Airborne!
Watch this new Medal of Honor game in action.
What could a World War II first-person shooter do that hasn't been done before? Well, if our time with Medal of Honor: Airborne is any indication, there's still plenty of room for the genre to grow. We played through the first dramatic level of the game this week, and we're impressed with just how visceral and exciting it was. So grab your grenades and ready your parachutes, because you won't have long to wait; Medal of Honor: Airborne ships in less than two weeks.
The game begins with a brief introduction to the mechanics of parachuting--and it's a good thing, because it's not as easy as it sounds. Steering to the proper destination takes a good deal of precision, and you need to be conscious of your speed and facing. You can flare your parachute to slow you down, but gravity is inevitable. Actually making the landing also seems tougher than you'd expect, but if you manage not to botch it in the Xbox 360 version, you'll have a shiny new achievement to show for it. When parachuting, you're looking for the green clouds of smoke, where you'll find relative safety and a number of friendly troops to provide covering fire.
The first level, Infinite Mischief, is the very definition of trial by fire. As 82nd Division paratrooper Boyd Travers, your task is to destroy four antiaircraft turrets in the Sicilian city of Adanti. You will choose your loadout before the mission even begins, though it's worth noting that you can exchange your current weapon with those you find on the battlefield later. Faced with a few options, we armed ourselves with an M1928 Thompson submachine gun, an M1 Garand rifle, and a trusty Colt .45 handgun. Once the mission loaded, we had little time to react, and after a brief cutscene, we descended nervously toward the looming city.
It didn't take long for us to notice that this isn't your typical linear shooter. We could land essentially anywhere we wanted to, and in our first attempt, it happened to be smack-dab in the middle of a throng of enemy soldiers who were quick to fill us with lead. It was immediately clear just how important our parachuting skills would become, because the better you steer, the better your chances are of staying alive for the mission. We improved in our second attempt, landing safely on a rooftop and surveying the situation below.
But things looked pretty bleak, considering the battlefield teeming with enemies. The recoil on our tommy gun made it tough to fire with accuracy, so we decided to play with the iron sights. When you switch to this view, you're no longer able to move, and the movement controls become leaning controls. This gave us a lot more freedom of movement than we were used to when leaning in other shooters, so we were able to pick off multiple targets without moving from our position.
