturm. Crumbly.

Having said all that, Airborne's not without its own niggles. Chief of these is the save/checkpointing system, which demands that you've completed one of the objectives before it will save your progress. What inevitably happens is that you'll often fail in a given task and find yourself not only back in the aircraft, but tasked with taking down the dozens of Germans you just painstakingly picked off. For the first half of the game, the challenge is sufficiently easy for it not to matter, but by the time you hit the bridge on Operation Market Garden, or slog through the brutally tough Operation Varsity, you'll scream at EA LA's studio leads for allowing such unnecessary frustration to spoil what was shaping up to be an almost flawless experience. At the very least, the game should be capable of knowing which enemies you just took out and allow you to carry on - but having spent 15 minutes taking out snipers, only to find yourself with no choice but to do it all again...well, it's sofa-punching stuff of the highest order.

What's important, though, is to not get bogged down in the detail too much. It's a game that, when played under pressure, can be a real pain, but taken at your leisure is one to savour. With an excellent mission-rating system in place, it's also one of the few games that gives you an incentive to go back and do better. If only more shooters had such in-built replayability. With 12-player online team deathmatch and capture the flag thrown in there for good measure (that we couldn't test because, well, no-one was online yet!) across all six maps, there's even more reason to cast off your Medal of Honor prejudice and enjoy the best World War II game to date.

8 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Kristan.

About Kristan Reed

Kristan is a former editor of Eurogamer, dad, Stone Roses bore and Norwich City supporter who sometimes mutters optimistically about Team Silent getting back together.

Read more articles from Kristan by visiting the Kristan Reed archive page.

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Comments (92) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • DUFFMAN5 #1 5 years ago

    Could be my first MOH in a very long while then!.................When I get my 360 back from repair, that is.
    Edited by 1 at 04/09/07 @ 14:38

  • Dr.Mott #2 5 years ago

    Gasp!

  • MuppetThumper #3 5 years ago

    im genuinely shocked. still won't buy it though.

  • Darren #4 5 years ago

    Thank goodness this game got a good score... I'd have been worried if it had got a 5 after both Edge and OXM360 gave it a solid 7. The demo was well good so I pre-ordered it. Looks like Gameplay.com are sending them out early too so I should be playing this and... ahem... Two Worlds tomorrow. :)

  • Monkey_Puncher #5 5 years ago

    It looks good, but I'm also worried about game length. I see there's only 6 missions, is it really worth the asking price if I don't play much online multiplayer?

  • gaselite #6 5 years ago

    Excellent, I was really looking forward to this and hoping it'd be a return to form and I thought the demo was promising, so I'm really looking forward to it now.

  • Kon #7 5 years ago

    Surprising review. From the demo i was left with the impression this was nothing more than a poor rendition of CoD3. Still, the WWII theme is more than enough reason for me to keep well away from this.

    Roll on CoD4!

  • krudster #8 5 years ago

    It's not that short, despite 'only' having six campaigns. The bloody factory mission (the fifth) took me about three hours. I was stuck on the bridge part of the previous level for ages as well. A good 8-12 hours I reckon, depending on difficulty level/skills.

  • cyber_nicco #9 5 years ago

    Sounds more like 6 campaigns, rather than missions. If, er, that makes sense...

  • PlugMonkey #10 5 years ago

    "there's even more reason to cast off your Medal of Honor prejudice and enjoy the best World War II game to date."

    Better than Call of Duty (EG, 9/10) and Company of Heroes (EG, 10/10)?

  • krudster #11 5 years ago

    Man, CoD 3 was bad enough a year ago. Next to this it looks painfully last-gen.

  • Killerbee #12 5 years ago

    The last MoH I played was Allied Assault... and that was aaages ago. This might be the first one I actually think about picking up since. Need to finish Bioshock first though...

  • Darren #13 5 years ago

    Nice review, shame about the flawed save system but you can't have everything I guess.

