Medal of Honor: Vanguard

aka: Medal of Honor: Avant-Garde
Moby ID: 28575
PlayStation 2 Specs
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/27 10:19 PM )

Description official descriptions

In Medal of Honor: Vanguard players play as Corporal Frank Keegan from the 82nd Airborn Division during World War II. He has been dropped behind enemy lines and needs to complete several missions in Italy, France, the Netherlands and Germany. He fights alongside AI colleagues in order to free Europe.

During these missions anti-aircraft weapons need to be blown up, fellow soldiers have to be rescued and enemy tanks need to be taking out using bazookas. Players are able to customize their weapons by adding a scope or a larger ammo drum. Similar to Medal of Honor: Airborne, during certain missions players parachute onto the battlefield and can choose from which starting location to complete the mission. There is no vehicle-based gameplay in this version.

Alongside the single-player campaign there is also 5 split-screen multiplayer mode for up to 4 players: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, King of the Hill and Scavenger Hunt. No online gameplay is supported.

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

See any errors or missing info for this game?

You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.

Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

362 People (277 developers, 85 thanks) · View all

Published by
  • Electronic Arts
A Production of
  • Electronic Arts Los Angeles
Senior Producer
Senior Development Director
Design Director
Art Director
Technical Director
Executive Producer
Producer
Story Producer
Additional Design
Development Director
Lead Level Designers
Lead Engineer
Lead Animator
Lead Environment Artists
Lead Lighting Artist
Lead Technical Artist
Lead Character Artist
Lead Visual Effects Artist
Lead Sound Designer
Additional Production
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 58% (based on 31 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 22 ratings with 1 reviews)

Maybe it should be called Medal of Honor: Airborne Lite

The Good
I am a big fan of the Medal of Honor games, the first time I played Frontlines back in the days I was astonished and hooked. Since then I have gotten Rising Sun and played European Assault (not really much cared for that one). The weapons sounds are very realistic, aiming is easy to do and the button scheme is easy to learn.

I like the new health system, instead of the typical health bar, it has a new setup where if you take too many hits a redness appears on the screen, kind of like when walk into a cloud of smoke from a smoke grenade in Call of Duty 4, if you pull back and wait a moment it will go away and your free to continue on without a problem.

Really, it is like any other Medal of Honor game, new locales, missions, beautiful scenery and this time enemies that react better, for example if you can overrun a few enemy Germans, they will actually turn tail and run and try to join up with another group up the road. A very great idea, even funnier when you actually run in on a kamikaze run, some run in fear, others stare like a deer in the headlights while a few will try to fire, all in all fun.

The Bad
Well, there was some bad...and I mean bad issues with this game. First off, yes it is like any other Medal of Honor game, same story, take control of soldier, drop into enemy lines, take out enemies, destroy a certain objective (normally like a AA gun or tanks), mission over. Woo hoo. Sadly it's been done so many times before it has kinda gotten stale, almost becoming cookie cutter.

Another is very minor, more of a complaint not associated with a major gameplay problem, I have noticed when you shoot an enemy, what looks like a blotch of blood momentarily appears as the soldier falls and disappears in an instant, reminds me of Lethal Enforcers. Truthfully, I am glad they didn't put bloodshed in this one, but still if you are going to do just a little, either do none or go all the way.

This game does have some glitches, very rarely have I seen a wall disappear and reappear, a floor disappear while I am on it and actually fall down to the previous floor and Germans who just stand there like they can't see me. Another little weird glitch is that I was once a German, he goes to fall back, hits a wall and reacts like he landed on a grenade. Odd, but I guess every game does have its little issues. There was one major one I found there, in the last campaign in the first chapter you have to destroy a shore gun, afterwards a Panzer gets stuck in a ditch nearby causing the game to go into "cinema mode". Well before I blew up the gun I ran around the corner to take out two Germans when the cinema kicked in, but I guess since I didn't blow up the shore gun yet, the game couldn't understand it and stuck there in "cinema mode". Everything was still going on, background explosions, men screaming and my platoon looking around, but it's like it wouldn't get out of the widescreen perspective. Very very annoying and had to restart, didn't appreciate that.

Another problem is the lack of depth and weapons, the game seems too easy at times, just another first-person cookie cutter, but this time without a lot of weapons, only a few per stage, really there are only five American weapons (six if you count the frag grenade), the M1 Garand, Tommy Gun, the BAR (which is rarely found) and the Bazooka (which is essentially for some missions, but ammo is a pain to find). The Germans have a few, a sniper rifle, an assault rifle (which is very useful, use this instead) and another type of gun that reminds me of a SMG.

The game just seems like it's little problems add up to a huge one, one more minor before the major. If you end a chapter in a mission say with a German machine gun with full ammo and five grenades, when you go to the next chapter, same area, just like it hit a pause button and instantly picked back up...poof...your back to an American weapon and three grenades...yeah, very f'ing annoying. I can't understand why you just can't keep your weapons, I know it tries to make the game challenging, but it is so easy at times, it's almost like you can't die.

Ok, one more and it's major....it's too DAMN SHORT. Four campaigns, 10 chapters in all...that's it. You can breeze right through some of them, one took only 10 minutes, no kidding. Very disappointing.

The Bottom Line
Ok, a lot of rambling, sorry about that, but here is my advice about this game...rent it for one night, that's all you need. I rented this one for a week and beat it that night. If you can find it for a few bucks...maybe, but not definitely $20. Like my one-liner says, it seems like it should be called Medal of Honor: Airborne Lite, it's sad that the game just seems it was thrown together to throw PS2 owners off that Airborne was cancelled. Such a shame. It's a very nice game, just seems like it is incomplete, plus MOH needs to upgrade like Call of Duty, how about Medal of Honor: Vietnam? Hopefully, EA will take notice and bring out the next generation of Medal of Honor, but again as for this...just a one night stand will do.

PlayStation 2 · by Big John WV (26955) · 2008

Trivia

German version

In the German localization, the words "Nazis", "Hitler", and "Krauts" are not used and the first cutscene was re-cut.

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Medal of Honor
Released 2010 on Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Medal of Honor: Infiltrator
Released 2003 on Game Boy Advance
Medal of Honor: Underground
Released 2000 on PlayStation, 2002 on Game Boy Advance, 2009 on PSP...
Medal of Honor: Rising Sun
Released 2003 on GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox
Medal of Honor: Frontline
Released 2002 on PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube
Medal of Honor: European Assault
Released 2005 on PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - Deluxe Edition
Released 2003 on Macintosh, Windows
Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault
Released 2004 on Windows

Related Sites +

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 28575
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Yurf 77.

Additional contributors: Jeanne, Sciere, Patrick Bregger.

Game added June 17, 2007. Last modified March 8, 2024.