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The Lowdown
Pros: Some new features and gameplay polish make this better than the
previous game.
Cons: What happened to online multiplayer?
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at Play-Asia
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at Lik-Sang
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In the days on the original
Playstation the Medal of Honor series was revolutionary. The game threw
players in the midst of a war with the backbone of a FPS. After the
letdown, which was Medal of Honor Rising Sun, Medal of Honor is back
with a WWII theme. European Assault places you in the shoes of Holt, a
grunt solider in the middle of hostile Nazi territory. Holt isn't alone,
he's got three squad members and a bunch of other computer AI allies
running on the battlefield too. The whole experience is create the
feeling of being in a large scale battle.Each mission starts out with
a specific objective like take out a power plant or escape from an area.
On the bottom of the screen there is a compass that shows the general
direction towards the main goal. Clear the goal and you win the level,
simple enough. There are a bunch of other side missions that are
encompassed in the main mission for Holt to take part in. Some of them
are clearly spelled out like shooting down an elite solider or capturing
a certain spot of land back. While some of the side objectives are given
out at the start of the mission, many more of them can only be
discovered by exploring the area. Encouraged exploration leads to
multiple paths and different gameplay experiences. Completing optional
objectives can give gamers a variety of bonuses like medkits to restore
health and revives that function as extra lives. Of course not everyone
will want to seek out all of the extra missions to get a gold medal and
for these gamers they can simply focus on the main mission.
Combat in Medal of Honor is more realistic than say Unreal Tournament
or Doom. Holt can't get hit by a rocket and hope to live. A few well
placed shots will force gamers to use a revive. Because of this taking
cover is essential. If you stand with your back against the wall or
behind a set of crates you'll be shielded from fire. Pressing the L1
button lets you peek your gun out to fire a couple of shots. There are a
bunch of different guns to select from like sniper rifles and machine
guns that riddle the screen when fired. There is also the occasional
mounted machine gun for heavy duty fire. When you need to really clear
the screen you can throw a grenade and take out a couple of troops with
a well launched throw. Each kill you get adds points to your adrenaline
meter. The adrenaline meter is essentially the equivalent of a bullet
time feature. When full you can press up on the D-pad to move into a
trance where everything is in slow motion. It's perfect when you're
preparing to storm an area. Even if you focus on headshots it takes a
long time for the adrenaline meter to fill up, so it's not something you
can come to rely on.
Holt does have a squad that is with him, but you don't have many
options on how to control your team. Instead they follow you around like
slow firing gun pods. If any team in your squad dies you'll miss out on
getting bonus medkits for the next level. Not a huge penalty, but if you
really want to keep them alive you can spend some of the medkits on your
squad instead of saving them for yourself.
What's really missing in Medal of Honor: European Assault is online
gameplay. All three systems are missing out on it, which is a pretty big
surprise. For all of the work put into the multiplayer mode it's a bit
of a disappointment. If you have a couple of people over you can take on
one of the fifteen different maps packaged into the game. There are four
different classes to pick from: infantry, sniper, heavy weapons and
rifleman. You can switch between these classes at anytime by stepping
over an icon to change your class. The different classes fit the basic
molds that players are accustomed to. There are a bunch of different
gameplay options to pick from too like capture the flag, survival and a
standard death match. Some unique options include "Nemesis" where
whoever picks up a bazooka becomes the nemesis that everyone tries to
kill. Once the nemesis is killed someone else can pick up the bazooka
and become the nemesis to rack up points. Face to Face is a pretty cool
mode where you and another team are trying to place a bomb in each
other's bases.
One thing that is fairly deceptive about the title is that it isn't
for causal gamers, like the rest of the series. Early on the first set
of missions are pretty easy to complete. Once you move outside of Europe
the game's difficulty spikes sharply. A fair amount of players will be
frustrated because they have a limited number of revives and medkits,
that don't accumulate level after level. The game isn't impossible, but
the fluctuation in difficulty is a huge surprise.
As a whole Medal of Honor: European Assault surpasses its predecessor
Rising Sun. Yet it doesn't really stand up to be anything strikingly
different from any other war game out on the shelf. With fierce
evolutions produced by the Call of Duty series Medal of Honor European
Assault doesn't seem as impressive as it could be. Even with a famed
script and real locations, the actual gameplay is about the same as any
other war game.
This review is based on the US version, which was released first.
US Bound?
Already released in the US for all three major consoles. It will be
released in Japan for the PS2 and Gamecube in August.
Overall
Not revolutionary by any means, but people into war games will like
the multi-tiered mission objectives with frantically paced combat.
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