    I noticed the review mentioned the game has six levels... in OXM360's review they mentioned seven and said that the game is really, really short as each level can be completed in around 30 minutes making this a 3.5 hour game. Surely that's not right... is it? Also they said the engine was creaky although they didn't bother to explain what they meant by it...

    *EDIT*
    Ah I see Krudster has answered my question... thanks...
    Edited by 1 at 04/09/07 @ 14:49

  • krudster #14 5 years ago

    Yes, within each campaign there are tons of objectives which are essentially like missions.

  • tinners #15 5 years ago

    erm isnt this online also?

  • krudster #16 5 years ago

    Definitely six, plus a training thing which takes 10 minutes.

  • krudster #17 5 years ago

    Maybe if you played it on easy you could romp through it. But surely nobody's that stupid?

  • espy #18 5 years ago

    Oh, at last, a Flak Tower in a game. I live near a converted one in Hamburg, and I occasionally wonder what it must have been like when it fired.

  • Darren #19 5 years ago

    I noticed there's no mention of the online mode in the review... what's it like? The single player map in the demo felt like a multiplayer one so it wouldn't surprise me if the multiplayer feels and plays alone like the solo campaign.

  • miiiguel #20 5 years ago

    yeah, that's right. Lately I read lots of ppl complaining about games beeing easy, like Bioshock and stuff, but then I ask and they say: sure! "easiest mode".

  • Universal_Hamster #21 5 years ago

    I'm finding reviews of this game to be terribly odd. Playing the demo, (Which I overall enjoyed) I came across 2 big flaws that no review has yet mentioned.
    First is the lack of feedback from, and number of bullets required in killing someone, and second is the AI, which, despite what this review says, has enemies sometimes run around like blind chickens.
    The combination of these two problems often makes a farce of the battles, as an enemy soldier will run into a group of your allies, mill about a bit and run away without apparent harm.
    How can no other review mention this stuff? Am I just wrong?

    Saying that, EG is bang on about the "L trigger" aiming system, and its alot of fun, ao I'm still tempted.

  • Dizzy #22 5 years ago

    Surprisingly good?

  • mkreku #23 5 years ago

    Wow. That was totally unexpected. But I have to play fps's on my PC, I just can't handle a controller for that. This is coming to PC too, right? Right?!

  • El_MUERkO #24 5 years ago

    Is there a PS3 version of this? Any reviews of said PS3 version?

  • krudster #25 5 years ago

    The whole landing thing's just a bit of fun, makes a spectacular start to a level and gives you a chance to go for 'skill' landings. Totally meaningless to the main game, though.

  • BadBoyBonner #26 5 years ago

    Is anti-aliasing on or off?

    Very jaggy in the demo on anything above 32"

  • krudster #27 5 years ago

    PS3 version's coming about 3-4 weeks later.

  • krudster #28 5 years ago

    Played it on a 50" and can't say it looked jaggy in the slightest. I assume AA is on.

  • rogermellie #29 5 years ago

    Oh, at last, a Flak Tower in a game. I live near a converted one in Hamburg, and I occasionally wonder what it must have been like when it fired.

    I was in Hurtgen forest last weekend with an old WWII veteran who manned the guns on a flak tower in Berlin!

  • TonyCocaCola #30 5 years ago

    Zang! This looks and sounds cool. Maybe i got time for one more WW2 shooter.

  • Darren #31 5 years ago

    @BadBoyBonner - The game uses the Unreal Engine 3 (like Gears of War and BioShock) and (correct me if I'm wrong) that uses something called deferred lighting (I think) which is not compatible with normal AA. Still I didn't find the demo too jaggy at all on my 32" Bravia HDTV and, despite BioShock not having AA, neither did that game.

  • menage #32 5 years ago

    I didn' t like the demo at all, and WO2 has no gamelife in in for me anymore. Even with cool shit on top I still won't buy it.

