Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault Demo Review

by Milky 30 October 2004

First off, having only played Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, the original, briefly I can do that much to compare, Medal of Honor: Pacific Assualt. So I intent to look at this game as totally unrelated, for the most part.

Your team mates now wear a symbol above their heads so you can't "accidently" kill them ;)

First impressions of the game, focuses on atmosphere, story-based (so people will call this too scripted, I don't mind) and “smarter” AI, first impressions can be deceiving.

Texture and graphics of your fellow team mates and enemies are fairly good but by today's standards ain't that great and this sort of fast paced war fps you shouldn't be paying that much attention to how pretty it looks. MOH:PA also features a “concussion/near black out” effect which browns your screen and gives it a vintage film like quality, which basically happens when a bomb/grenade drops near you or you're about to die. It's pretty cool the first few times it happens but after a while it doesn't do much but serve as a slight annoyance, being disabled while that's happened and all, a warhead did just explode near you. Gun models, I'm told are recycled from before previous titles.

An active medic that you can call on at any time is now included, also helps bring your teammates back from the dead

When you almost blackout/got a concussion there's the usual sound fade in and out of battle noise, which is simulated much better, distant airplanes and fighting, not just localized like in some other war titles. Your team mates also talk, sometimes issue commands and shout out encouragements which gets repetitive, at least you're not alone.

The team commands, advance, retreat, cover fire and group up prove interesting when experimented with. Cover fire and advance is quite useful (your team mates never die as far as I know) but only as distractions, most of the work is still up to you, sort of like a cross between the going commando and swat style (only for the demo though, the whole game probably has a mix of both).

Nice detailed outdoor terrain

Another interesting feature I haven't encountered in other games are – smart AI medics! You can call on them to heal you to full health, maximum of 9 times in the demo, but you can't move or shoot during this. Even more interesting is that you have a few second after you ‘die' before you actually die when you can call for the medic and have you bring you back to life with some fairy dust (packet of powder iodine???). Careful though, they don't always get to you, especially if he gets pelted with bullets trying to reach you.

The AI is smarter than in most games, they'll advance and duck for cover and stand, shoot and duck. However, the programmers have programmed the Japanese enemies to charge at you with bayonets and samurai swords (too bad you can't pick those up) if you go too close to them. So you can actually run through them, round them up, drop a grenade a bit in front of you and make yourself sick laughing.

Bringing down japanese aircrafts

Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault the demo deserves a 7/10, it is a demo and the setbacks are small whilst begin able to create a nice immersive war atmosphere.

Download Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault Demo