Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault
The demo's out, and here's what we thought of EA's latest stab at WW2...
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We've been worried about the Medal Of Honor series for a while now. Clearly EA couldn't simply carry on as if nothing had happened after most of the team behind both the PC and console versions upped sticks and started anew. The console focused Rising Sun was largely an abomination, albeit a commercially very successful one, and the repeated delays to Pacific Assault didn't exactly bode well for the PC side of the franchise delivering either. But EA, more than anyone, can afford to bide its time and apply a layer of polish to bring troublesome products into line. For whatever reason that didn't happen with the scrappy and dumb Rising Sun, but on the evidence of its newly released 500MB+ demo there's plenty of reason to suggest that EA's Redwood Shores team has got the franchise back on track.
As ever with a Medal Of Honor game the scene setting is paramount and even the demo goes to greater-than-usual lengths to retell the dramatic events of the 28th August 1942. Told from the perspective of young US soldier Tommy Conlin, the basic premise is you're fighting for a strip of land called Henderson Field that's crucial to the war effort, and the demo dumps you right into the action, having been woken up to find your camp is under enemy attack. Appropriately, you're flat on your back being shaken awake by a member of your squad, his voice urging you to get up help and help see off the Japanese invaders. Your eyes snap open obediently, you grab your gun and so kicks off another action packed Medal Of Honor campaign.
Specific assault
Armed with a machine gun, rifle and grenade the action starts as it means to go on, at typically furious MOH pace. With a handful of squad mates hollering instructions, your instinct is mainly to simply get stuck into the invading onslaught, peppering hot lead in their general direction. The old fallback - the exploding barrel - makes an immediate appearance, and advancing enemy are soon put in their place, and failing that a quick crack in the face with the butt of your rifle should take care of them at close quarters.
Initial impressions are that the terrain and lighting are a vast improvement on previous attempts - but then so they should be three years on, running on our lovely (loaned) Sparkle GeForce 6800 Ultra-equipped PC with all the detail turned up to max. The towering palm trees mask the blinding sunshine beautifully and scanning around, the jungle scenes are as vivid and alive as we've ever seen; that is until some blocky, bland vegetation bursts our bubble the second you go too close to it and it ends up looking not much better than the kind of advanced Quake III engine tech that Infinity Ward managed with Call Of Duty. Character models, similarly, fail to wow to a great degree, just falling short of looking as they should, with attempts at lifelike animation merely looking quite stilted. After seeing several next gen shooters of late (including console efforts like Riddick, for one), it takes a lot to generate the same degree of excitement. Next to the truly next gen shooters, Pacific Assault looks and feels very 'last gen', but is by no means disgraced as a result - it just doesn't feel like the generational leap you expect after a three year wait.
And as for the gameplay, the demo crams in plenty of set plays to give you the impression of a relentless assault - although quite whether it'll manage that for the duration of the campaign we'll have to wait and see. From the initial surprise attack, there are but seconds before another pack of marauding bayoneted soldiers charge in your direction. Either manning a sentry gun or blasting again with your machine gun, it makes little difference, the impression is that the enemy AI is a bit dim, doing little to get out of the way of your bullets, seemingly beset on committing some sort of ritual suicide charge. It's not the most convincing display, that's for sure.
Kiss the sky
After your squad mate's truck is blown to smithereens, you're then shoehorned into aiding the escape of fleeing pilots under fire, which again results in more onrushing suicide bayonetters. It's a scripted turkey shoot, and an oddly soulless one at that. If you do happen to cop it in the heat of the battle, you can call for assistance from the medic, as opposed to picking up endless medical canteens, which is a nice touch - although the end result is the same no matter whether you've just been blown to smithereens by a grenade or not.
Visually, the colour drains from your eyes, the sound muffles and your head hits the ground to the sight of planes overhead while the medic patches you up - and the first few times it happens it feels like an imaginative way of dealing with the issue of taking hits. The demo appears to kill you off, though, should you find yourself bombed by one of the circling planes, which is only fair. Manning another sentry gun, you can take out endless amounts of the enemy bombers, but in the end they'll get you. It seems only a matter of time - and six attempts all ended with instant death eventually. Anyone else manage to see them off?
The demo's all over too quickly to judge what's coming our way with too much clarity, but also serves enough up for it to state its intentions loud and clear. It's almost certainly going to be slick, action packed and enjoyable. But on the other hand, stood next to Call Of Duty and its United Offensive expansion, it feels like it's going through the cinematic motions a little, and with some alarmingly dim enemy AI, fairly transparent buddy behaviour and predictable objectives. We're still intrigued by what Pacific Assault has to offer, but also aware that this demo could have done the game's chances more harm than good, because on the evidence of what we've played so far, it simply ticks the boxes of the cinematic shooter without taking anything forward to any great degree. Download it for yourself and see whether you agree; for now our concerns for the series continue.
Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault is due out on PC in Europe this November 12th.
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