37 out of 37 people found this review helpful.
Hold off on buying Medal of Honor: Airborne for your PC
Date of Review: Sep 20, 2007
The Bottom Line: You better have a suped up PC to run this, and even then it still might not work that well.
Medal of Honor: Airborne is a good game that could have been great had it not suffered from so many serious performance issues. I've got a pretty respectable computer system and the game still looks choppy with all the detail settings turned down. You'd best wait a little while for EA Games to put out some updates before you invest in this game.
There have been quite a few games in the Medal of Honor game series, and they have all been quite popular. I played a couple of them on the original Sony PlayStation, plus one more on the PC, but it has been a while since I played. One thing that always put me off about them was how linear the maps were laid out. I've always preferred the option to freely roam around like you can in the Battlefield series. With this latest title, you can actually roam around quite a bit more than in previous titles, but you still have limitations.
There are only six levels in this game, and they only take about 45 minutes each to complete. Given the number of times you will surely get killed, even a casual player could burn through this game in less than a week. After that, the only reason to keep playing is for the online multiplayer action, which is really the main reason to play it. I still don't think companies should expect people to drop 50 bucks on a game they can finish in less time than a standard 8-hour work day. It's just not fair. I've found more and more that these type games were made mainly for play online.
Enemy AI is pretty tough, though they tend to be rather fearless when faced with enemies. I found many times where they'd kill each other with hand grenades. The AI is good about finding cover for soldiers when fighting at a distance, but in close quarters they tend to be too bold. One funny thing I saw was how a soldier will duck behind a crate, then lift the gun over their head and shoot blindly behind them. You see that sort of thing in movies sometimes, and I thought it was a neat touch. While you are in combat, you have to make extensive use of the opportunities provided for cover, because you won't last long if you charge right into the middle of an enemy encampment.
The graphics in this game look great when you are standing still. Otherwise, it is choppy as hell whenever you try to move around. The game is still quite playable like this, but it is annoying. Have you ever had a dream where you tried to run, but couldn't? That's how walking/running looks in this game. I've looked over the EA Games Forums and lots of people are complaining about having graphics issues despite having decked out computer. The game requires Pixel Shader 3.0 on the video card, meaning you need a pretty high-end card just to make it run. I've got an Nvidia 8400GS in mine, coupled with an AMD Athlon x2 5000+ processor and 3 gigs of RAM. With those specs, this game ought to be nice and smooth, especially with all the detail settings turned to Low, but it still looks choppy when moving.
When you fire your weapon, you are treated to a bright muzzle flash that makes it hard to see if you even hit your target. On top of that, the gun recoils all over the place. As you progress in the game, the recoil will lessen, but the muzzle flashes never let up. I found it overly difficult to hit anything in the game, and I was wasting a lot of ammo. I don't know if it is a programming problem or maybe just something to make the game more difficult, but it is frustrating when I need to get right up in a Nazi's face just to guarantee the kill shot.
The sound quality is excellent in this game, and it makes me wish I had my old 5.1 channel speaker system back. I know it supports digital surround, but I have no way of testing it at the moment. It still sounds great in stereo, but in a 3D type game like this, the surround sound would come in handy. You really need to listen to the sound while playing because it is an important aspect of the gameplay. Although you will get visual clues when under attack, you still need the sound to help alert you to when enemies are nearby (they like to taunt) as well as to hear orders from your commander. Even though you are under a constant barrage of gunfire, the sound effects are excellent as you hear bullets land all around. The voice acting is also convincing, but there aren't any big name stars.
Despite the many flaws, I still enjoyed playing Medal of Honor: Airborne, but I don't think it is worth paying $50 for until EA patches the bugs in it. The graphics performance really needs to be addressed above all else, and it doesn't help that the single player portion can be finished so quickly. As of this writing (9/20), there are no patches or updates yet available.
Just so you know, I got this game and Battlefield 2 at the same time. I had BF2 prior to Katrina destroying my home, and it wasn't until recently that I had a powerful enough PC to run it. Now that I have both these games, I wound up playing BF2 more, despite it being two years older. It's just more fun.
Update: October 5, 2007:
EA just released a version 1.1 patch for this game, which should fix a few bugs. You can find out more, as well as download it, from www.ea.com.
