Medal of Honor: Airborne - Review

Added September 23rd, 2007 by Justin McBride

As of late, World War II games have become somewhat of their own genre. These days, the announcement of yet another first person shooter set during the second World War is usually met by apathetic comments along the lines of “what, this again?” and relative indifference. One can only kill so many Nazis before growing bored of the setting and pining for change. Unfortunately, to stay true to the setting, not much freedom and creativity is allowed. For a game to be noticed, it either has to be really good or bring something new to the table. Medal of Honor: Airborne tends to lean more toward the latter.

You assume the role of Boyd Travers, a soldier in the US 82nd Airborne Unit. As you parachute into the first of many conflicts with the sounds of weapon fire, soldiers yelling and witnessing AA guns blazing upward, you can’t help but become immersed in the setting. This game does a great job of preparing the stage before and during each conflict. The numerous cutscenes you’ll see are all well acted and directed with excellent voiceovers.   During battle, soldiers bark out orders and enemy positions, gunfire and explosions ring out both up close and in the distance, all doing an excellent job of pulling you into each conflict.

Each mission begins the same way, by shoving you out of a plane and presenting you with various objectives scattered around the map, giving you the freedom to complete them in any order you wish. This is one of the game’s biggest strengths, injecting some needed originality into the series and World War II shooters in general. However, the biggest fault with the single player campaign is that it’s incredibly short, lasting about 8 hours or less your first time through.  To make matters worse, things don’t really heat up until the last couple of missions. These last few missions are intense, exciting and most importantly, highly enjoyable, which almost makes up for its slow ramp up in the beginning.

This game makes an attempt to accurately simulate the inaccuracies (how ironic) of weapons produced during that era. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work quite as well as intended. Throughout the campaign, dealing with these inaccuracies can be extremely frustrating. Oftentimes, you’ll find yourself missing what were supposed to be sure shots due to poor hit detection. Now I understand that a shotgun isn’t the most accurate weapon out there, but when I aim down the sights and fire, I should not miss my target when he’s standing two feet away from me.

Nevertheless, the weaponry you’ll utilize throughout the game is very well designed and implemented. Of course, no game can properly simulate the feeling of firing these weapons in reality but Airborne does an admirable job attempting to do so. Weapons sound amazingly authentic and when coupled with the realistic recoil, produce a very satisfying feel each time you pull the trigger. Eventually, after killing numerous Nazi troops with a certain weapon, that weapon will receive an upgrade. These weapon specific upgrades (each weapon acquire three) dramatically alter its usability for the better. The difference between a fully upgraded weapon and the same weapon with no upgrades is like night and day.

Enemy AI is…unimpressive to say the least. These are supposed to be some of the best and brightest, but none fit that description in the least. At times, they exhibit incredibly stupid behavior, such as running past you to secure cover or simply not even acknowledging your presence until you unload a couple rounds into them. In a fit of unintelligence, they’ll often run mindlessly at you and attempt to assassinate with a melee attack. They also have a strange habit of looking for other creative ways to die. Many times while using a mounted machine gun, I’ve seen soldiers (friends and enemies alike) run blindly into my crosshairs…while I was still firing. Thankfully, friendly soldiers are immune to your bullets. In many instances, I’ve observed AI soldiers running towards, instead of away from, grenades thrown in their direction. What’s worse, I’ve observed several friendly soldiers stand in place as the Nazi soldier standing in front of them quickly acquainted them with the business end of their rifle or beat them to death with it.

The difficulty level is rather steep in some areas, especially during the last few missions.  If you’re not careful, you’ll find your health bar depleting very quickly. Health packs are mercifully scattered around the map, and like most shooters nowadays, your health will slowly recharge on its own if you take cover for a short while. It becomes a bit frustrating when the AI mows you down from across the map later in the campaign, but this forces you to play more methodically. Slowing down, picking your shots carefully and strategic use of cover is pretty much the only way to finish missions without dying too often.

Once you finish the single player campaign, there is an undeniably fun online component for up to 12 players that will keep you entertained for a good while afterwards. Genre staple Team Deathmatch is present here, with a slight twist on the standard formula. The parachuting mechanic finds its way into the multiplayer modes and is executed quite well. The Allied team is dropped into the battlefield from above and is able to land anywhere on the map, allowing them to get the drop on unwary opponents.  Prior to landing, they are defenseless and open to being shot out of the sky by a keen sniper or well placed grenade. Arguably, the better of the multiplayer modes is the Team Objective mode, which has both teams fighting over three flags, scattered across the map, Battlefield style. Controlling all three points simultaneously is the goal for both teams, creating a constant tug of war as teams fight for control. Teamwork is paramount here and those players who communicate well to coordinate attack and defense of the three points can end rounds quickly. Occasionally, rounds in the Team Objective mode can stretch on pretty long, but unless you’re a stickler for short games, you’ll probably be having too much fun to care.

At times, Airborne looks phenomenal. The more lushly detailed environments such as the gorgeous Market Garden map never fail to impress. Unfortunately, all this visual splendor is sometimes detrimental to the frame rate, which occasionally takes a dive when the action on screen becomes really hectic. Motion blur is employed to great effect here, best seen as you sprint from one point to the next. Aside from making things look better, the motion blur is used to cover some of the frame rate problems, which, for the most part does so decently. There is some noticeable texture pop in and poor looking explosion effects that also detract from the experience but overall, the game looks pretty good.

Perhaps with a few extra months of development to iron out the kinks such as the mediocre AI and hit detection issues and maybe if the campaign were a bit longer, this could’ve been a great or possibly excellent game. The open-ended mission structure is a refreshing change from the typical World War II game and overall, this turns out to be the best Medal of Honor game in years. The problem is, World War II games are a dime a dozen these days and aside from the increased freedom and highly entertaining multiplayer modes, there isn’t much to make this stand out in the crowded first person shooter genre. It’s certainly a good game, just not as good as it could’ve been.