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The MOH series makes a last appearance on PS2. Medal of Honor: Vanguard is a decent if unremarkable shooter than doesn’t do anything extraordinarily bad but also does little to reinvigorate a somewhat stale genre.
Vanguard takes you to Italy, France, Netherlands and Germany as you play as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne group. This paratrooper, Frank Keegan, provides narration for the pretty cool mission introductions. Vanguard doesn’t take many risks with its story, which is sufficient but hardly cause for celebration. It gets the job done but won’t manage to immerse you or give great motivation to keep playing.
The gameplay in the game is just as safe. You’ll still be killing a lot of Nazis, rescuing ally soldiers, clearing out locations and bunkers, securing documents, and destroying enemy weapons. You begin the game’s missions by parachuting to the location, which is actually pretty cool the first few times you do it but gets kind of boring towards the end. Vanguard uses the same regenerative health system found in other games. There is no health bar per se but your screen will get red as you get hit. If you avoid taking damage for some time, the screen will get back to its ordinary color. The standard gameplay is made worse by the fact that the enemies that you’re fighting are not very smart.
The biggest difference between the Wii and PS2 versions is the game’s controls. The Nunchuk’s analog stick is used to move your character, while its button can be used to crouch or prone. You can also move the Nunchuk to change your position or reload. Although initially it’s fairly easy to get those two motions mixed up, it became less of an issue as we played. The Wiimote is used to aim and look around, and it is easy very to look around corners. The PS2 version uses the analog sticks and face buttons for controls, which works just as well albeit with slightly less precision for aiming.
Medal of Honor: Vanguard looks about on par with Call of Duty 3 on the Wii and PS2. The game does look slightly better on the Wii, largely because of widescreen and progressive scan support. The environments look okay since the developers were able to make it seem like you’re part of a bigger war and the environments look realistically worn and torn. The character models also look pretty good with surprisingly good death animations. The game manages to display a stable framerate throughout the campaign though.
The audio in Vanguard does a good job of creating a bigger-than-life atmosphere. The orchestrated soundtrack sounds fittingly epic. The voice acting is solid but not amazing, although the sound effects do a good job of complementing the game’s visuals.
Vanguard does not offer online multiplayer on either the Wii or PS2. The game does offer split-screen multiplayer though, which is again serviceable but nothing extraordinary.
Medal of Honor: Vanguard is a solid if unexciting WWII game on either platform. There’s little reason to pick up the game unless you blasted through Call of Duty 3 and are looking for more. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Apr 4, 2007
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