The weapons
Yet another welcome upgrade to the Medal of Honor series is the weapons. There's the return of many of the weapons from previous MOH games, such as the M1 Garand rifle and the Thompson sub-machine gun, all of which have their own strengths, such as their accuracy, damage they can cause and rate of fire. Prior to each mission you can choose a primary, secondary and side-arm weapon from the list and each weapon has three upgrades available, which are achieved through being proficient with with that gun. For example, the Thompson SMG can have a forward pistol grip added which stabilises the weapon, then a Cutts compensator can be put on which ejects the muzzle gas upwards, largely eliminating muzzle rise, and finally a larger magazine is available bringing the amount of bullets per clip from 30 to 50. Other weapons have upgrades such as improved zoom or reduced recoil. It's a fairly minor improvement and something which we've seen in other games of this type, but nevertheless you can feel your weapons improving as you progress through the game and, in a bid to unlock more rewards, it does encourage you to try out different weapons.The controls of Medal of Honor: Airborne map perfectly to the Xbox 360 controller allowing you to duck behind cover, switch weapons and zoom in with minimal effort, but more importantly the use of weapons in the game, including the targeting and execution of an opponent with a sniper rifle, works extremely well – hit an enemy in the head and it will knock him down in one shot. There are also some nice touches, such as being able to kick a grenade when it lands at your feet, the use of rag doll physics as soldiers shoot up in the air following an explosion or the after effects of a gammon grenade as the smoke rises up into the air.
Click for larger image
Click for larger imageMedal of Honor: Airborne has very few flaws. There are a few frustrations when it comes to the save points in the game as you can battle through a large and difficult section only to die and then have to start again from scratch, but overall it's an extremely fun and enjoyable game to play. The consistency of the AI's behavior and the way that both the enemy and my own team react intelligently to the action around them has really surprised me. Even when I died and kept going back to the same spots, it was hard to read where they were going to move and what they were going to do, which resulted in an unpredictable and challenging experience. The length of the single player campaign means that MOH: Airborne is over far too quickly, but the multiplayer mode, Xbox achievements and the numerous awards and commendations do add to the replay value and I've already found myself going back to levels so I can unlock them.
The pace, difficulty balance and fun factor are spot on. An enjoyable, if brief, World War II shooter.
Pros
Captures the atmosphere of war
Challenging yet accessible
Good level of freedom
Great fun
Cons
Too short
Some badly thought out save points
HEXUS Awards
Medal of Honor: Airborne– Xbox 360