I was hoping moving to the Pacific Theatre would reenergize World War 2 games, EA failed to do that and fires a blank.

User Rating: 7 | Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault PC
By vermouth | Review Date:
I'm a huge fan of the Second World War in video games, from tactical stuff like Silent Storm, shooters, to flight sims I'm a big fan of the largest war ever in digital form. So I was very excited to dive into the Pacific Theater for the first time on the ground as a USMC Marine, in Medal of Honor Pacific Assault. The Pacific theater is so underrepresented, that I was hoping high for this one; however the game fails to live up to it's illustrious predecessor and just isn't a very good example of World War 2 in video games. Probably the best thing about Medal of Honor is that the graphics are pretty good. They did a great job making their engine create vegetation, and soldiers the whole nine-yards that come with a Pacific theater game. It's not nearly as beautiful as say Farcry which had a very similar aesthetic but was just a lot better looking. Furthermore while they did a pretty good job painting the isles of the Pacific they didn't do a very good job making it run smoothly. On a fairly powerful PC that's ran all sorts of very high end games well, it really required some tweaking of settings to get it to work right where better looking games like Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 required nothing more than me setting the resolution and going at it. The Audio in this game is possibly the one thing in the game that lives up to the Medal of Honor name. It's got the usual sweeping orchestral music that goes in the background as you play the game and it's very nicely edited. When you're in one of the game's few really nice moments you'll know it and the music will be very good. It's easily on par with or better than the same style music you'll find in the other major WW2 games. The Voice acting and sound effects are also up to the name and really sound terrific in my headphones. I was most impressed with the rifle sounds which were quite full and loud in my headphones to the point i had to take them off at times . The gameplay is the worst part of this one however. It has some pretty decent shooting action at times but for most of the game it's doing boring vanilla stuff in between the game's signature moments. They did however try to break out from the mold on this one but they really failed to top some of their competitors. For instance when you're wounded they tried something where you need to apply pressure to a wound to stop the bleeding. This mechanic while somewhat realistic is really just an annoying feature. Further they added a squad command feature. Trouble is these are damn near useless. If you've played Brothers in Arms, freedom Fighters, or Republic Commando, you know how satisfying using the squad to defeat an enemy can be but this game just pales in comparison. Your squad mates aren't too smart and they often require more babysitting than they're really worth. Like Most WW2 games the gameplay here consists of run and gun in between giant set piece battles. This formula wouldn't be such a bad one except there are some basic problems here too. For one thing, enemies being able to hide behind cover and use foliage against you sounds like a great idea. Well it would have been nice had you and your squad been afforded the same kind of protection. Half the time you're covered by some foliage but the Japanese just shoot right through it as if they know you're there. So it ends up so that you can't see them but they can see you clear as day a lot of time. Just a frustrating way to fight the run and gun battles. The team at EA should get credit for really working to capture the feel of fighting in the pacific. The AI doesn't feel at all the same as fighting Germans as well it shouldn't. There is a lot more close quarters combat here as the Japanese are inclined to fight hand to hand, and charge if they need to in MOH: Pacific Assault which is a nice realistic touch. The other really unforgivable problem in this game is that the set pieces aren't terribly impressive. Landing at Tarawa, defending Henderson field on Guadalcanal, and Pearl Harbor for instance were big set piece battles. For one thing If i never have to shoot at airplanes with a MG again it'll be too soon. This isn't a greatly satisfying mechanic; far closer to the truth is it's very frustrating as the MG's are very inaccurate. All in all just not a terribly fun game to play, lots and lots of reloading even as early as Pearl Harbor and it doesn't really get much better. If you've absolutely got to have another WW2 game then this one may merit some value, and it can be had for very cheap, I only paid 8 dollars for it. But this isn't as good as Allied Assault and it's clear that the real talent behind that classic game has moved on and is now with Call of Duty. While Technically proficient, this one is a mixture of deja vu and frustration that's not worth the few good parts.

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