Medal of Honor 2: Heroes First Impressions

Some of you may have been aware that I got Medal of Honor for the Wii today. Yes. Medal of Honor. As in that clichéd WWII that's been around for too long.And no, I haven't taken leave of my senses. The reason I got Hereos is two fold. Firstly, it is meant to have a sweet control scheme - arguably the future of FPSs. But, more importantly, it has 32 player online. So, is the game any good. Well, as it turns out, I could have told you that before I got it.

Good parts:

• Sweet controls
• Neat, lagless online
• Some funky gimicks
• The arcade mode is fun

Bad parts:

• It is so MoH, it feels like it is taking the mic out of itself
• A couple of the gestures are fidly and annoying
• The single player is Medal of Honour

I will use the remainder of this post moaning about the fiddly gestures. After briefly stating: no matter what impression you get from this, my initial impressions are good, the online is worth the wait.

The first point of frustration is the melee, executed by chucking the Wiiremote an N/Chuck forwards. This is very difficult to do and will usually end up with you reloading, loosing your aim, loosing your sense of direction and completely missing the enemy. I imagine, however, it is quite realistic, because you do not see the British army melee-ing people left right and centre, however, coming from Halo, it feels an intrinsic part of killing someone! Fortunately, online you do not have to bother with this, as you can just press Z.

The next example, is the sniper rifle. To alter the zoom, you rotate the Wiiremote. Apart from the fact this is very fiddly when you are being shot and you are also trying to line up a head shot, it adds nothing to the game as to zoom in in real life does not involve putting the gun upside down. It is good to see EA using the Wiiremote, but like Super Monkey Ball, some of it feels hit a miss.

Finally, the shotgun requires you to "pump" the N/Chuck. For the first two shots you will forget completely and wonder why you aren't shooting. Then, there are, perhaps, four shots after you have worked it out where it is quite cool and is a really nice finishing touch when you kill someone. The problem is, the shotgun isn't very good, and having to pump after every shot, like the melee, just messes up your aim.

There are some good ones, like the grenade throw, where how you throw actually effects the course of the grenade and of course aiming with the pointer is great! Please buy this game, as it may encourage a real shooter and the multiplayer is genuine fun. Full review coming out in March hopefully.