I’ve lost count of the number of World War Two FPS I’ve played, it all became a bit of a mish mash between Medal of Honor, Call of Duty and Brothers in Arms. There’s been a lot and they all offered similar game play. Sure they improved as they went on but really the concept was straight forward. Start here, move down a limited route and kill the Jerrys! Sure you got the odd new gun as you progressed but in essence that was it. So is MoH: Airborne any different?
Yes and no, your still killing Jerry and the odd Eye-Tie, you still have objectives and as you progress through the levels you’ll get new weapons. Sounds rather similar to the previous games except for one thing, freedom. Firstly you pick the weapons to take on each mission, your limited for the first few missions in choice but soon you'll have a number of options available, they even upgrade the more you use them. You also don't start at a single point, because you're a paratrooper each mission starts with you jumping out a plane over the mission area. Where you land is up to you and from that point on you can complete your objectives in which ever order you like. This means that most of the map is open right from the start and the maps are a decent size. There's been a lot of thought put into them as well; the number of options available to you are staggering when it comes to flanking, cover, sniping etc.
Do you land in the old bell tower and snipe for a bit or do you land right on the HQ and go in with your Thomson blazing? You can lean round, peak over cover, your grenades can can be ‘cooked’ before throwing so they air burst above the enemy or explode as soon as they land. You really do feel like your in control when playing, you don’t feel like your being herded towards things by impassible bushes, like in previous games.
Graphics are excellent with some nice lighting in parts but the main thing is they make you feel like your in WWII. The Italian village is suitably Italian, the bombed out ruins are suitable rubble strewn. The sound is atmospheric and I guess you can expect that considering they got the composer Michael Giacchino who worked on Lost to score the game.
I’ll be honest I’ve loved playing all 8 hours of it and there’s the biggest problem: it’s far far too short, it's only six levels - yes they are big levels but still only six of them and that really doesn't last that long. Sure I can replay them and do them a different way, sure I can try and hit all the skill landing perks and level up all the weapons and play on-line but I expect more unique single player play time for a game that setting me back £30.
So with that I'd recommend this game to everyone when it comes down in price or hits the bargain bucket and becomes value for money.
Medal of Honor: Airborne is out now for PC and Xbox 360, with a scheduled November release for Playstation 3. A demo is available for download from
EA Games or via Xbox Live.
Medal of Honor: Airborne (PC) 
