relentlessknight's Medal of Honor: Heroes (PlayStation Portable) review

Setting side all the differences. Heroes isn't a bad game.

Many people criticized that they are just millions of World War II theme, first person shooters depicting it as just a cheap way to produce games or just being too repetitive in the gaming industry so far. But it seems to be in the logic that these games don't have to be the category of the genre to be enjoyable to all. Other people seems annoyed of this whole fiasco about this theme implemented into a game that will be introduced additionally later but much of the fiasco is for ripping people off of their buck so that they could play a really dull game. The whole entirely of this World War II, is that they keep on repeat itself for the past years to date. At first glance, it seems that it rather not be annoying but to try to enjoy the game without the annoyance of the theme. While some will disagree about the lack of non-World War II theme shooters, some just are there to enjoy the game to its extent.

While they aren't World War I shooters in the market, which in fact they should do, much because the gaming industry avoid the least popular war which started it all and rather go the one where this war has plenty of battles to witness. Its not really intriguing to see another World War II shooter in the market but its enjoyable to see how new the formula is and not be the same dull shooter like the rest of the industry does. Most World War II theme shooters go after the same battle that copied from another game but somehow made to different to fool the player but some games often doesn't. Like for instance, Medal of Honour, has some games that have the same wars as the other games have. Most of the time, games has tons of moments from movies, often from such movies as Saving Private Ryan or Enemy at the Gates. Which to that entirely, its doesn't look satisfying to see because you have already seen it in the movies and playing that game with that key moment makes you feel not great.

The Playstation Portable's variety of games aren't that great. Most of the games produced for this handheld console are mostly third party games which the developers produced so they could get a buck more. While the variety of games that aren't third-party are in high demand, genres such like First Person Shooters deserve to be in this handheld console. After the release of the Playstation Portable, and a year ahead, we see more exciting games such as Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, its just nice that the industry has a pint of respect of this handheld console to make such great games on the go for it.

The Medal of Honor series is one of the victims of this ongoing production of World War II theme shooters. It was first a developed by 2142 which made an amazing game called Medal of Honor: Allied Assault that is commonly known to all and some would agree that this is the best Medal of Honor game. Then EA purchase the rights to it and took this gaming series to the wrong turn because EA games are just decent but not excellent. Many would complaint that Medal of Honor games are released every single year and gives a less-satisfying result of how great games could be. When EA purchased this company, they concluded that they would produced Medal of Honor games for all consoles making the Medal of Honor series feel like a Third Party series. Which in fact is seems like a partially good idea but most of the time, when EA introduced the game into a handheld, it tends to a complete failure. Until Finally, EA Canada reveals Medal of Honor: Heroes for the Playstation Portable which crafted a game with such richness and visceral action as you expected for the Playstation Portable to date.

In Heroes, you play a multitude of different heroes in each perceptive campaign. Each individual soldier has its own story, whom have appeared in previous Medal of Honor games. The story unfolds short, narrated by black-and-white movie clips directed from World War II, and orders are doled out via typewritten memos. Each soldier has its own campaign divided up by five missions perceptively, for a grand total of 15 in the game. You first play as Sergeant John Barker (Medal of Honor: Allied Assault) whom find himself stationed in Italy. His objectives are simple, you must capture the enigma engine, liberate some territory and more.. Lieutenant James Patterson (Medal of Honor and Medal of Honor: Frontline) is stationed in the Netherlands, the narration depicted him as "one of the best." Where you are required to steal important document papers and retake and liberate the crucial areas from the Germans. The last five missions follows the exploits of Lieutenant William Holt (Medal of Honor: European Assault) in Belgium. Here you"ll be entrust with to capture and hold a river base, recover lost documents, kill a bunch of soldiers and finally, destroy the German command center.

In the game, it seems quite a bored mainly because, there aren't any interaction while processing in the game, all you hear, is taunts, and the same short voice acts, they could muster. Which makes the feeling less satisfying to players who want a game that have the decency to add character interaction. All you do is just shoot dudes in the face and that's about it like some restless grunt. The voice acting in this game is no where to be found. You will only hear two to three voice actors in the game: the gruff voice of the narrator, the soldiers and the opposing side, both the Allies and the Axis has the same dialogue but in different language. While its just another lame excuse for a dull story in the game, this game is just like I said, shoot dudes and blow up stuff. Its pretty self explanatory, as you unravel to the depths of Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands to crush the Nazi, hearing the same voice text over and over again, making you just irritant on whats going on.

