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Band of Brothers was a 10 part Mini-Series made in 2001 for TV. It was directed by a host of writers, including Tom Hanks, and gathered huge critical exclaim. The series followed the World War II Campaign of Easy Company, of the 101st Airborne. The series really is excellent with fine acting, brilliant direction and it’s an emotional rollercoaster. If you haven’t seen the series, then I really do recommend it, its immense. If you have seen it, then Medal of Honour: Airborne (MoH) is nothing new.
Band of Brothers was a 10 part Mini-Series made in 2001 for TV. It was directed by a host of writers, including Tom Hanks, and gathered huge critical exclaim. The series followed the World War II Campaign of Easy Company, of the 101st Airborne. The series really is excellent with fine acting, brilliant direction and it’s an emotional rollercoaster. If you haven’t seen the series, then I really do recommend it, its immense. If you have seen it, then Medal of Honour: Airborne (MoH) is nothing new. In Airborne you play a member of the US Airborne division called Travers and the premise is simple. You jump from an Airplane into the level and land where you wish. Safe zones are marked by helpful green smoke or you can be a true hero and land on a balcony while kicking a Nazi in the face. Now, let me outline one of my main gripes about the game. The whole attraction of this new Medal of Honour was the whole paradropping into the level and going about your mission as you wish. The attempt to pull it off has indeed worked. You jump, steer your parachute, and land. From then, you have your objectives, usually blow some shit up, and off you go. It’s not as linear as previous games in the series due to the option of basically choosing where your begin, but once on the ground, its working through streets or corridors like before. I can’t help but feel that the jumping from the plane as more of a gimmick than a genre changing action. ![]()
 That’s not to say that the game isn’t fun. The parachuting is brief but cool, and there are 3 skill drops to achieve on each level, like landing on a church roof or on a specfic balcony. The guns are what you’d expect from a WWII FPS and the enemies have fairly intelligent AI. Combat is fierce and you often find yourself peering out from cover for a realistic time before you are forced back into hiding. Here comes my second niggle. When I first approached the game I had my rifle, my sub-mg and my pistol with a couple grenades. I’d sprint from cover to cover taking down Nazis, slowly advancing. Sadly, no matter how fast my trigger finger of death pumped, more and more Germans appeared. I died. So I decided to try a different angle. With my Thompson MG equipped, I jumped from cover, charged the enemy, punched one in the face while, lobbing some grenades and spraying the rest of them dead. The spawning ceased and I advanced onto the next encounter. MoH: Airborne seems to reward the latter more (when it concerns advancement in the level). It’s ludicrously fun and unrealistic, but funnily enough it doesn’t spoil the game. It’s just a tad depressing that the careful approach takes longer and is less rewarding. What are rewarding are the weapons. Each weapon, from rifle, to pistol, to grenade, to machine fun has 3 upgradable sections. The more you kill with a gun, a little meter slowly fills up until when it’s full, you enter blurred bullet time and an upgrade (anything from a better scope or dual magazines) occurs. It’s surprisingly addictive and is a solid mechanic added to the game. It may not be truly ‘customizable’ upgrading, but it still improves the gun and gives the player a solid sense of satisfaction. The guns themselves look realistic, handle well and sound as they should. ![]() ![]()
  The game itself is very pretty, one of its distinct good points. Character models are crisp and defined, battlefields are varied and don’t suffer from repeated architecture and explosions and similar effects are powerfully rendered. It’s a gorgeous game and it should be commended on the fact. The sound as well, while predicable and cheesy, (thinks Band of Brothers to the extreme) is atmospheric and adds to the heat of battle. It’s a solid game and is fun throughout. Also, Airborne isn’t exactly the longest game, and if you think that I’ve only had it since Friday, and I haven’t played it heavily. It has taken my about 6-7 hours to complete and that was on normal. I consider myself fairly adept at FPS’s but not amazing, so if you have some considerable skill then I recommend you turn it right to Hard. While the game has multiplayer, its pretty lacking in depth when you consider some other titles on the market now, or ones that are approaching release. So don’t expect it to keep you entertained hours into the night. Airborne may not be the redesigned FPS experience that the airborne element first promised, but it’s still a solid gaming experience (if a tad short) which looks great and most of the time plays great. Score: 7/10 The game is out on Xbox360, PS3 (in two days) and PC. The PC Version is the copy reviewed.
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