Medal of Honor Pacific Assault

"Underrated games can be great"

Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault(PA)is the latest in EA's first person shooter. The second that takes place on the Pacific. It takes the series in a new direction by getting rid of the one-man wrecking crew, and instead giving you a squad to command. Even with little to no hype, this game proves games with no hype can be great. This game is very underrated.

GAMEPLAY
Previous Medal of Honor(MoH) games were simply one man wrecking crews, where you are one guy and kill maybe 30 people in a level. You had allies with you sometimes, but they never really shot accurately, and were useless. PA takes this in a new direction. You play as Tom Conlin in PA, and as him you will fight through Boot Camp, shoot planes at Pearl Harbor, raid Makin Atoll, defend an airfield at Guadalcanal, and storm the beachs of Tarawa Atoll. Also, you are given some guys to help you throughout the game(with the exception of Pearl Harbor).

You can order your team to assemble, move forward, fall back, or provide cover fire. You can literally sit back and watch as your allies shoot the enemy to death, and this brings out the game's main flaw: your allies can never die. If shot enough, they will be immobilized, then you have to pick them up and carry them to the medic in your team. This also is useless, because the medic automatically runs to him anyway(unless he can't reach him). The medic can heal himself, don't worry. You can have him heal you up to 5 times a level. If you are very badly injured, the medic sometimes throws up. Because of this new system, EA has taken out health packs, for the most part. They are very rarely found in the game. Also, guns can no longer use a different gun's bullets. If you killed a German in Allied Assault with an M1 Garand, you could pick up his ammo(if he had a Mauser). You can no longer do this in PA. Every time you kill an enemy, you can pick up his weapon, so you will probably change weapons a lot.

I also found grenades to be useless in PA, because they always take too long to explode and they explode quickly if you cook them. You can carry two weapons(preferably a rifle for long range, and a sub-machine gun for close combat), grenades, and...SATCHEL CHARGES! You can set the charges, which are much bigger versions of grenades for as long as you want, from 5 seconds to a couple minutes. This timer setting also applies to explosives.

EA put two different versions of the Thompson in the game, one with the cylinder shaped magazine that can hold 50 rounds, and the stick magazine Thompson, returning from Allied Assault. Also, you can now aim through the iron sights on your gun, and makes the shot much more accurate. One thing I noticed is a snail can reload a gun faster then Conlin, he reloads very slow. Even with the new team system, Pacific Assault brings back the same gameplay as the older MoH games. Get from point A to Point B, killing any Axis force along the way, blow up something, redezvous with allied forces at point B.

8/10

GRAPHICS
Wow. Holy crap wow. With a Radeon 9200 SE in my computer, this game looks absolutely fantastic. Character models look INCREDIBLY realistic, and the jungles that are present in PA look fantastic. Guns look better then they did in Allied Assault.Water looks great, but it looks strange when it meets the shore. When you are at Pearl Harbor, you will be amazed. It is utter chaos there, people constantly firing at planes firing by, things catching fire around you, and people yelling, it will all make you feel like you are there.

10/10

SOUND

As I said before, the visuals in Pearl Harbor will make you feel like you are there. The sound only helps. There will be bullets whizzing by, explosions, people yelling, and the like. The Thompson sounds better then it did in Allied Assault, which is a plus. The voice acting in this game sounded very good.One thing Pacific Assault brings back from previous games is the war music. In the main menu, your squad is listening to a news radio, which sounds real.

10/10

REPLAYABILITY

MoHPA has more replayability then earlier MoH games. There are 4(Easy, Medium, Hard, and Realistic) difficulties to complete the game on. Like previous MoH games, you can earn medals for completing certain objectives. Also, for doing brave things(ex. saving a officer on a sinking ship) you will get a hero moment, a item from the moment, and whenever you access the item from the main menu, you will hear a audio flashback of the moment. PA also has multiplayer, like previous MoH games.

9/10

MULTIPLAYER

I have never been put through so much torture. Multiplayer is by FAR the worst part of Pacific Assault. First, you have to get a EA name to play online. There are only 3 modes. Team Deathmatch(Team Match from Allied Assault), Free for All(same thing), and Invader(a cross of Tug-of-War and Objective match). The areas are poorly mapped out, and they are easy to get lost in. A plus to multiplayer is that you can be an infintrymen, who has extra health and can carry any weapon, a medic, who can heal immobilized teammates and can carry a rifle, a ammo tech who drops ammo and can carry two guns, and a engineer that can lay mines.As I just said, when you shoot a guy he only becomes immobilized, not killed. To KILL them, you have to either melee them, stab them with a bayonet, or they can be killed if you throw a grenade and hit them. Load times for a map are long with a 2.4 Ghz processor and 512 RAM. Lag is also very bad. Also, Japaneese only have 5 weapons, the M44 Carbine, M38
Arisaka, M96 LMG, Type 100 SMG, and the M97 sniper. The US however, has the M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, Thompson, BAR, Reising SMG, Springfield 03 sniper, and Springfield 03 rifle. A little unbalanced, I think.

4/10

AMOUNT OF VIOLENCE

Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault is rated "T" for Blood, Language, and Violence. It also has a "Game experience may change during online play" warning. When you shoot, your enemies can have a small cloud of blood around them. In Tarawa, passing by dead bodies reveal some blood on them. The drill instructor often curses at you in the bootcamp level. WWII shooting games may not be something for your little kid to play, wait until they are around 9 or so. As I said before, the medic can throw up if you are badly injured, and it IS shown on screen. Also, some scenes at Pearl Harbor look sad, for one, inside the ship, a guy drowns being trapped behind a door. This game has no gory chopping heads off, sex, or anything like that.

8/10

RENT OR BUY? Buy for sure.

Medal of Honor Pacific Assault is one of the most underrated games I have ever played. Even though your teammates never die, the game is still very realistic. I am very excited for MOHEA(European Assault) to come out. Thank you EA for a great game.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/28/05