  • Walshicus #33 5 years ago

    I loved the demo mission, so this might just be added to the list of "games I wish I could buy but can't afford"...

  • tiddles #34 5 years ago

    Let's see if we can get Krudster to write more words in the comments than in the actual review... :)

  • dogbouUK #35 5 years ago

    Should have had coop, it was promised in all the early previews.
    Would have bought it if it had. Probably won't now.

    Gears of War was great - but Halo 3 is really going to shake the tree regarding coop. It's simple - people want it.

    Deathmatch and capture the flag - give me a break.

  • BadBoyBonner #36 5 years ago

    Darren

    Bioshock definitely has anti-aliasing, and although unreal powered it is not Unreal Engine 3 but 2.5

    Irrational Games- “BioShock uses an enhanced version of the Tribes Vengeance engine, which is a heavily modified version of Epic Games' Unreal Engine 2.5 technology. Ken Levine, lead designer at Irrational Games, revealed that the rendering engine and lighting has been completely re-written for BioShock to take advantage of the Xbox 360 hardware.”

    My TV is 50” so show’s a lack of anti-aliasing quite badly – the demo didn’t have anti-aliasing. Sounds a bit anal but after playing Bio-shock and Lost Planet extensively of late it seems very “rough” edged.
    Edited by 1 at 04/09/07 @ 15:50

  • Verwandlung #37 5 years ago

    Sounds like something I might want to play.

  • gman7714 #38 5 years ago

    I'm with Walshicus, this now definitely goes on my list of games I want but cant afford.

  • Buggs #39 5 years ago

    Only one flaw picked out in the whole game, so why only an 8? This review has 9 written all over it.

    Didn't want to give a 9 to an EA game? I understand. I wouldn't either.
    Edited by 1 at 04/09/07 @ 16:14

  • Heartcore_Ninja #40 5 years ago

    I thought this was shit tbh.

  • Aurifex. #41 5 years ago

    I liked the demo after a couple of goes.

  • asphaltcowboy #42 5 years ago

    Quite liked the demo - loved the fact it felt a little bit like an offline version of a Battlefield game - being able to start anyway is a great idea. Found the actual shooting mechanic and controls to be a little less good however. Will probably pick it up when it's a bit cheaper.

  • Kazzahdrane #43 5 years ago

    Interesting: I thought the demo was "ok" but especially liked the weapon upgrade part. This review has raised the title to a borrow for me, but no buy.

  • Number_Two #44 5 years ago

    Looks brilliant but my purchase will have to wait until I have finished GRAW2 and the upcoming Halo 3.

  • ronuds #45 5 years ago

    EA + UK = Win


    That's a shame...

  • krudster #46 5 years ago

    It's a whisker away from a 9. I think the save system screwed that up, it's a pretty fundamental flaw once you play it.

  • kangarootoo #47 5 years ago

    Just read over the bit about the save system again. Man, I really wonder what people are on with stuff like that.

    Did anyone actually ask the question "will this make the game more or less fun for the player", 'cos if you ask that question and answer it honestly and objectively (and have a degree of experience in these matters I suppose), half the descisions in game design make themselves for you.

  • captainrentboy #48 5 years ago

    Didn't expect that score, I thought the demo stank, then again I think I'm just genuinely sick of the WW2 setting now. Thank God COD4 has changed things up a bit. I think I'll leave this until it's a lil cheaper, as I've got Stranglehold and Halo 3 to buy this month.

  • Physically_Insane #49 5 years ago

    God, Eurogamer's lost it.

  • andromeda #50 5 years ago

    my god , theres life in the old girl yet...

  • sd99 #51 5 years ago

    Actually the OXM review slated the AI and said the six levels are really short and could be completed within half an hour each - that's like 3 hrs total game time...

  • krudster #52 5 years ago

    That's just not true - from the boxed version I playaed on normal, anyway.

