A Taste of Medal of Honor: Airborne for Xbox One

Medal of Honor used to be the benchmark that all other FPS games were measured by. After all, it introduced us to a cinematic and action-packed look at how horrible war could be, but after a while, other games came along that took some of the spotlight away. Call of Duty 2became the go-to World War 2 shooters, and it was time for some innovation to be injected into the Medal of Honor formula. Fortunately, what EA came up with worked extremely well, as the game I have today is one of the best World War 2 games in a long time.

This is Medal of Honor: Airborne for the Xbox 360.Medal of Honor: Airborne puts you in control of an airborne soldier in the US Army as you battle the Germans in various locations throughout World War 2. The levels start out with a mission briefing from your superior about what your objective will be, followed by a jump out of a plane, where you then look for green smoke, as this is a signal for a safe area to land. After touching down, you can complete objectives in whatever way makes sense to you. The presentation feels really unique compared to the standard “opening of the eyes” to see where you happen to be that most World War 2 shooters like to do.

As far as actual gameplay goes after landing, Medal of Honor: Airborne isn’t a huge departure from other games in the genre, but it’s refined to a level few can reach. The ability to go after any objective you want means the game’s AI has to keep up with you and react accordingly, and it does so very well. You might storm a building to complete an objective and then travel across the map to do something else, and your allies will keep pace. I was even pinned down on a roof at one point and I saw a few people land next to me and takeout the enemy. Its tremendous when dynamic stuff like this happens. If there’s one area that may take a little getting used to for people used to other shooters, it’s the control scheme. Medal of Honor: Airborne has an extremely weird default button mapping, and there are only a few options to change. The A button reloads, B changes weapons, X is crouch, and Y is jump.



For someone who’s used to all four of those buttons doing something else in most games, it was a little odd to adjust to, but I did adjust eventually. Guns also have quite a bit more recoil than other World War 2 games, probably to add realism, but this means that you’ll actually fire from the hip a lot more than you’d think. Something about it just works for closer range engagements. I was a tad disappointed with the graphics in Airborne. Although faces and levels look ok, effects like explosions or environmental damage in cut-scenes looked a little bit dated. Voice acting was excellent, though, and the game also has the usual great music that the series is known for. The songs are almost as well known as the Band of Brothers music, and that’s probably one reason why the composer is now doing being budget Hollywood movies.

Medal of Honor: Airborne offers something different from the traditional World War 2shooter, and although the game has a few little technical flaws, it is a TON of fun. I kind of wish the series would’ve kept going in this direction, instead of trying to capture the Modern era crown that another series has already won.