Medal of Honor Airborne
September 15,2007 - EA’s Medal of Honor series has always been a well-selling series, proving some great games and some merely “ok” games. Taking yet another approach to the WWII FPS subgenre, the series returns with Medal of Honor: Airborne. With gameplay that isn’t 100% linear due to your choice of landing position, it is in no way a bad game, but just feels so restrictive and old, making the jump not as exciting as it looks.

You are put into the shoes of Private First Class Boyd Travers of the US 82nd Airborne Division. After some initial training, you’ll be jumping into some key battles throughout Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Germany. That’s just about it, as there’s no sub-story thrown into the mix, and there are only six missions that won’t take you too long to fight through.

The main element of Airborne’s gameplay is the jump. After jumping, you can maneuver through the air as best you can. It takes a little while to get the hang of, even with the training. You’ll also have a couple of options as to how to hit the ground. Holding forward while give you a greased landing, which is essentially running along the ground with your rifle ready. You can also flare your landing. It eases the speed of your drop and puts you down perfectly, but you’ll have to wait a bit to pull out a rifle. However, if you hold it down while you drop, you can better control where you land. And because you can land anywhere, the AI can recognize where you land and adapt to it.

Aside from the jumping, it doesn’t really do much to separate itself from its own series or any other games. If anything, it feels slightly archaic. You can’t aim and move at the same time, and the weapons don’t always feel right—mostly due to recoil and issues like that. Still, there is something there that makes the game feel a lot older than it really is, and for a series that started back in 1999, one would think it could update at least a small bit.

Airborne’s AI is an interesting subject. Unlike most friendly AI, they are quite effective. Actually, they feel a bit too effective at some points, should they stay alive long enough. Many will get killed off, but there are usually more than will jump in to help. And if they can get decent positioning, they nail Nazis or kill them with one hit if close enough for melee. The same can also be said of your enemies. Did you know a Nazi can hit you with a regular rifle through a crack in a fence from about 200 yards away? Furthermore, did you know the guns the Elite Nazis carry can, at times, shoot through a good 2 feet of concrete? Neither did we, but we found it could damn sure happen in MOH: Airborne. It gets pretty ridiculous but then soon turns to plain frustrating. There are points where the game is just straight hard when it shouldn’t be.

That difficulty plays into the checkpoints; the irritation comes from just straight bad timing. Take weapon upgrades, for example. All weapons can be upgrading by killing enough enemies and getting really good shots. There are three levels, and each will reward you with physical and attribute-based upgrades. One would think that after each level is reached, it would checkpoint it and save. It doesn’t. So if it’s taking you a long time between each objective, and you happen to die after getting an upgrade, kiss it goodbye. Autosaves in situations like that may be something gamers take for granted these days, but in all honesty, serves the gamer better if the game saves itself after accomplishments like that.

Airborne also ships with online—but no offline—multiplayer modes. It’s mediocre, to say the least. Split up into the Allied and Axis team, you can choose Team Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch Airborne, or Objective Airborne. In deathmatches, though, you have to protect flag areas. Did EA not realize that doing that makes it a 3-flag version of king of the hill? Deathmatch means send the other guy to his grisly death, not kill people while annoyingly guarding an immobile flag. Objective Airborne holds typical objective-based games, but they don’t stick out much. It may take you a while once you get online, because there doesn’t seem to be too many people playing at a single time. Every so often you can find a game quick, but too often it will take you quite some time. Once you get in, it may not be the greatest time. It’s not fast paced enough or exciting in the least bit, and we experienced a considerable amount of lag in every game. As for the maps, there are six in total. Three of them are straight from the campaign while the others are remakes of older Medal of Honor maps.

Graphics are included with some of the aforementioned outdated stuff. They aren’t bad, but they don’t feel totally up to date. We found too many objects that weren’t textured; plants, walls, and so on. And when you focus in to get a more precise shot, everything tends to get very blurry. That would make sense when you move around, but even standing idle will be blurry for far too long.

So although it may not be worth a purchase, it’s worth playing around with, if only for a while. The campaign won’t last you too long, and online play gives it no staying power. Airborne isn’t bad to the point where EA just needs to give up on the series, but something needs to be done. Maybe a leap to modern days may serve the series well, or it could blow up in its face as it tries to emulate Call of Duty 4. Either way, check it out if you have the time, but don’t expect too much from Medal of Honor: Airborne.

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