    Peopele ought to realise that review code is often markedly different from the finished article, and that print magazines routinely review from non-final builds. I remember Jak 2 and The Getaway being tweaked in extremely noticeable ways between review and boxed.

  • sd99 #53 5 years ago

    Well after saying the levels are 30mins each, they explained that...

    "..you can literally run through the levels, as pushing the left stick makes you move at ridiculous speeds. When you're running like this, enemies have trouble drawing a bead on you and you can even charge down an MG42 nest. If you've got the upgraded (tremendously overpowered) shotgun, then you can take out a whole enemy squad this way. The dodgy AI helps that; when an enemy takes five seconds to notice you, you can just run though an objective in minutes, just clubbing people with your grenades. It really does make you feel like a hero in a world of idiots.."

  • Feanor #54 5 years ago

    "Having said all that, Airborne's not without its own niggles. Chief of these is the save/checkpointing system, which demands that you've completed one of the objectives before it will save your progress. What inevitably happens is that you'll often fail in a given task and find yourself not only back in the aircraft, but tasked with taking down the dozens of Germans you just painstakingly picked off."

    Just in case someone is EA is reading, I want to say that this flaw ensures that I will never buy this game.

  • FooAtari #55 5 years ago

    Is the save flaw really that bad? I sometimes wonder if people want the game to be played for them these days. But having not played the game I guess I dont know how annoying it is.

    Anyway im pretty surprised by this, looks pretty good. I have always had a bit of an Interenst in WW2 and personally not bored of the setting in games, as long as they are good. I might acutally trade in a certain FPS that was released last week that I am simply got getting into at all.

  • zuljin #56 5 years ago

    Quick question: Do bodies stay behind? If I snipe for half an hour then that would be a nice indication of whether I'd cleared an area or not...

  • Jmek #57 5 years ago

    I was looking forward to this. And then I wasn't after looking at the advance reviews. And now I'm back to going to get it after this review. Looking at the metacritic score it bears out that the advance and magazine reviews are from substantially different builds.

  • Monkey_Chops #58 5 years ago

    "...enjoy the best World War II game to date." ...after Company of Heroes, you mean.

  • smurphs #59 5 years ago

    I thought the demo was great, best MOH since the PC original, me'hopes.

  • YourMessageHere #60 5 years ago

    I finished the PC demo. My assumption from that was that, when I died, I simply jumped out of the plane again (not unreasonable I feel), and it was some dumb fuck's idea of fun that each time I went back where I was, all my hard work was undone. I blamed the shitty friendly AI for letting the bad men recapture wherever it was they had been entrenched and I'd cleaned them out - the usual "only you out of all these soldiers can complete an objective" thing. Now it seems I was not only respawned back in the plane but back in time too. It's genius, of course.

    Oh, and the weapons are completely nonsense too. Not a word on the absurdly, unrealistically huge, vision-obscuring muzzle flashes that mean you can't aim automatic weapons? No mention of the lamentable lack of power in the rifles, such that you need two headshots for a kill half the time? For shame. Based on the PC demo, there's no way I'll get this.

  • smurphs #61 5 years ago

    'delightfully reminiscent of the AI in the original Half-Life'

    that's sold it to me. Coming up against the SWAT-type guys in HL is one of my stand-out gaming experiences, it's amazing that in the 10 years since, very few games have offered comparably fun AI opponents.

    Congrats on mentioning the possible differences in playing styles the reviewer must have compared to the playing public - good objectivity (...dude?).

  • UncleLou #62 5 years ago

    Oh, and the weapons are completely nonsense too. Not a word on the absurdly, unrealistically huge, vision-obscuring muzzle flashes that mean you can't aim automatic weapons? No mention of the lamentable lack of power in the rifles, such that you need two headshots for a kill half the time? For shame. Based on the PC demo, there's no way I'll get this.


    That's what the upgrading system is for.

  • krudster #63 5 years ago

    Exactly, everything YourMessageHere said about the weapons is total nonsense. You can aim automatic weapons just fine....once they're upgraded. Until then you fire in very short bursts to take into account the recoil. Ditto, rifles become very useful in no time at all.

