Review

EA’s Medal Of Honor series kick-started the whole gaming world’s obsession with WWII, but it has since become eclipsed by the competition. Both the Call Of Duty and Brothers In Arms series have proven to be more enjoyable and more tactical accordingly but EA is fighting back this year with two new titles. Medal Of Honor: Vanguard is already the second WWII title to be released for the Wii in its short life, but can it succeed where Call Of Duty 3 failed?

The jury is still out on whether the Wii’s controllers can successfully handle an F.P.S., but this does a much better job than the likes of Red Steel. You still use the analogue stick to move and remote to look and turn but because you’ll spend most of the time popping out from behind cover to pick off enemies it’s far more enjoyable to use. Looking down the sights of your rifle, especially, feels perfect.

Problems with the controls method once again appear whenever you are called upon to run and shoot at the same time. The sooner developers can come up with a way to turn right whilst shooting an assailant on the right (or vice versa) the better. Also, swinging the remote to throw a grenade doesn’t work quite as well as you’d expect, as it’s almost impossible to throw accurately. I lost count of the number of times I blew myself up with my own grenade!

Vanguard also introduces parachuting to the series. Both remote and nunchuk are used to control the angle and speed of your descent but drops generally don’t last much longer that about 5-10 seconds and act as an opening to each mission. Ultimately it feels a little tacked on, a none-too-subtle way of advertising the forthcoming Medal Of Honor: Airborne, which arrives in a few months time.

In general, combat takes place in the open. You compass will show where your mission objective lies and usually this will require crossing an open field or town square with multiple routes across it. You are gifted the freedom to choose whether an all-out assault or a measured, tactical approach utilising the available cover is the best road to victory. It doesn’t quite go to the extreme that European Assault did where it was possible to ignore certain objectives, but this freedom makes Vanguard all the more enjoyable as a result.

Entertaining as it may be, it can’t shake the feeling that I’ve played this game dozens of times before. The whole WWII F.P.S. sub-genre is starting to feel stagnant with very little to determine one game from another, it also doesn’t show any signs of letting up. Medal Of Honor: Vanguard is better than most, certainly not a Rising Sun style disaster, and, for me at least; it’s the best F.P.S. for the Wii so far.

About the Review

Platform

Nintendo Wii

Developer

Budcat Creations

Publisher

Electronic Arts

Released

30th March 2007