Men of Valor

"Mildly controversial setting?Viet Nam?to make it stand out."

When 2015 made Medal of Honor: Allied Assault a few years back, they revolutionized the first-person war game forever. It was the first of its kind to integrate heavily scripted ?scenes? into actual excellent gameplay, merging the experience of playing a game with what most other games would do as a separate story-driven cut scene.

Since then, a million imitators have come along, and industry buzzwords like ?immersive? and ?cinematic? can be applied to just about any first-person shooter with a famous war as its backdrop. That?s why 2015 may have a hard time making Men of Valor stand out in the crowd it helped create. The game shares a lot in common with games like Call of Duty, and only has its mildly controversial setting?Viet Nam?to make it stand out.

While previous demos of Men of Valor showed off the game?s thick jungle atmosphere and how that helps create a new kind of war gameplay style, the E3 demo demonstrated some new level types and areas that were less dense and less claustrophobic, including rice paddies and winding paths leading to bunkers. The levels were filled with the usual chaos?screaming soldiers, scripted events such as buddy-killing grenade explosions, and lots of fire crossing the screen even when things were mildly ?peaceful.? The game seems to be doing an excellent job capturing the mood and madness of Vietnam not only in its sequences, but in its music (the soundtrack uses appropriate selections from the era) and between-mission ?letters to home? that express the main character?s thoughts and frustrations. The game definitely seems more character-driven than many other FPS games out there.

Judging from the demo, the A.I. still needs some work?there were a couple scenes where the main character was able to get up right next to a group of enemy soldiers and shoot them all, one at a time, without any of them turning to face him. But seeing as the game is due in October (simultaneously for Xbox and PC), there?s still plenty of time to deal with that.

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