    SD99 - it's possible they found an exploit in an unfinished build and ruined it for themselves. The AI was nothing like that in the finished version, and I find it very hard to believe you'd last more than ten seconds charging at an enemy gun nest. That's absurd. It takes, what, less than a second out of cover to lose a quarter of your health if you so much as peep your head over when facing a machine gun nest. To imply you can wade in and take down sleepy AI just seems plain wrong to me.

    As I said, maybe that was the case in their build. I can only tell you what the finished version was like on Normal difficulty, and as I said, the AI is pretty much tip-top from 10 or 12 hours of playing it from start to finish over the weekend.




  • effinjamie #64 5 years ago

    Really enjoyed the demo and think the aiming cover system is excellent.
    Will probably wait for a 2nd hand copy in a few months though.
    A month or 2 back and this would have been a definite buy for me

  • Darren #65 5 years ago

    @Krudster - It wouldn't surprise me if OXM360 have reviewed an unfinished build of the game but it's unfair of them to mark it down for issues that aren't in the retail version. They've done this before though... I remember the developers of Saints Row complaining on the Volition forums about OXM360 reviewing an earlier build of the game when they criticised some aspect of it, the framerate I think it was. I guess the print deadlines for magazines means that they cannot always review final builds if they want the review out before the game is released. This obviously isn't the case for sites like EG and GameSpot who can review the final games a week or even days before they come out.

  • urban #66 5 years ago

    sounds basically like they had a brainstorming session and said "okay, so our MOH IP is failing miserably, how can we turn it on its head?" PARACHUTES

    betcha it's shit.

  • 3william56 #67 5 years ago

    Read the review in depth, did you?

  • NegativeZero #68 5 years ago

    How representative is the demo of the actual game? Because aside from the bizzare button layout, the demo felt very tired, I think the biggest detractor for me was that each area that I got to felt like I was jumping behind cover and then killing the same guy four or five times. Shoot him in the head, he dies, then he respawns around the corner and runs back to the exact same spot. Keep killing the respawning enemies and then move to the next bit of cover ad infinitum.

    If the rest of the game is like the demo then I sure as hell won't be bothering with this.

  • mkreku #69 5 years ago

    Hmm.. ok. People are definitely less enthusiastic about this game than the reviewer is. I guess I'll just wait and see with this title.

  • Darren #70 5 years ago

    @NegativeZero - You can change the controls in the demo you know... layout 2 is the best one for me... click left analogue stick to crouch, A to jump, Y to change weapons, LB to sprint, B to mellee, X to reload, etc., etc.

  • Royal Fool #71 5 years ago

    I wasn't expecting a review like this. Hmmm.

  • BillyBrush #72 5 years ago

    Better than call of duty 2?

    'No, not as good as call of duty'

    Thank you voice of reason, you helped me overlook the TenchuZ review now you're helping me save money...you're great


  • groovychainsaw #73 5 years ago

    I really disliked the demo when i played, thought it couldnt be any more generic, to be honest, maybe i ought to give it another try...

  • Vin #74 5 years ago

    This rocked my face and I loved it. Cracking score.

  • S.J.Rogers #75 5 years ago

    Krudster, you have sold it too me...

    I was hoping to get SH this month but the demo made me realy dizzy and i threw up..!!!

    Looking forward to Friday now.

  • glaeken #76 5 years ago

    I am confused now after reading this review and the one on Gamespot. Sounds like two different games.

  • Ryze #77 5 years ago

    Jesus - I've not played a MOH game since Allied Assault on the PC.

    I might have to rent this one...

  • gaselite #78 5 years ago

    "Didn't expect that score, I thought the demo stank, then again I think I'm just genuinely sick of the WW2 setting now."

    Fair enough

    "I think I'll leave this until it's a lil cheaper, as I've got [...] Halo 3 to buy this month."

