Medal of Honor European Assault
- September 01, 2005 16:52 PM PST
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Medal of Honor: European Assault overcomes graphics glitches with blistering gameplay and hard-nosed challenge.
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Brits Meet Yank
Having already revisited D-Day and Pearl Harbor, Medal of Honor: European Assault marches back to the early days of World War II in 1942. The British led the fight against Nazi Germany then, but now you arrive on the scene to lend them a helping hand.
You play a new Medal of Honor recruit named Lt. William Holt, who's representing the Red, White, and Blue as a special operative with the O.S.S. (Office of Strategic Services). As in previous versions, the game's four campaigns are based on actual World War II missions. Holt's O.S.S. assignments see him participating in the British commando assault on V2 rocket labs in St. Nazaire, France; fighting a guerrilla war against Rommel's army with the Desert Rats in Tunisia, charging into Stalingrad with the Soviet army, and assisting the Yanks at the Battle of the Bulge.
Battlefield Tactics
The lieutenant isn't the only thing that's fresh this time around. European Assault opens up Medal of Honor gameplay, something the series has needed for a while.
Now, every mission is wide open with a 360-degree field of play. You can experiment with different plans or change tactics on the fly without being constricted to a linear path as in the earlier games. The design dramatically enhances the feeling of chaos on the battlefield.
The enemy A.I. has also done some homework to show off a notable increase in I.Q. German machinegunners and marksmen zero in on you once you open fire on them and sometimes they try to maneuver into position to get a better shot at you. If you get too close to their positions, they might charge at you for hand-to-hand combat.
Duck and Cover
Consequently, European Assault demands that you learn to use the terrain for cover and that you shoot and duck as often as you can. Hard-charging, banzai tactics will get you nothing but dead in this game, and you often find yourself scurrying from one vantage point to the next in order to take an open shot.
The shifty A.I. and the blistering enemy fire aren't the only things that make Euro Assault the toughest MOH to date. Health power-ups and revives are at a premium and if you die you have to restart the mission from scratch. This forces you to play smart and cautiously and seriously ups the intensity level of the game.
Eye Damage
Of course with the good comes some bad, too. Rampaging through a firefight not only hastens your demise it also magnifies some of the game's graphics flaws.
Most notably. the character graphics of friends and foes alike occasionally wade into the scenery, seeming to cut right through solid objects like walls, trees, etc. You might be sighting in on a running German trooper only to see him evade your shot by running right through a stone fence.
This is especially noticeable after battles where bodies appear to be embedded in the rubble or limbs stick out of the sides of buildings. Sometimes European Assault is more reminiscent of The Philadelphia Experiment rather than Saving Private Ryan. You'll also find that German soldiers who decide to charge at you, might just run right through you, too!
Some odd bullet hole issues also jump out at you. It doesn't happen often, but there are some areas such as the Stalingrad village where your gunfire causes bullet holes to appear in thin air.
On the nitpicking level, there's an opening cinema where you spy some enemy action up close and personal through Holt's sniper scope which has crosshairs. However, when the actual fighting begins, you find Holt armed with a British Enfield rifle whose scope is not at all as powerful as the one you just thought you saw.
All these little graphic glitches serve to diminish the overall effectiveness of otherwise topnotch MOH presentation. Explosions and gunfire are eerily real and will even cause you to flinch on occasion. The character visuals have been noticeably sharpened up. And of course European Assault again showcases the series' excellence use of newsreel footage to set up the various campaigns. However, those tiny misses haunt the game and just make it feel dated.
Attack of the Clones
There's another new feature that is also sort of a mixed bag. There's a simple team feature that enables you to command three squadmates. You mark a spot with an icon by aiming with the left stick and then pressing L2. Your guys rush to the spot and the game A.I. is supposed to direct them to wait or start firing at the next closest enemy.
It's a very simple system, but it still seems to tax the A.I. It's nowhere near as precise or tactical as the similar set up in Brothers in Arms, for instance.
During battle your team, which follows you everywhere, doesn't always adhere to your commands. You're supposed to keep them alive and healthy by feeding them some of your precious medi-kit health powerups. They often run around and get in your way without purpose, more the Three Stooges rather than three hardened combat vets. They especially like to charge past your concealed position, often drawing blistering enemy fire to you.
You'll usually be tempted to just let them die off, or send them out of the way. Place them by a wall and they just face it until you decide to move.
Honorable Mention
Medal of Honor: European Assault is a good addition to the series. It's a nice upgrade to the other console versions, even if it's nowhere near as refined as the excellent Medal of Honor: Frontline for the PC. A next gen version for the Xbox 360 is reportedly in the works, so the battle continues. Hopefully victory is in sight.