The control scheme is simplistic and intuitive, despite not having a second analog stick attached on the Playstation Portable, which in fact makes the gameplay, much better. In fact, the controls in the game has its merits, although at first, you might stumble confusedly around the controls, you will soon get used to it. You will be able to control the camera perceptive with the controls which makes it less appealing to others because the lack of an second analog stick which makes you confused with the control scheme at the start. As for the rest, like switching weapons to crawling, its quite similar to Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror which in fact has the similar scheme as this game. The directional keys of your Playstation Portable are planned out are your sprinting, switching weapons and crawling to make it less satisfying to use any other control scheme. You will be able to switch different control scheme in this game, either commando or by the default mode, each of them has your style of how you want to control the game. As for as the shooting goes, its pretty much the same, both of the triggers serves a purpose to aim and shoot. Its pretty self explanatory to first person shooter veterans and gamers alike. As for its faults, sometimes the camera view tend to be quite slow on the turning, making you die or lose a lot of your health during the process. Aside from sprinting, if an approaching grenade is going to blow you up, you can the use key to kick the grenade, similarity to Allied Assault. The use key can is usable in situations like trying to kick grenades or for certain missions, either for blowing up something or to defuse something.

As far as the gameplay goes, it has its merits. Similar to other first person shooters, or specifically in the Medal of Honour series, you will be confronted with only Nazis throughout the whole game. But as far as anything goes, you will be only facing foot soldiers and not things like tanks or any sort of artillery you happen upon. Sometimes, you might think in the loading screen, there are armour vehicles in this game but those are for environmental purposes and not for climbing into one and causing havoc. Its just ridiculous to kill the same Nazis, over and over again making the game just boring. Its like facing hordes of Nazi clones whom are trying to come to you in a straight direction appending doom upon you.

The story is printed through typewritten memos, as you are given the objective. The typewritten memos is a interesting idea, to compensate how boring this game is without the voice overs. The storyline are first told by the black-and-white cutscenes and then by these typewritten memos ,telling you more information to obtaining the objective. In Heroes, the objectives split into two categories, the main objectives and the secondary objectives. The main objectives is the ones to complete the level to progress further into the next mission and the secondary missions are just optional but provide to benefit your mission efficiency, which tallies after the mission is completed or failed.

The scenario of this game is split into three different campaigns, first Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium which in fact makes me thrilled because the lack of Italy campaigns out there in the World War II FPS genre. In three different campaign, there will be four or five missions in each of them, stretching out four or five hours in total. Each mission can be finished less than a hour. While this could be easy for on-the-go activities, it could be annoying sometimes. The missions can be signify as red flags as Nazi territory, but after you completed that specific mission, the flag, that you managed to complete turns to green and you could still play it for mission efficiency to further your tally.

The objectives in the game is easy to compete, so there is no pressure to obtain it. While the game has a time put out there to how much you are playing, you could still manage to beat it in that time without any stress put into you. The main objectives consists mostly of capturing and holding flags to blowing up machines, and sometimes you are required to obtain certain documents but that's about it, it could be really repetitive in the end, trying to capture a flag while Nazi opponents are shooting you or blowing up something. The secondary objectives are pretty much self explanatory, as you are require to obtain certain documents. Which makes both the main and secondary objectives, similar to each other and just annoying to finish.

In Heroes, you will be able to control a group of three or four allied soldiers, but you can't control their movements nor tell them to attack at the opportune time. They just follow you, or try to follow you, everywhere you go and attack if there is a threat by. They often, form up to formation to protect your live. Each soldier in the game has the same gun as you progress further in the game, and like other FPS out there, they all have infinite ammo or something. Every-time, one of your teammates die, a new recruit will be enlist to reinforce your position, it seems like there are endless amounts of recruits, in particular situations. Sometimes in further missions, you are on your own but it makes it a bit better because they can easily die in situations.

You could be able to pick up weapons on the field, similar to other FPS out there but not much by the opposition, as sometimes they either drop health packs, ammo and sometimes weapons. Weapons and medical kits are scattered all around the battlefield. The weapons are similar to other WWII FPS out there, as you could get a sniper rifle to a bazooka to a shotgun. Ammunition is easy to get in this game, as you kill a Nazi, you could obtain ammo to replenish your gun. Medical kits are also scattered across the battlefield, sometimes they could even led to your objective.

Like its predecessor, your interface has a compass to direct you where to go, as it indicates a directional arrow either yellow for main objectives or blue arrows for secondary objectives. When you come closer to your objective, the arrow changes to a yellow or blue dot to show that you are close to your objective. This is quite a intriguing tool unlike other FPS out there. Aside from the objectives, you could also see where are your allies are, as displayed in green dots in your compass. Furthermore you could see when a grenade is coming to your position indicated by a yellow-like target so you could run to avoid that explosive or attempt to kick that grenade away so that you could see it fly across your compass screen.

