Title Medal of Honor Heroes 2 Date 11.23.2007 Genre Action Platform Wii Developer EA Games Publisher EA Games

The Medal of Honor series goes back to its roots with Heroes 2. You're a solider ready to take on the Axis Army single handedly. The game doesn't break new ground outside of Wii-specific controls for the series-- or WW2 shooters at that-- but still manages to provide a great gaming experience.

The campaign and arcade modes have you battling your way through the German army and destroying weapons for eight levels. Each level starts you off with a handful of objectives that usually involve getting to the end of the level and destroying enemy AA guns or supplies along the way. Once in the level you can discover more objectives that aren't necessary to completing the level but will help your score once the level is complete. Secondary objectives usually involve grabbing a specific weapon to defeat a few waves of soldiers, destroying a safe and taking its contents, or killing a specific, but visually indistinguishable, German officer.

The controls work perfectly most of the time. The main mechanics and Wii-specific controls work very well in Campaign, Arcade, and Multi-player modes. However, in the single player experience, you will often come across situations that require you to use a different or altered set of controls to complete an objective. Sometimes you will need to tilt the remote to find a specific radio frequency to update your objectives. This experience is pretty good and one of the cooler aspects of the game because it works well. The dial is responsive to the tilting of the remote and you are able to scan the frequencies with little trouble. MG42's scattered about the level prove a little more challenging. They are not aimed by pointing the remote where you want to shoot. To aim them, you must move both the nunchuck and remote together. I wouldn't say it the actions feel broken, just not intuitive or easily learned. The sniper rifle is awkward to use as well. Holding down A to bring up the scope doesn't feel nearly as good as aiming down the sight of any other gun in the game. Trying to aim these two types of weapons just doesn't feel as good as I would like. On the easiest difficulty, using these guns is manageable. On the other two difficulty settings, using these weapons can get frustrating, especially since there are objectives in the game relying on your use of them.

There are some game-play issues that do get annoying on the harder difficulty levels. On the easiest difficulty setting, your soldier can take a lot of punishment. This ability to withstand a beating makes the "you just planted a bomb and have to get away but a dozen Germans just spawned behind you and are already shooting you" moments survivable. It really feels like surviving these moments are more about luck than skill on the medium and hard difficulties. These little "monster closet" moments weren't fun a decade ago and they still aren't, I really wish that developers would put this technique to sleep. Other times, a soldier will appear right before your eyes, guns already firing on you. I don't know what to say other than that this really shouldn't be happening. Again, being able to take the initial shots that you are afforded on the "Green" setting makes these annoying moments tolerable because you don't die but they do break up the fun of the game. Where the game really annoyed me were on the segments where you had to man a sniper rifle or an MG42 or another location specific weapon and take out wave after wave of enemies. They last far longer than they are fun for. Using the sniper rifle isn't fun. It'd be okay if I only had to take out say, 3-8 enemies with it to advance the objective; it's not okay when I have to take out 30. Same goes for the MG42 because of control issues. Same goes for every other instance when you have to fight wave after wave on one of the other weapons. I'd feel like they added to the game if they were shorter, even with the control issues. Instead they last too long and end up hurting the game overall.

When not being cheaply ambushed or forced to take out far to many enemies in one sitting, the game is fun. The core game-play mechanics, the running from cover to cover killing Nazis, are great. The AI does an mediocre job of getting behind cover and trying to shoot you for the most part with occasional lapses in ability. A table turned sideways makes for good cover; an upright one does not. What the AI lacks in overall strategy it makes up for with unfair aiming and accuracy. The AI is quick to get you in their sights and start filling you with bullets. This makes getting behind cover and being a good shot a necessity to survival. This isn't too much of a problem until you get out of your weapons effective range. Enemies’ accuracy doesn't change over distances, yours' does. Your weapons are accurate to a point, but like real guns, they aren't effective over long distances. The enemies don't have this problem to deal with and you will regularly be shot by enemies that you can only kill by firing enough lucky shots at or by, hopefully, getting closer to. In spite of the enemies being expert marksman, itchy trigger-fingered idiots, they are still fun to take down and this experience is what makes up %90 of the campaign. I'd suggest playing through the campaign on Green difficulty setting your first time through. If you don't feel like you were annoyed enough, you can always raise the difficulty level.

The game sounds very good. An appropriate if not memorable score plays after an objective is completed. Guns and explosions sound good. The mission briefing voice work is a bit campy but fits the game well. Your (useless) allies sound convincing enough in combat as do the Germans even if you here the same phrases yelled too often. Where the sound really shines is in the Remote. You hear the clip sliding into the gun through the remote speaker. You hear the bazooka being fired through the speaker. My personal favorite though is the radio tuning segments. Until you lock on to the correct frequency, all static and other broadcast sounds come through the remote. The remote speaker isn't very good at replicating the hi-fi sounds of today but it perfectly captures the sound of glorious lo-fi from the 1940's.

The game looks good at a glance. Animations are a bit too stiff but there are some nice lighting effects. The colors tend to be drab (as they tend to be in war games) but are fitting. Enemies occasionally blend into the gray and brown. Muzzle flashes look nice and explosions are pretty fitting. The graphics take a bit of a hit in multi-player to keep things running smoothly (I suppose). If I had one real complaint it is that bullets don't seem to do that much visible damage. They leave a little decal if they hit the background. No puff of smoke or spray of blood to know if you're actually hitting your mark. This makes kills somewhat less satisfying than in other games. Bodies disappear quickly after death and there isn't a good indicator if you've actually gotten your kill in single player. Sometimes, the muzzle flash will obscure the death animation and I will be unaware that I've actually gotten my kill. I think that kills could have been made to be a little more viscerally satisfying or apparent and still have the game retain a "Teen" rating.

Arcade mode and Multi-player extend the life of this game considerably. The arcade mode is a different way to play the campaign without the ability to control your own movement. It's pretty simple aim and fire with the ability to crouch or stand. It's not as intense as the campaign mode but still fun. Multi-player supports up to 32 players in a match with variable settings. Games come in Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag with both Ranked and Unranked flavors. While this is pretty shallow compared to other games on PC or Xbox Live, it's a good first step for Nintendo. Voice-chat or keyboard support would have helped. Pre-written responses don't add too much to the online experience.

Medal of Honors is a good buy for someone who's looking for a real FPS experience on Wii. Arcade and Multi-player extend the life of a solid campaign mode. The game does have some graphical short comings and a handful of game-play issues that keep this game from really shining. Playing the game on its easiest settings eliminates most of the annoying issues in the single player mode but do take some of the accomplishment out of the game. Overall, this game delivers a good campaign, a great arcade mode, and the best online experience on the Wii.

Game Score

B+

Reviewed By: Contributed