Once More into the Arcade Breach: Medal of Honor European Assault

By Jonathan Berohn

Call me finicky, but when I fire up a WWII first person shooter, I expect a bit more realism that I get from, say, Halo 2. Unfortunately for me, the folks over at Electronic Arts don't have the same thing in mind. Medal of Honor European Assault is certainly fast-paced, and it can be fun, but its no more faithful to WWII than Hogan's Heroes was (Ok-I'm showing my age here, but that really is a good comparison).

The Premise

You know you're in for more arcade than history when the game story plays out over commando raids France, North Africa, Stalingrad, and the Battle of the Bulge. Yes, your one American special operative somehow makes it to all 4 of these campaigns. To be fair, this provides the usual interesting variety of campaign action that Medal of Honor is know for, but it makes for very disjointed game play.

Game Play

Here's where Medal of Honor European Assault started to lose me. First of all, you can't save anywhere in the middle of a mission. You have to play it to the end without dying in order to save and advance. This is OK in something like Brothers in Arms authentic mode, but there is nothing authentic at all going on in Medal of Honor European Assault. Game saves would certainly be a nice touch.

The, half- shall we say hearted?-attempt to add something like the squad system from Brothers in Arms also falls flat. You can basically tell the three guys who follow you around to run over somewhere else or come back. That's it. I quickly ended up essentially playing solo, just healing my squad members when their health dropped.

The Arcade Factor

The healing business brings to my major complaint. If you like arcade style games this won't really bother you as much, but picking up healing packs on a WWII battlefield just doesn't sit well with me. Neither does the appearance of super human bosses at the end of each mission nor the fact that weapons and ammunition disappear from the battlefield if you don't pick them up right away. For the young teen crowd this might work, for the rest of you-be forewarned.