    So, hang on, you're sick of WW2 as a setting for games (which - personal side note - is a fascinating real-world conflict which I think has countless stories that can be told in countless ways and I love as a setting, as it is almost always consistently engaging when done right), but you're not sick of dime-a-dozen ambiguous futuristic ultra-man in outerspace settings?

    Sometimes I just do not understand the wider online gaming community (and this post isn't aimed at the above chap specifically, just using it as an example). If it's not their pseudo-Marxist bitching about EA, it's their wearisome complaining about this utterly compelling period in 21st century history being explored through this relatively new medium whilst they consistently gorge on dull, dreary and generally rather bland sci-fi fare (yes, that covers Halo). Oh well.

  • NAMMY #79 5 years ago

    Looks like a fair score, after hearing of its existance, and trying the demo, I felt it would be just more of the same but with the gimmick of parachuting/spawning into different places at the start of a mission. Still, it was pretty fun, and may get a rental.
    Can't wait for COD4, but back to Bioshock it is ...

  • YourMessageHere #80 5 years ago

    So, wait, it's somehow a good idea to have game-killingly shit (to me) weapons that you're forced to use in order to make them good, and which are unrealistic in a realistic setting? Weapon upgrades are fine for modern guns but it's totally out of place for WWII. If this was something selfconsciously OTT like The Outfit, I could see upgradeable weapons fitting, but most of this game seems to be aiming for realism, except the weapons. In the demo I didn't get to upgrade anything other than the thompson, and a front grip does not remove the oversized and unrealistic muzzle flash. With the SMGs recoil is not the problem, being able to see the target is. Even the MoH banner ad on my left is showing those same oversized muzzleflashes.

  • Anthony_UK #81 5 years ago

    Bearing in mind the demo of this is the probably my most played game this week I totally agree with the review. Forget it's EA, forget it's medal of honor and play it for what it is, a fun WW2 game!

    As for slating the thing for the muzzle flashes being too big WTF??? that's the most pathetic arguement i've ever heard, but if anything i think there spot on, and as the upgrades I personally think its a great idea. MOH has never been about absolute realisim in the first place, so I think the game rewarding you with upgrades to your prefered weapon is another good idea that keeps things interesting!

    Never been a fan of MOH or EA for that matter, but i'll be picking this one up over the weekend!
    Edited by 1 at 06/09/07 @ 10:10

  • kiroquai #82 5 years ago

    Bought the game this morning and have just completed the first level. I'm presuming from the good review scores the game's been getting it must get a hell of a lot better - just spent a good twenty minutes running around trying to shoot people with what seemingly was a pea shooter instead of a rifle, whilst aiming at enemies that ran around into each other whilst my squadron mates ignored them completely and ran off somewhere else. Oh, and on top of that it's got the classic clichéd war music and associated war quotes before each level. It's as if I were playing a slightly different version of Call of Duty 3, except somehow not as good.

    So, yeah. It must get better.

  • peppergomez #83 5 years ago

    [link url=http://www.gam espot.com/pc/action/medalofhonorairborne/review.html?sid=617 8113&tag=topslot;title;2
    ]http://ww w.gamespot.com/pc/action/medalo...[/link]

    a little less enthusiastic.

    the reviewer seems never to have learned the concept of transitions between sentences--there is this abruptness at the end of each sentence that gets really choppy after awhile.

    anyways, they seem to be pointing out some flaws that eurogamer didn't notice.

  • Shabtai #84 4 years ago

    I playe and finished the game. It's 7 at most and even 6.
    The game is short, it hasn't been installed here for 24 hrs and i completed it. On Normal. 6 levels is outragous, they are not too long either , so i can't understand the reviwer. Yes , the bridge part can delay you and so is the apalling final battle but that's it. Rest and most of it is very easy and i don't consider myself a badass FPS player.

