Medal of Honor: European Assault review

European Assault is make or break for the Medal of Honor franchise. Pacific Assault was a poor game, simplistic level design and terrible AI left the series feeling like it was becoming a by-the-numbers cash generation machine rather than the quality production it had been previously.

Call of Duty had come along and shown what a great WW2 shooter should look like. Thankfully for EA's console aspirations, the subsequent PS2/Xbox version of Call of Duty was poor, leaving EA one more go at getting things right or losing the confidence of long-term fans of MoH.

Into the fray

Taking a look at the plot of European Assault doesn't exactly fill you with confidence. The players takes on the role of William Holt, an American field-agent in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Yes the franchise may have returned from the Pacific to European (and Africa) but apparently it's still up to the Americans to save the day. I can understand this from the US marketing point of view, but it's not exactly the most sensitive move.

The actual plot structure doesn't really convince. It's all tied together, but it's tenuous. St. Nazaire, Africa, Stalingrad and The Bulge are all excellent locations, but it might have been better to take the Call of Duty approach and fix on more characters in each region. But despite a hokey premise actually playing the game reveals vast improvements over Pacific Assault.

In control

The first thing that's readily apparent is how good the controls are. I'm no fan of the joysticks on the Dualshock II pad, but EA has really got the best out of the controller and it's one of the most natural and fluid joypad control systems I've used in a console first person shooter.

One of the things that makes it so natural is the ability to duck, rise and peek left and right - using the stick and holding a button. It works very well and can be used whether standing, crouching or lying down. Combined with the ability to use your weapon's iron sites it means you always feel in full control of your soldier, rather than having to fight the scenery as well as the enemy.

Firefight

One of the most pleasing aspects of the way European Assault plays is that you do feel in the midst of a battle. There are plenty of fellow troops doing their bit, and the enemy AI is strong. You will see soldiers from both sides kicking or throwing away grenades, taking and using cover and trying to outthink as well as out fight each other.

During some points in the missions you will control a small squad of men. These sections aren't as complex as Rainbow Six, but they don't need to be. You can just order your squad to move to a certain point or keep pace with you - enabling a little strategic though - for example taking two routes towards an enemy. And the gunfights themselves are much more of the kind of thing we're used to from Call of Duty than arcade-style running and gunning.

The much more open levels, with large spaces for a battle, rather than narrow linear checkpoints make this a pleasure. Yes most levels still have strict objectives and you will have to more-or-less go where told, but there are multiple routes to doing this and you will be able to make choices based on enemy positions. For example a building may contain an enemy machine gunner and you will have to think of the best route to assault the target.

Nemesis

While missions to have a set objective, there are also side quests in the action. These take the form of destroying certain targets, killing a particular enemy nemesis or finding documents. This rewards some exploration on your part, meaning you'll probably want to play each level more than once.

The save/revive system does lead to problems though. Gone are checkpoints where you can save your progress through a level. Instead the you collects lives, when killed you can continue form this point and may do so as long as you have enough lives. Lives can be found when taking down certain targets, but later in the game it becomes frustrating - it's annoying these days to have to replay a long level just because you died towards the end. This revival system does work earlier in the game and feels quite welcome, but by the latter stages it will have you pulling your hair out.

There's an adrenalin system too, once the metre is full you can engage it and enter a kind of bullet time. Here your actions are quicker than the enemy and you invincible for a short time. It may sound unrealistic given the WW2 setting, but it actually tallies with the recollections of heroes who have taken mad risks to capture machine gun nests.

Pictures of war

The graphics throughout the game are excellent, with some detailed textures and plenty of special effects occurring at the same time. Yet the game runs smoothly. The art design is very good, with locations seemingly very convcincing. However one does get a little fed up of the graphics style of European WW2 after a while - no fault of EA, but one would like to fight somewhere other than rubble strewn factories for a change.

Not all of the visuals work though. The health/revive/ammo icons that appear over dead bodies seem like something from a bright and colourful 1980s arcade game and do not match the setting. I can see the point of making them visible, but at the same time the style is all wrong. Strange too that ammo disappears, as though it melts away once a soldier is dead.

Earopean Assault

Forgive the appalling pun. The sound in the game is second to none. The gunfire always seems very solid (in keeping with the great feeling of the weaponry) and levels are filled with all manner of gunfire, yelling, explosions and other atmospheric effects. The soundscape in European Assault is nigh-on perfect and helps hugely in setting the scene.

Overall Medal of Honor: European Assault is a very solid, good game. It fails to reach a really high score due to the frustrations of the revive system later in the game and the slightly tenuous choice of battles and how they are linked together. It's clearly a return to form though - in many ways excellent, certainly in terms of atmosphere and control dynamics.

There's clearly a bright future for the franchise, though it's perhaps time EA let the team take a few risks - let more folks than just Americans play - perhaps give us a choice who we want to play as. The franchise should be commended for providing a respectful yet exciting glimpse of the war in Europe and it's a game that's certainly worth some of your time.