Medal of Honor: European Assault

"Not the greatest WWII FPS but still a good one!"

Medal of Honor. EA's signature game series (next to Battlefield, of course). This one has a different feel to the last couple games in the series. A change for the better in my opinion.

Gameplay

The Gameplay is a standard World War II shooter. You play through various European campaigns shooting at the enemies with authentic World War II weapons (Garand, Thompson, MP40 etc.) until they are downed and you advance. Simple, right?

Well this time, it's no longer a one man Rambo assault. Like Frontline, you are still going to do almost all the work, but this time you get Squadmates. You can order them to advance and retreat. They are fairly smart (about 75% of the time) and will take cover and shoot accurately at the enemies. You can send them into an occupied room and they will scout out any dangers. The only real use for them is to provide you some protection. They can die, but when their health is low you can give one of your medkits to heal them.

Cover is now stressed in this game. Charging enemies will result in almost always a death, there is an exception I will talk about later. You mainly have to grab some cover and lay down fire at the enemies. The guns I felt were over accurate. The Sights give almost little recoil and are too accurate. Without them, they are still very accurate because the crosshair locks on to nearby enemies.

The newest addition is the "adrenaline" mode. You get adrenaline from taking fire, being shellshocked and killing enemies. You get more from headshots. After the meter is full, you can release it, and get slow motion blurred vision (slightly) but you also are invincible and have infinite ammo, allowing for that old fashioned rambo rush of the enemy. This feature is most helpful when you are dieing, have a large group of enemies nearby, or a boss. Don't hold onto this for too long though, because it will go away if you die.

The missions have 4-8 objectives. Only one of them is required, but the rest will give you revives for that level if you complete. If you die, you lose a revive. The Optional ones are usually tasks like "destroy a tank", "kill the boss", "recover the plans (held by the boss usually)" or "find these men".

There are 4 locations with 2-4 levels in each one. I believe there were 14 missions in total, which is fairly short. For beating each one with every objective, you get a gold medal. After you get a gold medal in each level in each area, you get a badge for it. The Badges do absolutely nothing.

There is a multiplayer mode, with several mini modes to play. These will occupy you for a while, but will get boring eventually. You should definitely try and get the most out of this mode while you can..

The enemies are not stupid, but not geniuses. Throwing a grenade into one will have them run and pick it up, then throw it at the wall to blow themselves up. They aren't the brightest, but they do have cover and fire at you. The harder the mode, the better they get.

Graphics and Sound

The Graphics during the game are mediocre and not very powerful. They have some poor character models and the Enfield Scoped just looks like a blob. The Cutscenes are very good on the bright side. The guns look kind of cartoony at some points.

The Sound is great! The rifles have what I feel is missing in most games, the echo after the shots. Just like real life. Some of the Machine Gun noises are pretty weak, but they aren't the worst. The voices and explosions are decent enough. Much better than the graphics.

Replayability

After the multiplayer runs low, you are out of luck. The Single Player Campaign only takes you so far before it gets boring.

Buy or Rent?

I got my copy for 20 dollars at EB games in Canada. Anything higher isn't worth it, or I'd reccomend renting because it's a very short game that will take you a couple days to finish.

Overall Score: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/14/07