Medal of Honor:Pacific Assault review - Page 5

by Matt Weber on: 01/03/2005 01:49 PM [ 0 comment(s) ]

The characters in this game are also animated quite well. They move quite fluidly and realistically. That being said, you are given quite a shock when you see an angry soldier run toward you with the butt of their rifle ready to smack your head.

Another cool aspect of this game is how stuff looks when you have just been healed or if a grenade blows up near you. I really like how it looks when you are shaken up in the game and your vision is all blurry. Even the color changes. I have never had a grenade detonate near my person in real life, but I'm sure this game paints a pretty accurate picture of what happens.

Time for some complaints about the graphics. One of the weirdest things about this game, is it absolutely does not support AA in any fashion. Doesn't matter if you force it through your video card's driver panel, it won't do jack in the game. But the funny thing is that you will still take a performance hit, even though there is no improvement! That being said, remember to play this game with no AA enabled at all. The lack of AA, however, is one of the worst aspects about this game. I know there are alot of people out there who hate AA anyway, but I have never seen more jaggies in a game than this one. You get used to them after awhile, but it is extremely annoying when everything in the distance has a jagged edge. But hey, its war. The graphics really only shine when you get up close to whatever you are looking at.

One other problem is that the graphics aren't as good compared to what kind of performance lag they give you. This can be blamed on their new engine probably. I cannot speak as to how lower end-hardware people will handle the game, but my 6800 GT had trouble in certain areas with no AA enabled! Its not a heinous problem by any means, but don't expect to be able to play the highest resolution without really good hardware.

Other than that, the graphics are wonderfully fine. They are better than most games, however they don't hold a candle to HL2 and possibly not even Doom 3. The graphics are as good as they need to be however, for this game to be fun.

Sound
Sound is very important in a game like this. Hey, its war right? Right, so when you are getting bombs dropped on your head you need to hear that bomb tearing you and your buddies apart. Not that you'd want such a thing to happen, but that's irrelevant. Well I am happy to say that the sound accurately depicts the horrific sounds of war. I liked how the guns sounded and the deep, ominous sound of grenades and bombs going off near you. The capabilities of sound in this game are first demonstrated in the Pearl Harbor level, where you obviously get exposed to a major attack.

This is definitely one of those situations you will want to hear some raw sound.
Besides ambient sounds, dialogue and voice acting is adequate for a game of this nature. Your drill sergeant has that hilarious "Full Metal Jacket" style voice, and your buddies in the game don't sound half bad either. As for the enemies you encounter throughout the game...well, you won't be able to understand most of what they say anyway, unless you speak Japanese. As for music in the game, it's ok. Most of the music is music that would accompany a WWII vet's funeral. During combat and the actual game, I really didn't notice any music at all. Perhaps if they put in some hardcore techno beats, I may have noticed it, but that isn't appropriate for a game of this nature.

The Verdict

Medal of Honor:Pacific Assault is a game that delivers what it promises: challenging game play, dramatic and cinematic elements, a nice assortment of old-school guns, good graphics, and lots of enemies to shoot down. Overall it is a very fun game, but there are a few problems. The biggest of those, all covered in this review, is that monotonous levels you sometimes encounter. Other problems include some performance issues, the lack of AA support, and the lack of team AI. The only problem likely to bother you is the monotony one, however the game had enough challenging and intense situations to make me play it all the way through the end. MOH:PA is pretty realistic and gets your nerves pumping. I would recommend to anyone that loves war games and the MOH series to get this game. If you are not a big war-game fan, this game isn't likely to convince you to start playing first person shooters in war.

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Medal of Honor:Pacific Assault review
Yes, its that time where another installment of the successful series of Medal of Honor has arrived. The previous game in the series, Medal of Honor:Allied Assault took place during WWII, starting with the horrific, and quite fun, battle sequence of DDay. You're task in the previous game was to infiltrate the German forces and help bring an end to their efforts. Medal of Honor:Pacific Assault is also during WWII, however it concentrates on the opposite side of the globe, namely Japan on the outerlying islands. There has been many years of separation between the first Medal of Honor and this one, so there was plenty of time for improvements, graphical and otherwise.