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Previously known as Medal of Honor: Dogs of War until translation issues reared their ugly heads, Medal of Honor: European Assault isn't just the latest game in the long line of EA's World War II-themed shooters. The Medal of Honor franchise will celebrate its sixth birthday this year, and with that maturity the developers at EA feel that it's long since due that the series' gameplay grows as well. So while the console-only European Assault will look to keep the authentic and intense World War II action that Medal of Honor is known for, it will also ditch some of the heavily scripted linearity that's been a part of every game in the series to date. The result promises to be a Medal of Honor where you have more freedom on a chaotic battlefield that is more dangerous than ever.
European Assault will take you to the lesser-known battles of World War II.
European Assault will explore some of the more shadowy events of World War II, covering some battles that you may not have heard of while also portraying more well-known battles from a different perspective. As is usual with Medal of Honor, all the battles in the game will be based on actual historical events, covering the wide range of the war with battles in France, North Africa, and Belgium. You'll play as William Holt, an American officer and a member of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to today's Central Intelligence Agency. As a soldier spy, your job is to accompany Allied troops in battle and search for valuable intelligence that could be used to shorten the war. This will lead to the game's multitiered objective system. In each mission, you and your men have a primary military objective to accomplish, such as blow up a fuel depot, as well as secondary objectives that may come up during the course of battle. On top of those objectives, there are also hidden, tertiary objectives, which will allow you to indulge the OSS side of your character. This will involve locating valuable pieces of intelligence that will help piece together the game's overarching story, which revolves around German attempts to turn the tide of the war.
As a member of the OSS, you'll get to go along on some of the more obscure battles of the war, such as the British commando raid on St. Nazaire in 1942. The purpose of the raid was to destroy the only drydock in the region large enough to service the Tirpitz, Germany's feared battleship. The audacious plan involved packing hundreds of pounds of explosives as well as a couple of hundred commandos aboard a disguised freighter. The ship rammed into the drydock at night, the commandos battled their way onto shore to destroy valuable equipment, and then, after withdrawing to the safety of other British vessels, blew up the freighter. In European Assault's version of the battle, you'll lead a party of commandos ashore and onto the naval facility, which is part of the drydock. And it's at this point that we should probably note how European Assault will differ from earlier Medal of Honor games.
EA likes to compare the earlier Medal of Honor games to roller coasters. In other words, they are thrilling, highly scripted affairs that manipulate your emotions and take you for a wild ride. However, like roller coasters, those games play out exactly the same way every time. In comparison, EA says that European Assault is a theme park, and that's because EA is embracing the idea of open battlefields. Instead of taking part in a very linear experience that propels you forward in only one direction, you'll have more control over where you go on the battlefield. EA's idea is to create missions that take place on large levels that offer multiple objectives and places to go while leaving the decision making to you.
The open battlefield will let you choose where to go next, but rest assured, there will be something to do.
In the St. Nazaire mission, for example, you'll fight your way off the boat and then decide whether you wish to advance along the left side of the base, charge through the middle, or skirt along the seaward side. Depending on which route you choose, you'll have different obstacles, choices, and challenges to overcome. For instance, go up the middle and you may be ordered to take out antiaircraft guns on the roof of a building, whereas if you head right you'll have to take out shore batteries firing on British destroyers. Once you accomplish those tasks, you'll again get to choose where to go next. As you can probably tell, this branching structure will give you a lot more sense of being in control of your destiny rather than following a straight line, not to mention that it will give the game a whole lot more replayability.
In the Combat Zone
You will have a squad of soldiers at your command, but EA is keeping the squad controls very, very simple. The context-sensitive squad controls will simply let you deploy your squad in combat so that they spread out, engage the enemy, and then rally back to you afterward. There will be plenty to shoot at, too, because the game will be able to support up to 50 soldiers on the screen at once. In comparison, the original Medal of Honor for the PlayStation could only display two soldiers on the screen at a time, which necessitated a lot of camera tricks to fool you into thinking you were battling armies of Germans. EA won't require such camera tricks with European Assault, as battles feel very immense. The game will also try to capture the realistic ebb and flow of battle, and group behavior will ensure that troops behave in a lifelike manner. If a German soldier sees his buddies falling back, he'll want to fall back with them, while the American soldiers will see the enemy on the run and press forward with the attack, and vice versa.
If you ever wanted to carry a bazooka into church, then this is your game.
