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Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 Review for the Nintendo Wii

Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 Review for the Nintendo Wii

Medal of Honor Heroes 2 revives the tired WWII shooter with tight, Wii-specific controls and pick-up-and-play appeal

Between winning WWII more times than we can remember in countless first-person shooters and struggling with wonky Wii controls since the system’s launch (we still hold a grudge, Red Steel), we fully expected Electronic Art’s Medal of Honor Heroes 2 to be about as appealing as hardtack.

Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 screenshot

So what a pleasant surprise it was to discover solid controls and a gameplay experience that had us happily lacing up our combat boots again. Despite our gung ho rush to the front line, Heroes does have some shortcomings, and if you’ve played the likes of Call of Duty 4, you’ll need to adjust your expectations appropriately. However, foxhole fanboys as well as Wii owners, tired of all the mini-game madness, could do worse than enlisting for this fast-paced, action-packed WWII shooter.

Heroes jumps the Wii’s biggest hurdle by offering motion-sensing controls that yield a responsive and fun experience. They’re intuitive, much like in Metroid Prime 3, rather than maddening, as they’ve been in so many Wii-mote-waving titles. The cursor mostly goes where you point it, and picking off enemies with a squeeze of the controller’s trigger is a hoot. Pressing the “A” button, for a more focused shot, is an easy transition that’ll have you precisely popping helmets off German soldiers. Arming an arsenal of pistols, rifles, and automatic weapons employs this simple point-and-shoot method, but equipping some of the game’s other room-clearing devices offers even more interesting Wii-mote waggling. Fire the rocket launcher by resting it on your shoulder and pressing the “B” trigger, toss a grenade with an under or over-throw motion, and adjust your sniper rifle scope by dialing the remote left or right. It’s all a great deal of fun, genuinely adding to the experience and never feeling like a tacked-on novelty. The motion magic extends to other activities as well; set the clock on an explosive charge by using the same motion you’d use to set your stove-top timer, and gently tilt the controller to-and-fro to adjust radio dials as you attempt to receive a transmission.

Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 screenshot

Fighting through WWII with motion controls is mostly a genre-evolving experience (and no genre needs it more than this one), but there are still moments when you’ll yearn for a traditional gamepad. Performing the various hand gymnastics required to use Heroes’ guns and grenades is a blast when you’ve got plenty of ammo and are hunkered behind cover. But in the games’ more frantic firefights, when ammo and cover are scarce, it becomes a bit befuddling to switch from the point-and-shoot pistol to the shoulder-resting rocket launcher and so on. Combine this with the sniper scope-lock and other movements mapped to the Nunchuk and you might end up with a fumbling foot soldier in the heat of battle. All this gets easier with practice, and the added motion-fueled immersion certainly trumps the occasional frustration factor; it’s hard to argue with the satisfaction that washes over you every time a well-tossed grenade results in Axis soldiers flying like confetti.

Heroes’ visual presentation and linear level design don’t quite live up to its inventive control scheme. The missions are littered with “conveniently” placed blockades–barbed wire, barrels, crates–ensuring you never stray far from the front-line focus. And the graphics, while not bad, heavily rely on the usual WWII color palette–brown, green, and gray. Additionally, the Wii’s limited horsepower allows this drabness to stick out with un-refined textures and detail-starved levels. Animations also suffer a bit as enemies occasionally move erratically and vanish before their death animation sees them to the floor. As with many Wii games, these faults are par for the course, and if you’re a Wii owner, you’ve likely accepted the hardware’s limitations already; we don’t play the Wii hoping for jaw-dropping visuals, but because it allows us to swing swords and fire guns in a way traditional gamepads don’t.

Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 screenshot

Heroes audio work fairs better than its visual presentation. Like previous Medal of Honor games, the score is appropriately rousing and heroic, and the weapons and explosive effects sound great. Furthermore, the Wii-mote ups the aural experience by channeling certain sounds directly through the peripheral’s tiny speaker; shaking the controller to reload, for example, rewards you with a satisfying audio cue emitting right from the remote. Frazzled A.I. battle chatter also puts you in the moment, although repeated generic lines like “Look out, Germans!” could’ve been punched-up a bit. Overall, the soundtrack is paced well with the action, and popping gunfire punctuated by larger explosions provide the frantic sense that you’re knee-deep in Nazis.

Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 screenshot

The single-player campaign is short–6-10 hours–depending on which difficulty level you choose. Play on “green” mode and you’ll breeze through like Rambo on Redbull, but if you dare brave the “veteran” or “hero” settings you can expect a serious fight. The length and difficulty of these modes is falsely padded by too few checkpoints; expect to ride the trial-error-treadmill in several sections until you memorize A.I. patterns and placement. This can get frustrating and feels a bit old-school, but at least the easier mode is available for less seasoned soldiers. When you’ve won the war in single-player, Heroes still has plenty of fight for you. An addictive “arcade” mode runs you through missions you’ve already completed in the campaign by moving you forward on-rails, while you shoot at German soldiers like you would ducks in a shooting gallery. It’s fun, fast-paced and will remind you of those quarter-munching light-gun games from the arcade. Heroes also offers 32-player online battles. The modes and maps are limited, but we’re happy to see any support–especially for an FPS– inject some life into the Wii’s online wasteland

Despite the WWII shooter genre reaching its expiration date ages ago, Heroes offers a well-produced, refreshing experience. And while the dated visuals are as stale as ever, the implementation of the Wii controls drive the genre in an exciting direction. In fact, we enjoyed Heroes much more than the franchise’s recent next-gen debut Airborne. If you can accept the console’s limitations, and appreciate the novel control scheme, you’ll have a Nazi-blastin’ good time with Heroes epic campaign and replay-extending arcade and multiplayer offerings.

Features:

  • Step into the boots of OSS Operative John Berg and infiltrate Normandy from behind enemy lines to undermine the Nazi regime.
  • Choose to tackle all-new missions in traditional single player campaign or engage in massive, 32-player online, continuous-joining multiplayer battles where you can jump into the battle at any time.
  • Features full support of the Wii Zapper
  • Features an all-new mode designed specifically for the Wii that simplifies gameplay for players of all skills levels for easy pick-up-and-play action. This mode plays like an old-school rail shooter.

    RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 3.0 Graphics
    Not bad for the Wii, but a bit last-gen. 4.5 Control
    Amazing and intuitive implementation of the Wii-remote. 4.0 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
    Appropriately epic score punctuated by tight weapon effects. 4.0

    Play Value
    Single-player is short, but online multi-player and arcade mode are both worth checking out.

    4.0 Overall Rating – Great
    Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

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