Medal of Honour: Vanguard ^(Wii)

Genre: First-Person Shooter Publisher: Electronic Arts Developer: EA Los Angeles Players: ?

By Keith B (21st Jul 2007)

Another WWII FPS, when will enough be enough?

First, the good news: Vanguard is exclusive Wii content, so the game is, as it were, truly “new.” But is it really? Well, here’s an image to help you get a better sense of this game’s predicament: Think back to every WWII shooter you have ever played… good. Now slap a new name on it, and you pretty much have Medal of Honor: Vanguard. That’s right �" the newest installment of the Medal of Honor is not a port, but it’s also barely more than a rehashing of many things we’ve already seen in other WWII shooters. Altogether, the game sports 10 missions that are broken down into four different ‘operations,’ each taking you to different scenario in the Central European WWII Theater. Apart from this pretty generic structure, there isn’t much of a narrative to string together the single missions. As usual, you are a member of an infantry contingent of Allied soldiers. In the course of the ten missions, you do everything you’ve come to love (or hate) about war-based shooters: You mow down endless rows of Krauts, you blow up tanks, bridges, and anti-aircraft guns, you capture enemy headquarters, and break up enemy sieges. In the end, of course there’s the big final battle. Medal of Honor veterans (or veterans of any ego shooter, for that matter) probably won’t take much longer than roughly 7 hours for all this.

Which brings us to the all-important question: Why should anyone get into playing this game to begin with? Well, we’ve already established that it isn’t for the gripping original narrative. That would leave gameplay, graphics, soundscheme, and finally the ‘innovative’ controls (pretty much every Wii game tries to rope in a few gamers in this way). Let’s begin with the most interesting of these aspects �" the controls.

Now that we’ve already seen a fairly large number of ego shooters on the Wii, a little ranking could be done, comparing all the different control schemes against each other. For now, I will leave this task to someone else, and simply venture a suggestion regarding where MoH: Vanguard would end up in this ranking: In the middle field of a bunch of games that all feature shoddily designed and implemented controls. Electronic Arts, as many other developers, have been struggling with the implementation of a decent FPS control scheme on the Wii. Yet overall, the Wiimote/Nunchuk combination for MoH: Vanguard’s controls works relatively well. Pointing the Wiimote at the screen will move around the crosshairs.

Continuing the same gestures beyond the edge of the screen will make your character look around. As in all such games, you can furthermore pull the gun up close in order to have a better aim, you can crawl around, jump, or knock out enemies with the butt of your rifle. Holding the B button and imitating a throwing gesture with the Wiimote lets you hurl grenades. The programmers surely meant well when they came up with Vanguard’s control scheme. But the Nunchuk, for example, simply has too many functions mapped to it, and they aren’t arranged intuitively. Swinging it to the left or the right, for example, triggers two totally different actions (reloading in one case, and performing a 180 degree turn in the other). What’s intuitive about that? Fortunately, the controls are relatively precise, aiming is easy, and the game responds to trigger movements fairly well �" in other words, apart from some flaws with the basic design of the commands, Vanguard offers an uninspiring but otherwise alright way to interact with the game environment. As you go along, the game will pause when necessary to teach you new moves and functions. This replaces a tutorial, and works quite smoothly.

Among the truly ‘new’ moves you will have to master are the controls for operating your parachute. Especially during the beginning of the game, this is a fairly important part of the game, but what’s more �" it’s a lot of fun. Jumping out of high-flying games, trying to hit the landing spot on the mark, or even finding some hidden upgrades in forest clearing only visible from the air �" all this, I would say, definitely constitutes the highlights of Vanguard. Apart from this, the gameplay doesn’t hold any surprises in store. As you move along, you will find better weapons, and sometimes upgrade existing ones (which is a nice touch: just find the particular piece and it will automatically be added on to the gun you are carrying).

On the graphics front, Vanguard is a fairly weak effort. The effects are cool, but that’s about it, unfortunately. Many of the surfaces look rather rough, and aren’t rendered very well. What’s more, dead enemies (of which there are heaps, of coursee) have a tendency to dissolve into thin air rather quickly �" in a few cases even before they hit the ground. If it weren’t for the stable and consistently high frame rate, my impression would be that Vanguard brings us back to Gamecube and PS2 standards yet again.

On the upside, the game’s soundtrack is as epic and fantastic as always. The orchestral pieces are as excellently composed and performed as we have come to expect it from all installments of the Medal of Honor series. The only flaw, here, might be that just like everything we see, the things we hear are perhaps a tad too similar to prior Medal of Honor games.

As you can imagine, Vanguard offers a pretty linear gaming experience. Despite the varying locations that you visit during the different missions (cities, rural areas, bunkers, forests, etc.), you will never, even throughout the toughest levels, have to worry about getting lost. During most missions, several ‘independent’ comrades are deployed along with you, and are assisting you out in the field. Well, if only their AI would know that they’re supposed to act independently, too! As usual, there is no online multiplayer mode available. There is, however, an offline friend play mode, in which you can battle up to three other players on a split screen (make sure your TV is big enough!) The friend play is a pretty regular affair, there’s nothing new to report here really.

In closing, I can’t help but resort to one of lamer jokes in WWII entertainment history: Based on what Vanguard is giving us, it seems that there’s ‘nothing much new on the Western Front.’ Too bad. Vanguard really does play and look like most other WWII shooters, plus it’s short and repetitive. So if you’re an avid fan or collector of the Medal of Honor series, go for it, you have my blessing. Otherwise, just rent this game for a weekend and you’ll probably finish it in a day or two. Okay, I admit that failing to be innovative shouldn’t really lower a games rating by too much. After all, we want to have fun, in the first place, and absolute utter originality shouldn’t have to be the first order of the day. But come on… How many games more or less exactly like this one have we seen throughout the last years?! Enough already!