The next major new feature is being called rally mode. Over the course of talking with surviving Medal of Honor recipients as well as longtime military consultant Dale Dye (who also serves as consultant to Steven Spielberg on many of his military projects), one constant theme stood out. During the moments of gallantry that won them the Medal of Honor, many survivors said that they experienced a sense of tunnel vision. Everything around them seemed to disappear and all they could focus on was the goal, whether it was to take out an enemy bunker or run out under heavy fire and rescue a wounded comrade. It's akin to what great athletes call being in a "zone" at times. To simulate this in the game, you'll be rewarded for feats of skill, such as headshots and multiple kills, which will slowly build up your rally meter. When the meter fills up, you can go into rally mode, which is sort of a heroic superman situation. You'll get tunnel vision, be temporarily invincible, have unlimited ammunition, and kill enemies with one shot. Essentially, rally mode will let you turn the tide of battle single-handedly as you become an unstoppable one-man killing machine.
While the single-player portion of the game looks good, the news on the multiplayer front will undoubtedly disappoint those who like to play their first-person shooters online. Basically, European Assault will only feature split-screen multiplayer support for up to four players; there will be no online component to the game. This will probably upset some Medal of Honor fans, as the last console game in the series, Rising Sun, only supported four-player online support for the PlayStation 2 and it did not support Xbox Live. The reason for the online omission in European Assault is because EA wants to focus on the single-player aspect of the game, especially considering the wealth of new features. Still, European Assault won't skip on multiplayer content, as there will be 16 maps, nine of which will be unique to the multiplayer campaign. Game types will include deathmatch, team deathmatch, tug of war, capture the flag, and more. We had the chance to play around briefly with a four-player game and it certainly plays well for a splitscreen game.
With up to 50 guys on the screen at once, the action promises to be epic in scope.
At this point, with the Medal of Honor franchise entering middle age (in computing terms), European Assault looks like it will rejuvenate the series. The open battlefield and the scale of the battles should bring a breath of fresh air to the franchise's formulaic gameplay. Meanwhile, the game looks pretty sharp on both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, even at this early stage. Going through the raid at St. Nazaire is a pretty impressive experience, as you can see dozens of soldiers battling it out while artillery and antiaircraft fire go off overhead. European Assault is being developed at EA's Los Angeles studio, and the game is on track for release on all three major consoles this summer.
Her finner dere bilder...
Kilde: GameSpot
Previously known as Medal of Honor: Dogs of War until translation issues reared their ugly heads, Medal of Honor: European Assault isn't just the latest game in the long line of EA's World War II-themed shooters. The Medal of Honor franchise will celebrate its sixth birthday this year, and with that maturity the developers at EA feel that it's long since due that the series' gameplay grows as well. So while the console-only European Assault will look to keep the authentic and intense World War II action that Medal of Honor is known for, it will also ditch some of the heavily scripted linearity that's been a part of every game in the series to date. The result promises to be a Medal of Honor where you have more freedom on a chaotic battlefield that is more dangerous than ever.
European Assault will take you to the lesser-known battles of World War II.
European Assault will explore some of the more shadowy events of World War II, covering some battles that you may not have heard of while also portraying more well-known battles from a different perspective. As is usual with Medal of Honor, all the battles in the game will be based on actual historical events, covering the wide range of the war with battles in France, North Africa, and Belgium. You'll play as William Holt, an American officer and a member of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to today's Central Intelligence Agency. As a soldier spy, your job is to accompany Allied troops in battle and search for valuable intelligence that could be used to shorten the war. This will lead to the game's multitiered objective system. In each mission, you and your men have a primary military objective to accomplish, such as blow up a fuel depot, as well as secondary objectives that may come up during the course of battle. On top of those objectives, there are also hidden, tertiary objectives, which will allow you to indulge the OSS side of your character. This will involve locating valuable pieces of intelligence that will help piece together the game's overarching story, which revolves around German attempts to turn the tide of the war.
As a member of the OSS, you'll get to go along on some of the more obscure battles of the war, such as the British commando raid on St. Nazaire in 1942. The purpose of the raid was to destroy the only drydock in the region large enough to service the Tirpitz, Germany's feared battleship. The audacious plan involved packing hundreds of pounds of explosives as well as a couple of hundred commandos aboard a disguised freighter. The ship rammed into the drydock at night, the commandos battled their way onto shore to destroy valuable equipment, and then, after withdrawing to the safety of other British vessels, blew up the freighter. In European Assault's version of the battle, you'll lead a party of commandos ashore and onto the naval facility, which is part of the drydock. And it's at this point that we should probably note how European Assault will differ from earlier Medal of Honor games.
