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Medal of Honor: Airborne
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 7th September 2007
Into the trenches!
There have been a few games which have tried to successfully capture the grim and gritty feel of fighting in WWII – some of them even managed to get it right, but very few managed to keep the combat fun at the same time. In fact, I can think of only other series which managed to make the combat feel vaguely realistic, moody and fun at the same time. I’m sure you know which one I’m thinking of.You may be pleased to know then that the combat in Airborne has undergone a bit of a redesign. Some elements have been expanded and loosened up, while others have been reined in and trimmed down.
There are less weapons that you might expect now, for instance, and players can choose which weapon loadout they want to use at the start of each of the five missions – but each weapon feels more fun to use. You can only carry a certain number of weapons too – a primary, a secondary and a sidearm along with two types of grenade.
The weapon system is also expandable, with a meter on the right filling up as you become more proficient with a specific rifle or SMG. Get the meter to the top and you’ll earn yourself a new badge and a weapon add-on.
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There are three different types of rewards to unlock for each weapon – indicated by Marksman, Sharpshooter and Expert medals, all of which can be carried from one level to another. The weapon add-ons are all very similar, but sensible additions: enhanced barrels which give improved accuracy; enlarged clips and scopes for the rifles.
It can feel a little odd and realism-shattering when, in the middle of a fire-fight, a medal appears on the screen as it slips into momentary slow-mo and a new scope just appears on your current rifle. Honestly, we thought it would have been a better idea to hide these expansions throughout the game and allow them to be salvaged from enemies, but either way it isn’t a massive problem.
The one weak point of the weapon selection though is the pistol, which always carries unlimited ammo. Now, I can forgive having weapon enhancements spontaneously appear on my guns, but I really find it hard to forgive the idea of infinite ammo in a WWII FPS. To me it defeats the entire purpose of the game and idea of the struggle the real Airborne division faced.
Ammo, in fact, is a bit of a continuous problem for the game as, for the main non-infinite weapons, it is most often found in large boxes which practically jump off of killed enemies. It’s balanced out a little by the nice touch of being able to retreat to a drop zone, indicated by green smoke, to reload and resupply. It would have arguably been a much better idea to go with the standard game convention of letting players run over dropped weapons.
However, if the game suffers from some minor niggles with the player weapons then it easily makes up for it with the ragdoll physics of killed enemies. It’s a fantastic and hilarious sight to watch a running enemy take a bullet to the back as the physics engine maintains the momentum at which they had previously been moving forcing them to often crash spectacularly into the scenery.
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True, there were a handful of times where the ragdolls failed completely and a melee attack would send an enemy Nazi flying into the stratosphere like some kind of fascist weather balloon, but by and large the ragdolls add an awful lot to the game. At times the reactions of enemies feel a bit over the top, but they are never unsatisfying.
The game also has a new health system which makes combat feel both fair and fun. Player’s health is marked by four boxes at the bottom of the HUD, with each box being a unit of health. Taking damage will reduce the amount of health in the first box and if the box becomes empty then Boyd will take further damage as the second box empties itself. If all boxes become empty then the game is over and Boyd will slump to the floor.
However, if a box only half-empties then Boyd need only retreat out of the fight for a moment and it will refill, almost Gears of War style, allowing him to again commit himself to facing down a barrage of bullets. Again, the change is a bit unrealistic, but it certainly makes the game more fun to play and the difficulty is high enough to balance out these changes.
Another of the nice effects added to the game is the number of visual cues on screen which help direct the player. There’s the usual compass/mini-map and the now obligatory grenade indicator, but there’s also a delicious blurring and greyscale effect which tints the screen if you are being attacked from up close – a handy way to alert Boyd that somebody is smacking the back of his head with a rifle butt.
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