Product Description

Medal of Honor: Airborne retains the Medal of Honor series' historical accuracy and authenticity, but redefines Medal of Honor by introducing players to an entirely new way of experiencing a WWII FPS - notably the fully interactive Airborne experience. Medal of Honor: Airborne sees players step into the boots of Boyd Travers, Private First Class of the 82nd Airborne Division and engage in battles throughout Europe. From Airborne's rocky beginnings in Sicily to war-winning triumphs in Germany, each mission in this latest Medal of Honor begins behind enemy lines, with a fully interactive airdrop. View the entire operation from the air, and then control your parachute to choose your landing spot. On the ground, gather your senses and assess the terrain and earn those war medals! A wide variety of authentic, customisable weapons are at your disposal, each with distinct characteristics. Choose your path in Airborne's free roaming FPS environment. Medal of Honor: Airborne continues to ensure that the ideals and integrity of the prestigious congressional Medal of Honor are accurately reflected in the Medal of Honor game series. The producers sought counsel from expert sources to make certain Airborne is historically accurate and as true to the WWII Airborne experience as possible. Serving as a military spokesperson for Medal of Honor Airborne, Capt. Dale Dye, who has worked as the Military Technical Advisor for the last 7 Medal of Honor games, has helped create a truly authentic Airborne experience.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #536 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2007-09-05
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: Xbox 360
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Preview
It may be the game that popularised the whole concept of first person shoot ‘em-ups set during World War II, but as the years have gone by, the Medal of Honor series has found itself besieged by more and more copycats trying to offer ever more realistic simulations of the era. This is the first Medal of Honor game made specifically for the next generation of consoles though and finds you taking the roles of both pathfinder Eddie La Point and Private Boy Travers - paratroopers in the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division. As such, you’ll end up with a whistle stop tour of enemy hotspots in Sicily, France, Holland and Germany. The game takes its paratrooper motif serious too as the game levels are big enough that you actually have some control over where exactly you land and as a consequence what tactics you choose to employ.

The game also tries to give you as much freedom as possible with the weapons you use, with each being customisable with authentic parts which you can find during missions. Even the missions are as open ended as possible, as you’re given up to a dozen objectives, of which only a few have to be tackled in any sort of order. One side benefit this creates is that the developers have been forced to drastically improve the enemy artificial intelligence so that they can react intelligently to your attacks, instead of just relying on the pre-scripted movements of the earlier games. There’s also a stronger tactical element than ever before as you monitor the back and forth of battle between all the forces on the map. As over-familiar as WWII shooters have become, there looks to be enough new ideas here to keep even the most jaded virtual soldier happy.
HARRISON DENT

Manufacturer's Description
Step into the boots of Boyd Travers, Private First Class of the 82nd Airborne Division and engage in battles throughout Europe. From rocky beginnings in Sicily to war-winning triumphs in Germany, each mission begins behind enemy lines, with an intense and fully interactive airdrop. Your ability to determine your own starting point dramatically changes the way each mission plays out. View the entire operation from the air, and then control your parachute to choose your landing spot. On the ground, gather your senses and assess the terrain. A wide variety of authentic, customizable weapons are at your disposal, each with distinct characteristics. Choose your path in this free roaming FPS environment. Medal of Honor Airborne will also feature exceptionally photo-realistic characters, adding to the intensity of the cinematic, story-driven game.

Customer Reviews

Delusions of adequacy
I try to be honest and forgiving in reviews. I'll be struggling with this one.

The first mission was great. Great fun, multiple simultaneous objectives and not linear. Second one ok, third one ok. Went a bit downhill after that.

Graphics - I actually like the graphics but I know some have complained about them, but they look pretty good to me. Not as good as COD3, but still pretty good. The sprint effect was a nice touch.

Sound - was chaotic as you'd expect in a battle, headshot sound is a nice feature. But that flaming annoying music is SO LOUD it's ridiculous. And it's cheesy. How annoying is it to hear that same baah-baba-baah-ba-baaahh trumpet fanfare in the music every time there's an 'exciting' bit? My advice is to turn that off ASAP.

Land wherever you want in the map - Not really true. If you start moving towards a good area some kind of invisible fart blows you off course, you don't land where you want and you end up with a botched landing and probably a beaten skull. There's a 'greased landing' where you can be ready for action the moment you land, but in the last couple of maps there's almost no way of using it.

Enemy - endless. What's the point in picking them off from a distance? None. Kill a couple and run to some cover further on and hopefully they'll stop coming. By the end it just got silly. Plain silly, and at that point the game lost all hope. MG42-toting super-soldiers running around and it takes 2 panzerschreck hits to their head just to kill them, and when you kill them you can't even pick up their weapon! Not believable. Plus if you shoot at an enemy who has a panzerschreck he can suddenly and miraculously fire 2 or 3 panzerschreck rounds a second! They fire 3 in the time it took me to fire one and reload.

Game saves - Here it only saves after you achieve an objective. Why can't you save the damn game when you are in a good position? You'll cry and curse if you are 2 inches from the objective and you die and you have to do the same thing over and over. Splinter Cell Double Agent is hard, but at least when you've pulled off that tricky bit you can save it straight after.

Weapon upgrades - nice feature. The shotgun bayonet is pretty cool. I wish it would save after a weapon upgrade because, as it is, you upgrade your weapon and lose the upgrade if you die and it hasn't saved. But why can't I take the scopes off upgraded weapons? For example I liked the G43 without it. On the X360 the 'true trigger' is just pure pap. For a start it's wrong in the manual (its got nothing to do with the D pad, it's left triger to aim and ease in the right trigger), secondly the X360 triggers don't have a 20lb pull, which makes it a bit tricky. And if you ever do master it by the time you do it the enemy has moved.

