Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault
Medal of Honor?s next tour of duty on the PC looks as impressive as its first.
Since the PlayStation days, the most heroic feats of the Medal of Honor franchise
have taken place on the PC, and the series' latest war effort on that front will
continue in dazzling fashion. While the acclaimed Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
and its two expansion packs, Spearhead and Breakthrough, covered the European
theater, Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault takes the action to the Southern hemisphere?and
it's a completely different game than the console-only
Medal
of Honor: Rising Sun. Say that ten times fast...
With Allied Assault developer 2015 focusing on its new Vietnam shooter for
Vivendi (called Men of Valor: Vietnam), the development for Pacific Assault
has become an internal project at the EA Los Angeles studio. A recent trip
there showed that an impressive effort is underway as the team gears up for
an early 2004 release. Like Rising Sun, Pacific Assault opens at Pearl Harbor
as you take on the role of a new character, Marine Private Tom Conlin. His
25 missions across seven levels will be completely different from Rising Sun's
as he helps defend Henderson Field at Guadalcanal and lay siege to Tarawa Island.
Other missions include rescuing American POWs and staging a raid on the tiny
atoll of Makin. But the adventure all begins at boot camp, a fully interactive
level that acts as the training mission and the place where you become friends
with the four recurring characters that cycle in and out of Conlin's squad
and story line.
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Squad action is a big focus in Pacific Assault, though Conlin will tackle
some missions solo. Mostly, though, he'll work with a unit of six to eight
fellow soldiers. A squad leader will command Conlin and the rest of the unit
via hand signals that pop up in the top-right corner, telling you to halt,
the location of enemies, and more. The player will never be responsible for
leading, just following.
Some under-the-hood visuals and skills-tracking mechanics mean that your
mates will evolve and grow over time (without the requiring the player to meddle
with RPG-like elements). Green recruits will shoot less straight and have a
touch of babyfat from living the high life back home, while old hands will
have chiseled, worn faces and will be crack shots.
Promising developments on the A.I. side should also change the flow of battle.
Pacific Assault does away with scripted events, and its developers say that
means no battle should play the same way twice. The enemy and your squad mates
are tanked up with A.I. that provides them with tactics for advancing on a
position, handling a banzai charge, and so on. As a result, battles will unfold
differently every time you play, which should put an end to memorizing the
enemy positions and then reloading for an easy victory.
The health system also takes an innovative approach. You'll be able to apply
a bandage to do some minor healing of your character, but for serious repairs,
you'll have to call for a medic. Tactics will then come into play as must decide
whether to fall back and meet the medic halfway or provide cover fire as the
medic advances to you?because they can be taken out.
The graphics are already at the eye-popping stage. The levels feel like a
big, open environment and have a much larger scale than the previous game.
The lighting and foliage is lush and lifelike, and in the vein of Half-Life
2, a realistic physics engine works behind the scenery. Enemies crumple not
because of animation, but because the physics system knows that bodies should
fall this way in that situation. Foliage will flutter in response to shock
waves from grenades, water will splash in response to a volley of bullets?the
world just works like you'd expect it to.
Other intriguing features include new weapons like flamethrowers and calling
in air strikes. Extensive multiplayer support includes a new objective-based
team mode, along with the customary options like Team Deathmatch across nine
multiplayer levels. The rail-shooter levels are also evolving forward a notch.
If you're manning the turret of a PT boat, for example, you won't be locked
into just one position as the boat drives its route?you'll be able to cycle
over to different positions to better handle the attacks.
Call of Duty deservedly garnered all the buzz at E3 as the PC's next big
WWII FPS. While that game looks as fantastic as ever, Pacific Assault has slid
nicely into place as the next next big WWII FPS.