EA likes to compare the earlier Medal of Honor games to roller coasters. In other words, they are thrilling, highly scripted affairs that manipulate your emotions and take you for a wild ride. However, like roller coasters, those games play out exactly the same way every time. In comparison, EA says that European Assault is a theme park, and that's because EA is embracing the idea of open battlefields. Instead of taking part in a very linear experience that propels you forward in only one direction, you'll have more control over where you go on the battlefield. EA's idea is to create missions that take place on large levels that offer multiple objectives and places to go while leaving the decision making to you.
The open battlefield will let you choose where to go next, but rest assured, there will be something to do.
In the St. Nazaire mission, for example, you'll fight your way off the boat and then decide whether you wish to advance along the left side of the base, charge through the middle, or skirt along the seaward side. Depending on which route you choose, you'll have different obstacles, choices, and challenges to overcome. For instance, go up the middle and you may be ordered to take out antiaircraft guns on the roof of a building, whereas if you head right you'll have to take out shore batteries firing on British destroyers. Once you accomplish those tasks, you'll again get to choose where to go next. As you can probably tell, this branching structure will give you a lot more sense of being in control of your destiny rather than following a straight line, not to mention that it will give the game a whole lot more replayability.
In the Combat Zone
You will have a squad of soldiers at your command, but EA is keeping the squad controls very, very simple. The context-sensitive squad controls will simply let you deploy your squad in combat so that they spread out, engage the enemy, and then rally back to you afterward. There will be plenty to shoot at, too, because the game will be able to support up to 50 soldiers on the screen at once. In comparison, the original Medal of Honor for the PlayStation could only display two soldiers on the screen at a time, which necessitated a lot of camera tricks to fool you into thinking you were battling armies of Germans. EA won't require such camera tricks with European Assault, as battles feel very immense. The game will also try to capture the realistic ebb and flow of battle, and group behavior will ensure that troops behave in a lifelike manner. If a German soldier sees his buddies falling back, he'll want to fall back with them, while the American soldiers will see the enemy on the run and press forward with the attack, and vice versa.
If you ever wanted to carry a bazooka into church, then this is your game.
The next major new feature is being called rally mode. Over the course of talking with surviving Medal of Honor recipients as well as longtime military consultant Dale Dye (who also serves as consultant to Steven Spielberg on many of his military projects), one constant theme stood out. During the moments of gallantry that won them the Medal of Honor, many survivors said that they experienced a sense of tunnel vision. Everything around them seemed to disappear and all they could focus on was the goal, whether it was to take out an enemy bunker or run out under heavy fire and rescue a wounded comrade. It's akin to what great athletes call being in a "zone" at times. To simulate this in the game, you'll be rewarded for feats of skill, such as headshots and multiple kills, which will slowly build up your rally meter. When the meter fills up, you can go into rally mode, which is sort of a heroic superman situation. You'll get tunnel vision, be temporarily invincible, have unlimited ammunition, and kill enemies with one shot. Essentially, rally mode will let you turn the tide of battle single-handedly as you become an unstoppable one-man killing machine.
While the single-player portion of the game looks good, the news on the multiplayer front will undoubtedly disappoint those who like to play their first-person shooters online. Basically, European Assault will only feature split-screen multiplayer support for up to four players; there will be no online component to the game. This will probably upset some Medal of Honor fans, as the last console game in the series, Rising Sun, only supported four-player online support for the PlayStation 2 and it did not support Xbox Live. The reason for the online omission in European Assault is because EA wants to focus on the single-player aspect of the game, especially considering the wealth of new features. Still, European Assault won't skip on multiplayer content, as there will be 16 maps, nine of which will be unique to the multiplayer campaign. Game types will include deathmatch, team deathmatch, tug of war, capture the flag, and more. We had the chance to play around briefly with a four-player game and it certainly plays well for a splitscreen game.
With up to 50 guys on the screen at once, the action promises to be epic in scope.
At this point, with the Medal of Honor franchise entering middle age (in computing terms), European Assault looks like it will rejuvenate the series. The open battlefield and the scale of the battles should bring a breath of fresh air to the franchise's formulaic gameplay. Meanwhile, the game looks pretty sharp on both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, even at this early stage. Going through the raid at St. Nazaire is a pretty impressive experience, as you can see dozens of soldiers battling it out while artillery and antiaircraft fire go off overhead. European Assault is being developed at EA's Los Angeles studio, and the game is on track for release on all three major consoles this summer.
Her finner dere bilder...
Kilde: GameSpot