Allies - This game does tend to suffer from what I like to call "Medal of Honor syndrome" (which is not surprising as it is Medal of Honor) and by that I mean there's complete parts of it where I was the only paratooper there. Just like in the original MOHAA. There are the odd parts where it's you and a mate, or maybe you and 2 others. Where's the rest of the Division?
That said, when they do turn up they are as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike. E.g. I aimed at an enemy, and ended up killing 6 of my own guys as they ran in front every time I pulled the trigger. It was uncanny. And my all time favourite - running in front of you just as you throw a grenade, so that it bounces off them and hits you. Genius. At least it doesn't suffer from the even more annoying CoD problem where you have to restart if you kill one of your own after they stupidly run in front of you.
They also like run in front of an enemy and try and melee them; god knows why as the Germans always win those fights. Still your squad mate with a Tommy will always run up and try and melee. Can someone at EA explain why? Please?

The biggest problem though was that from where you have to run across Nijmegen bridge onwards it just got so tedious, boringly frustrating and repetitive that I can't describe it. I must have done some of those bits a million times, mostly thanks to the endless enemies described above. It has just stopped being fun, which I hate to point out is the reason for playing games. I've played Condemned, COD3, Crackdown and Bioshock through a good 2 or 3 times each at least. I've played COD, COD2, H&D2 and other games through loads of times on the PC, because they are FUN! And ENJOYABLE! And REPLAYABLE! It's like the developers of this game missed the reason people were buying it.

I loved the demo for this game, that's why I bought the full version. I didn't even mind dying as you could try landing somewhere else or a different approach. But the later missions, especially the last three, just didn't measure up to the expectation that the first mission gives you. I looked forward to endless hours replaying the missions because I believed that it would be fun trying out new things by landing elsewhere on the map. The potential for replay here was enormous but the developers squandered it and it settled in to the old "Big Boss" formula.

In summary - good graphics and sounds, crap music, allied AI is atrocious, enemy doesn't need AI as they just keep on coming (but that said they do tend to take cover and move a lot which makes killing them tricky), but badly let down by being not believable or enjoyable by the end. I'm just wanting to get this over with, and surely that's not why you buy a game?

I'd also like to congratulate EA for correctly spotting that there was no other Airborne forces in WWII. There were no British or Polish paras, it was all the Americans. Honest. If you're going to call it Airborne then why not have a load of airborne missions from other forces? Start in 1940 with the German airborne attacking Eben Emael, the Crete a couple of years later(which would have significantly increased the number of missions, and made them much more varied and less made up by the end.)

Incidentally - CoD3 Gold Edition is only £20. Half the price, twice the game.

Good, but not great
I got this game based upon the amazing reviews; you can jump anywhere on the battlefield, the enemy is far more intelligent than in other games, and the graphics are great. All of these are true, only that although you might not think it, this all leads to invariable repetition. First off, you can jump anywhere; thats all fine and dandy, but really your only choice is to jump into safe areas marked by green smoke, or else your cut to pieces by enemy fire. The AI is great, but is really only as intelligent as the soldiers you find in COD3 and 2, the exception being the elite troops. However, i do find it highly unlikely that (this is in the last two levels in the game) the Wehrmacht would emply slow moving troops encased in heavy armour wielding massive machine guns. The graphics are sublime, far better than any other war game i have seen so far, but i and i think many others cannot judge a game solely on that. Lastly, although the aspects i have mentioned do drag the game down a little, this isnt an unenjoyable expierience. What is annoying is that the game only has five levels, rather like COD3, which has a little more. What about other battles that the airbourne took part in, other than D-Day, Nijmegen, Sicily and the Ruhr (two levels)?If you seem so intent on creating boss soldiers that never existed, why not battles that never took place?
All in all, this is a good game, but is dragged down by stupid ideas and lack of scope. I am not saying stay away from it, but keep in mind that at most you will get two days play out of it and then get rapidly bored.

Not everything it claimed to be or could've been.
In general terms, this is an entertaining WWII shooter with impressive graphics and atmospheric sound, as well as authentic Second World War settings. However, where it goes wrong is precisely where it has tried to be innovative...

I was under the impression (from the trailer here on Amazon) that different approaches could be used to complete the same objective (ie assault a gun emplacement or, instead, destroy it's ammo, or destroy it's targeting radar). I was wrong. Every single objective must be completed (although not in a specific order), involving going somewhere and planting a bomb, then going somewhere else and planting another bomb etc.

The weapons upgrading also sounded great, earning new parts for your guns as your skill increases. But unlocking the add-ons isn't nearly as compelling as it seems and several of them are more annoying than useful.

The parachuting, which is supposed to let you pick where you go into the fighting is also next to useless. Your options are pretty much a) land at the pre-assigned green smoke area or b) land anywhere else and die instantly from the German you can't fight back at for 5-20 seconds. There's not that much range in adjusting your landing anyway. Another good idea wasted.

Rather than a squad to command, there are now simply groups of allied troops charging around. However, these clumps of men are seemingly random meaning that sometimes you'll have plenty of support (with appalling AI) and at other times you'll have none. The MOH team should've learned a thing or two from those behind the 'Battlefield' and 'Brothers in Arms' franchises.

The enemy are one of the worst elements of the game. They are literally endless, respawning continuously until you complete the objective in that area. This means that there can be no tactics, stealth or patience in your combat style, since waiting for that perfect shot will just allow another five Germans to appear out of nowhere.

However, the grand prize for letting this game down goes to it being really, really short. I completed it in three days. Three days!

A pretty big let-down overall, I can only hope that 'Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway' doesn't disappoint so badly.