    The AI is bad. I dunno what came into the writer. Worst case, you take a cover and peek and shoot.

  • kingmob #85 4 years ago

    Well... thanks for making me waste £40 on this steaming pile. This is probably one of the most terrible games I've had the misfortune to play. It is appalling. Complete and utter rubbish.

    AI lacks anything that remotely resembles "I", the enemy either totally ignore you or they can hit you from half way across the map (or through a brick wall). The hit detection is so bad it hurts (unless nazi's heads were made of solid steel)...

    what happened Eurogamer? you used to be cool. How much did EA pay you for this?

    "the best World War II game to date". Have you only ever played this one then?
    Edited by 2 at 09/09/07 @ 01:58

  • thebuzzard #86 4 years ago

    Have to agree with many people EG seem to have lost the plot with this review, takes only a few hours to complete only the last level is a challenge, an infuriating annoying challenge at that. Id give this a 4/10 maximum just because the sniping can be quite fun, but the terrible AI, run of the mill gameplay and shortness pretty much ruins the game.

  • samk #87 4 years ago

    I've completed 4 of the 6 missions so far in a total of about 4 hours (even though I like to plod through slowly), and at least an hour of that was spent on the frankly ridiculous bridge section at the end of level 4 (Operation Market Garden.)

    Who the hell thought it'd be fun to have to cross a bridge full of enemies armed with RPGs located on raised platforms, who can virtually kill you outright with one shot?!? And of course due to the stupid save game, if you die you've gotta do the bridge section all over again. I couldn't find a rifle anywhere, nevermind a sniper rifle, so I had to take them on armed with a friggin' Thompson submachine gun for Christ's sake, which is useless at any sort of range.

    Oh, and as some of the others have stated I've seen plenty of occurances of enemies standing around, following each other like lemmings to cover points, and doing other daft things. The AI is far from "tip-top".

  • driptray #88 4 years ago

    Surprised at some of the sniffyness and negativity this game is getting. Personally I love it! I'm loving the controls, the graphics, the soundtrack (I want my WW2 games to have this kind of soundtrack!), and the weapons upgrade system works really well. Great game.

  • kali_mist #89 4 years ago

    I have to admit the eg review sold me on this game. Initially I was drawn in by the weapon upgrade system but it was fairly limited. The sniping was quite good in the first 2 levels with the weapons sounding right (athough the detection could be a bit off.)
    I had read that the game really got into its stride half way through with the market garden level, so I was looking forward to it after the d-day in reverse slog of level 3. Level 4 was shite to be honest. Within 15 minutes (on normal) you are at the end of the level, a bridge which as someone pointed out was just some panzershreck toting nazis firing on you from platforms. It actually made me think of how excellent the bridge level in 'Black' was in comparison. COD3 was better then this and it was not up to much. A pity.





  • krudster #90 4 years ago

    Quite honestly, I wonder if EA slipped them the wrong game.

  • conrad #91 4 years ago

    I just finished it last night on expert, I really enjoyed it. The last two levels (specifically the three tanks objective ownwards) where a real phucking pain with the checkpointing and the resetting of enemies but the combat is still throughly fun.

    Only down side for me was the lack of any real memorable new theme, it seemed often in key points they where recycling key themes from the first three mohs.

    Anyways, this game comes well reconmended if FPS's are your bag

  • Tlaloc #92 3 years ago

    I bought this a couple of days ago as a second hand bargain. I have to say, it was. For my money this is easily the best World War Two shooter I have ever played, bar none. I have just played it through the second time in five days, (at normal level) and fully intend playing it again, probably starting tomorrow. (:) It is probably not perfect, I have seen for example, one dead bot stuck in a wall having convulsions, but it is far and away the most fun I have had playing a shooter in donkey's years. In my humble opinion it whups the pants off COD 2 *AND* COD 4 (yes. I know that is sacrilege. Tough.) If you see it as a bargain, and like shooters... grab it. I give it a very high 9 on ten.