Medal of Honor: Airborne Review

Wheeeeeeeee!

Its funny; when you pick up a first-person shooter in the bargain bin, and even considering its proud and deserved heritage, you can’t expect too much. The fine and subtle art of console FPS is so much a hit-and-miss affair. But seriously, it is awesome. Really awesome.

Okay, it has it’s problems. Most of the jerry enemies are either too weak, or too strong. The last three types of enemies are far above and away tougher than than the rest, which by comparison seem like kids with super-soakers.

Oh, and melee attacks and using the pistol as a weapon are useless.

Now, all the pitfalls are out of the way. It has so, so many winning factors.

Is this the queue for the toilets?

You can freaking parachute anywhere on the freaking map! You play as a member of the US Airborne divisions, so respawns cleverly dealt with by hurling yourself out of planes… repeatedly. And this introduces an interesting facet of the gameplay: any objective can be carried out in any order. That said, you do spend only seconds in freefall, and when ‘Airborne’ is on the title, you do kinda hope for more.

But, it lets you decide to start a mission any damn way you want; parachute into the ‘green’ safe zones or drop straight into the hot, enemy infested areas, dropping huns with slugs from your thompson. It is particularly fun to drop right on top of them, on the roof of an Italian villa, amidst Italian blackshirts and AA guns.

Its expansive. You really can drop anywhere... but its not always wise to.

Yeah, that sounds like marketing spin. Its a touch gimmicky. Landing outside the green safe zones really does mean almost certain re-jumping again in seconds.

Well, on any of the six levels apart from the first. Six levels may seem a bit short, but each one is quite lengthy, and get very difficult on the last two. The missions in each are non-linear for the most part (until the main objectives are completed), can be completed in any order, which is kinda novel.

AI is, at times, rubbish. Especially when you’re fighting through bunkers and fortifications, which is frequent, with narrow hallways and lots of doors. They get, well, stuck in nooks. The only other complaint with the AI is the final two or three enemy types. They are ridiculously powerful, especially the MG wielding bastards, they are just really damn hard.

One other thing; when you die, you respawn in freefall, and have to work your way back to where you were. And the enemies respawn. So you clear out an area, get smashed by a rocket, and respawn, land, and have to fight your way back to where you were in the exact same path you just cleared out. This is very frustrating on the fianl missions, as you never have enough ammo, and just scrape through. Maybe I’m just a bit soft, and this was a good thing…

The Verdict:

I don’t know. I paid twenty five bucks for it, and it was nicely playable. Not the greatest game I’ve ever played, but by no means anywhere the worst.

A few things to fault it on, but on the whole, a few hours worth of quite enjoyable gameplay.

If you see it in a bargain bin at your local shop you should pick it up!