I am a big fan of the Medal Of Honor series and was looking forward to this game. At last, here was a break from the European conflict and a new setting to go shooting in!
You start the game as a soldier called Tommy and it is his experiences that you follow throughout the game. The introduction is a strange and it sets the scene for the game to be told in a series of flashbacks seen through the hero’s eyes. Some of the scenes are spectacular - the Pearl Harbour section being particularly memorable - a bit like the D-Day landing on Omaha Beach from the previous game, Allied Assault.
The guns all act and feel just like their real life counter parts, (I assume this as I have never shot a gun apart from a water gun in my life), and they don’t always hit just where you intend.
The graphics and animations are good, but sometimes there is the occasional graphical glitch and sometimes the lip-synching is a little out of synch. If, for example, you are watching someone talk then look away then back again you find the speech does not match the lip movements on the character model.
The game really gives you a decent feeling of what the Pacific conflict must have been like -- all jungles and sneaking around trying not to get shot. The enemies are hard to spot, as well, as they use the jungle to hide themselves in.
The game does have a few problems, however. The squad controls are a bit naff to be honest as the game basically tells you when you can use certain ones when it thinks you should. This takes away a lot of the feeling that you are actually controlling them at all. You are also stuck on a very linear, but well hidden path as I found out when I tried to outflank a group of bad guys and found myself trapped against a bush as they shot me to pieces. The biggest faults I found with the game were the incredibly long loading times between scenes and the fact it this lengthy load time occurred on all scenes. It was a bit like watching the trailer for an upcoming movie. You get all the best bits but the story didn’t seem to drag me along for the ride. This rather killed the experience for me, but then with the volume FPS titles out at the moment, I have may be biased.
It’s a very competent game with a good tutorial but I just felt that the full experience wasn’t there -- which is a shame. Though it is a good game that I’d recommend for lovers of the genre, it just left me a bit wanting for more.