The Artificial Intelligence is just plain dumb, despite the difficulty you progressed in the game. The deal with these dumb-minded fools is that they just come straight to you without using cover, sometimes they retreat, flak you but despite all these attempts of conquering you, Its just the same strategy over and over again, all they do initially is come straight at you, and try to kill you and your teammates. The Nazis as well as your teammates, sometimes use grenades to try to flush each opposition out, as displayed a indicator in your compass to see when the opposition is throwing a grenade. The fact they added a difficulty setting is not to think that you can master the game in the hardest difficulty but to survive the stupidity of the AI coming to you and taking you down. The difficulty setting is just a increased of damaged taken and more Nazi reinforcements. The moral is the hardest the difficulty is, the more fun to compensate the tedious gameplay, this game offers.

After you completing a mission, you get a mission efficiency screen which tells you if you completed that objective or not, failed or success. Like I said, the secondary objectives doesn't matter but it could be a replay-ability to others, otherwise, it also shows your efficiency that you excess through the game, to completing both the main and secondary objectives to how good your accuracy is in each perspective missions. Then it awards you with new costumes to unlock in the skirmish, depending on how much you killed to completing the campaign. Then when it tallies all up, and tells you if you did good or not by medals. Each medal indicates how are efficient in the course of your mission.

Furthermore as missions progressed, there are a ranking system, and in each mission you can get more experience towards your rankings to rank up to the next rank. You begin as a Private and as the game, progresses, you can get up to Sergeant, Lieutenant to Captain. The ranking system, really doesn't matter but it just shows, what position of rank, you are. Of course, awards will be handled out to you, depending of what you have done, like for instance: killing fifty enemies to see how much headshots you did to completing the campaign. It's just there to show off and it feels much like an achievement system implemented into it to congratulate you for the actions you, part-take.

Plus, In Heroes, there are a option, to replay those black-and-white cut-scenes, if you have finished a certain campaign. There are four black-and-white cut-scenes in total. The cut-scenes seemed pretty nice and pretty well executed. The Medal of Honor has always been, a hallmark for those awesome cut-scenes and excellent narration but the word "troop" associated to this game, kind of stole the whole show for me, as I despise that word. The cut-scenes are generally from the archieves from World War II real footage with an additional of the wonderful narration, from a gruffly voice actor whose telling, whats the lowdown. There are also extras in the game, one of them is a preview to "Need for Speed" for this handheld, which is generally a short one but not that satisfying.

There are also a skirmish mode, playable in Heroes. It is just like any other skirmishes out there in the world of FPS. Basically there are only two skirmish modes, Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, both of them seemed quite great depending on if you like them. Deathmatch is like a Free-For-All which the objective is that you must kill others out there whom are killing other computer generic AI to score points or kills per-say. You can chose the option is set the time for each individual match as well as how much bots, you wanted to have, and a map suitable for the purpose. But first, you can only chose a map and required to unlock more additional maps in the single player campaign. Which makes sense. After you have chosen these options, you can chose either the Nazi side or the Allies side, each of them doesn't matter or have any effect on them. Also, you could chose, what costume you preferred, if you have unlocked them in the single player and a preferable weapon of chose. Ranging from Shotgun, Thompson to M1 Grande. Team-Deathmatch, however is a skrimish which pits you and your allies against the opponent, similar to Deathmatch, the objective is kill the opponent before it kills you. You just chose what faction you preferred and stuff and you are on your way. At the end, the victor (you of course) with the most points will be awarded with a medal depending on how good you are on that match.

Aside from the skirmish, there are also, a online multiplayer which you can join, if you register to the EA Nation or whatever name it is. Like any EA Nation online, there is a lobby which you could interact with other real-life players using the Playstation interface and also play against them. In the Lobby, you could create a game or join a game, creating a game is similar to the skirmish factor which you could pick any map, you desire as well as the desire time and wait for the players to game. Join a game, is similar but someone else is picking the map and the time for their desire. Pretty self-explanatory. Like any other online shooters out there, when creating or joining the game, you or the owner of that match can moderate and kick any players, they desire and also while you are in the battlefield. There are a ping system which signafities like other online shooter, how are your ping is, if you ping increases, you get lagged out or kicked out, if the owner of that game is pissed. There are also a friends list in the game, which you could add any user online, if you like them, and is their choice to accept that request. There are also ladder matches which you could see, the experienced players, and try to challenged them in a match. Like the single player, everytime you joined a game, at the end of the game, you could go offline and see the results of your accuracy, time and what part of the body you did most killed at.

At the end, Heroes isn't quite an good addition to the Medal of Honor franchise but it is just pretty fun, if you want to have this on-the-go playability. The replayability as well as the online will satisfy you, if you like to play it on-the-go. The endless amounts of killing and ranking is pretty satisfactary but still offers some major improvements to this franchise. Depsite the unintelligent AI, short campaign and the boring maps, Heroes is pretty good on making you have a good time if you enjoyed it. As for the game, you should only rent this game but not purchase, well purchase this if the price goes low or buy a used copy of this game because it really does have its full potential on this game. Its satisfing, yes but the excutation is quite as good as other Medal of Honor games out there.


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