Medal of Honor Pacific Assault

"What Happened to the Medal of Honor series?"

The Medal of Honor series has had it's ups and downs. IMO, it started off great with Allied Assault, and the games have been going downhill ever since. Medal of Honor Pacific Assault is no exception. It tries to implement some new gameplay elements into the series, but it just ends up being a cluttered mess. Even the great production values of the game are not enough to save this game from being a mediocre shooter.

I've become more accustomed to the fast paced action of the Call of Duty series, so Medal of Honor Pacific Assault just seems like an afterthought of what used to be a rewarding series with some extra fluff thrown in.

The first thing that you will need to know about Pacific Assault is that it takes place during the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the events surrounding it. You will actually have to fight through this, and this intense scene is really great for the game's opening. Wait, back up a second, before you will get to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, you will have to go through Boot Camp so you can learn how to left click and right click your mouse and use WASD controls. Seriously. I'm not sure if you can skip this or not, but I went through it all and it goes for quite a long while.

During, before, and after Boot Camp, you will watch a few cut scenes that will attempt to weave a story of a Marine named Tommy Conlin. There are quite a few cut scenes that interrupt the flow of the game and I found myself skipping them because I just didn't care. I was more concerned about actually playing the game and not watching everything. Wait back up a second, again.

Even before you can go to Boot Camp, you will first be dropped into a D-day style beach infiltration, much like Allied Assault. You will be knocked out of your boat and you will need to meet up with your squad, however, once you meet up with them, you get hit by a grenade and the level is over. It's all part of the story. Too bad this first little mission lasts about 3 minutes because it's the best part of the game. While it's the best part of the game, it really feels forced on the player. It's like the developers were showing you, how good and fun this game could possibly be, but instead of playing a game like this, they are going to make you play a boring, slow paced squad based shooter.

When you finally get to the Pearl Harbor level, you are forced to drive around the base in a Jeep with a guy who shows you around, but it doesn't really matter because the base gets bombed about 10 minutes later, and it turns into a warzone anyway. You will then take to a boat in order to shoot down some planes, get on an aircraft carrier to rescue some injured people (very annoying), and finally man a huge gun on the aircraft carrier to shoot down some more planes. You will also sit through some more cut scenes.

The above scenarios take about an hour or so to get through. Make sure you have some time when you start this game.

After all of the above is said and done, you FINALLY get to see what the game is REALLY like. I hope the above scenarios didn't get your hopes up because if they did, you're going to be quite aggravated with the actual game itself. You will command a small squad of marines and you will be fighting the Japanese on many islands, Lots of jungle combat in this game. You can issue commands to you team members and they will sometimes do what you want them too, but sometimes not. I found the AI to be pretty in-consistent.

So let's look at how the actual game you will be playing scores.

Graphics 6/10

While the opening scenes and scenarios have some impressive visuals, once you get to the actual game, things seem to scale back a bit. That's one thing that I dislike about this game overall is that it's too inconsistent. In one scene, you will see an aircraft carrier capsize and almost hit you, which is quite breathtaking. Once you are in the jungle, you will be walking around in some generic looking foliage that might as well be some random pixels in the shape of foliage.

The character models look okay, but they are animated in a very jerky fashion, and almost always have a stupid look on their face. The action doesn't really slow down though. Even when you have your entire squad in a fire fight with multiple Japanese enemies, things run pretty well, and the framerate holds up fine.

The weapons look the same as before, and look like they were taken right out of Allied Assault. The weapons in Call of Duty had more detail and looked much better. In fact, Call of Duty does almost everything better than this game and I really don't see why someone would play this over Call of Duty, but that's just me.

So the graphics can be good, but for most of the game, they are pretty generic and un-inspired.

Story 8/10

For most FPS games, a minimal story is all that is needed, but Pacific Assault actually take this a step further. Not only does it drop you in the middle of some real events in history, but it also weaves a story of Tommy Conlin at the same time. This is good and bad. It's good since there is a lot of story and events to chew on, but it really breaks up the flow of the action and slows things down.

As I said before, I found myself skipping cut scenes because there were just too many of them.

Sounds and Music 6/10

Most of the sound effects in Pacific Assault are great. Listening to planes zoom by while trying to shoot them on an aircraft carrier is intense, and the weapons all sound pretty good.

The voice acting is actually pretty good, and most of the characters sound convincing.
The drill Sergeant at the beginning gets my award for one of the most annoying people ever in a game. But I think he was supposed to be like that.

The music is there, but other than some fast paced music during the boat scenes, it's pretty much gone when you're fighting in the jungle and commanding your squad.

Sound effects = good
Music = Meh

Gameplay 3/10

Yes, I know it's a low score, but I will explain. One of the first things that will drive you nuts about this game is the slow speed at which your character runs. I seriously thought my character was just waking at first. Then I saw that I could actually make him go slower……wow. Not only does your character move slow, but he controls rather clunky as well. I found myself getting stuck on all sorts of objects throughout the game.

Not only do you get stuck on trees and foliage in the island levels, but you can't even see through them, yet enemies will be firing at you like crazy from far away, where you can barely hit them. This is when you send your squad in to do your work for you. They usually do a good job, so it's not too bad of an option. I actually found myself sitting in wait while my team did the dirty work, and then I would move forward with them.

Once I became a little more comfortable with the game, I decided to try to get into the fire fights more. However, once I got to a village, all of my guys were positioned in the prime spots for moving forward. So I was forced to stand out in the middle of the village and start taking shots at the enemy from the open. Bad idea.

It's like there is a game in here somewhere, but I was just not able to find it, or tolerate it, or both.

Longevity and Re-playability 4/10

There appears to be a pretty long single player campaign in Pacific Assault, but I was not able to sit through it all. There were just too many frustrating moments in the game that made me not want to finish it.

With the much superior Call of Duty series available, I really don't see why anyone would waste their time with this game, and if you are looking for a tactical shooter, go play Rainbow Six Vegas, it's much better.

My Review score 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 05/12/08

Game Release: Medal of Honor Pacific Assault Director's Ed. (US, 11/04/04)