The worst Medal of Honor title ever put out.
User Rating: 1 | Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault PC
Quite frankly this game is garbage, it plays like garbage, it looks like garbage and the idea was garbage to begin with. Its like playing the first call of duty on an engine that is visually nauseating and delivers accurate game play about 50% of the time. How some of the issues presented quite obviously in this game passed initial testing I'll never know or understand. First off- squad based combat is completely broken and detrimental to the player. Their is seemingly no rhyme or reason for it, it barely affects in-game missions, and artificial intelligence is dreadfully slow at following any commands or accomplishing small tasks on their own in the first place. Second- firing you're rifle or sub-machine gun is actually the most frustrating thing I've ever seen in a game from EA or at least from the Medal of Honor series in general. Everything feels off, the Thompson lacks any punch as you very quickly eliminate a magazine, then re-loading feels like a chore and takes absolutely far too long. Surprisingly I found the rifle to be slightly more bearable, but that was only after I realized it had a higher damage rate than the any other gun you use (go figure). In short, the mechanics are terrible. The gameplay is very much hindered by these problems and it shows in later missions i.e. anything after Pearl Harbor. Which brings me the my third issue- Why nobody should've bothered putting together any missions in the game after Pearl Harbor. Now I'll be honest, that level showcases everything good about the game, since its not till later you realize that you'll be stuck on ugly dark jungle filled islands for a long time afterwards and frankly thats what sucks out most of the fun here. Theirs no run-and-gun or pacing to any of you're strolls into Japanese patrols or camps- Just boring firefights with very little input from you're team besides squad mates shouting boring dialogue about how their "bonzi ING AGAIN TOMMY!" Beyond that its just shamelessly boring objectives without anything interesting going on. Go here shoot some Japs, go here blow up a thing, now kill some Japs, and now get in a car drive to here in a boring action sequence so the mission can be over. Its trying so hard to capture what made the older games better and completely fails at it due to its setting, mechanics and ultimately technological shortcomings that encompass most of the gameplay. How people can actually say this game is anywhere near decent is actually hard to believe at this point. After 6 years it just doesn't hold up anymore, its been improved a million times over and its simply just not a fun or challenging or even exciting experience. Outside of the Pearl Harbor mission everything about this game is wrong. The artificial intelligence is hardly challenging, but its at least functional and pretty entertaining to see just how little will happen while you're getting stabbed by Japanese soldiers popping out of the bushes. The hilariously slow movement, slow re-loading, slow aiming and slow everything else are at least signs that they were trying to go for something either more realistic or didn't know what they were doing. The sound lacks any strength behind gunfire noises and most of the music being incredibly generic orchestral "tug-my-heart-strings" annoying. The level design is a mess although its hard to do jungles well in a game (unless you made Far cry and know how to optimize a good engine like crytek) and base mission objectives around what most people would probably agree were fictional scenarios. Lastly the game is just ugly, its visual style and design reflect a lack of polish, a lack of inspiration, and it simply feels like another generic game without any feeling or any uniqueness from a company that at one point deeply invested itself in that image and idea.
