Medal of Honor: Airborne

The Good
Ever since Call of Duty came on the scene, Medal of Honor franchise lost bigtime and was nowhere near its fierce and unforgiving competitor. CoD had everything better, from graphic, interface, controls, simplicity, and helluva dynamic ambient filled with action and realism. And so Airborne showed up and said "I too can do it, and well." and thus it left me quite shocked at that revelation.

Only MoH game so far that had a good propelling force that could lead the player until the end in quite a satisfactory mood was Frontline... could be because they were the first to successfully put the player in D-day beach fight FPS, but even the rest of the missions as well as enemy movements were pretty impressive. After that, CoD came and took the throne all the way. So, what's so great about the Airborne that put it up as a competitor to Call of Duty 3, currently the last CoD with the WWII setting.

First, graphic was impressive and levels were really designed pretty well. But the thing about the levels is that they're quite huge, so to say, and not so linear. Sure, jumping off the plane is an interesting idea no doubt, but that alone would be highly insufficient to make this game as great. There are six missions altogether, short one might say, but you'd be surprised how each of these missions can take time to finish. Italian village, ancient ruins, trenches and bunkers, cities, it's all nicely wrapped up in those six missions, and what's best of all, there is no silly knights to fight like in Underground, or ending enhanced boss battle like in European Assault, there are missions and there are objectives... and objectives are but half of the mission 'cos once you finish them, new ones will appear while enhancing the map you're on to areas you didn't know were there in the first place.

Controls are fine (got me scared for a while by the unexpectedly unuseful default setting), aiming seems better than in prequels, and you can select weapon to start each mission with. What's better, is that each of the weapons can upgrade, thus providing you with more steady aim, extra clip, scope and other useful gadgets. Enemies are pretty cool too, they're defined by skill levels which basically mean they'll be tougher to deal with, and sometimes are strikingly deadly with their aim.

Okay, maybe it was the PS3 graphic, but still, it was something to be admired, yeah, CoD3 was nothing less, if not better, but gotta give them props for delivering such a worthy MoH title on the field, well done.

The Bad
As silly as it may seem, it's always hard to figure if there are infinite enemies or not, as sometimes they just pop in a bunch almost like out of nowhere, at least nowhere in your visual range. And sometimes you can see individuals guarding certain spot, especially those elite troopers, they seem to come in a defined number alright.

But both AI or your allies and enemy soldiers can sometimes seem out of boundaries, as your troops can proceed forward leaving half of the enemy along the way, and enemies sometimes come to your side and hide behind the cover as if they're running in front of their own guys. Yeah, silly things like that still happen in the games, but can be forgiven due to circumstances.

The Bottom Line
My expectations were low, which may explain why my amazement was so high... it's addictive game, and can be finished quickly... well, at least 45min per mission if you're very fast and not too thorough, but it simply doesn't get repetitive as each of the level is carefully designed and eye-candy for certain. This is a step in the right direction, what will come next... well, let's hope something on par at least.