Listen up ladies! Stop yer grinnin’ and drop your linen, it’s time for JB’s review of Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 for the Nintendo Wii. Developer EA brings us the 13th addition to the Medal of Honor franchise and there’ve been a lot of questions concerning whether or not it is worth the price of admission. Wii owners have a great deal to be skeptical about. With control scheme nightmares like Red Steel and Call of Duty 3 still fresh in our minds, the thought of picking up another first-person shooter on the Wii is a little worrisome.
Fortunately, there’s good news! With excellent controls, customizable layouts, and support for the Wii Zapper, Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 delivers a much smoother FPS experience than we’ve seen yet on the Wii. Gestures with the Wii-mote and Nunchuk such as reloading or leaning out from cover tend to feel natural. While the default controls for the game work great, they can be modified by the player to their liking. With the additional option to use the Wii Zapper, the controls can be modified to suit virtually any player’s preference.
So with all of these great new controls there has to be a great 먹튀 game here too, right? Well the answer is yes and no. If you are looking for a first-person shooter with an engaging storyline, memorable characters, and an overall satisfying single player experience you should look elsewhere. The single-player campaign mode hasn’t changed one bit since the first Medal of Honor game. Taking the role of yet another fictional hero of The Great War you will gun, bazooka, tank, and mortar your way through various war torn battlefields and Nazi installations. Do you know what you’ll be doing? If you answered, “shooting Nazis” you’d be absolutely right! And apart from completing objectives and making a few gestures with the Wii-remote and nunchuk, that’s all you’ll be doing.
The only thing that could make the single player campaign more boring would be to remove the player’s control of the character and essentially make an on-rail shooter. However, if that sounds exciting to you, MoHH2 has you covered with an Arcade Mode. This mode features even less to offer in terms of game play than the standard campaign mode. The computer will handle all of the movement while your job will be to control the targeting reticle and gun down hordes of dim-witted enemies. If your health runs low, med kits appear at points and can be shot for a life boost. It plays like the Time Crisis arcade games, or Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles… only poorly.
What Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 lacks in single-player game play, it more than makes up for with its 32-person online multiplayer. For the first time, Wii owners can get a taste of what Xbox owners have had for years… really big online frag-fests! There are 6 maps and 3 modes available for play over Wi-Fi, with very little lag. They are: deathmatch (DM), team deathmatch (TDM), and Capture the Flag (CTF). EA has also included rankings and leader boards, as well as the EA Messenger… it’s a buddy list.
You will start by creating an account name which requires a valid e-mail address. Once created, you have the option of creating a Persona. The Persona is the name you will display in-game. In order to add a friend to your buddy list, you need to know that person’s EA account name. You can also look in the “Recent Opponents” tab of the EA Messenger. This tab shows you the Persona name of people you’ve fought against in your most recent game. From there you can request to add that person and if they accept, their EA account name will be added to your friends list. Unfortunately, even with someone on your friends list, you can’t go directly to them if they are online and in a game. You’re not even shown which game they’re in! You must know the game already. Then again you could also find them the old fashioned way which is; scroll through the games one by one, check the list of players in that game, and hopefully find your friend.
At peak times, there are upwards of 2000 users, in over 70 games. At any time from the game lobby you can create or join a game already in progress. You also have a number of filters that you can use to sort through the game types you don’t wish to play. You are provided with a great deal of options but many other features are still missing that 360 and PS3 owners may take for granted. Things like voice chat, or the ability to communicate with your own messages instead of pre-made macros and messenger comments.
If there’s one thing to be learned from Medal of Honor: Heroes 2, it’s that a game doesn’t need to be perfect to be fun. Despite the lackluster single player and the multiplayer missing some basic features, the game still feels like a success. The excellent controls may have a great deal to do with that, but also it’s the fact that there’s finally a first-person shooter on the Wii that not only uses the Wi-Fi, but is also a lot of fun to play.
Game play 7/10: Excellent multiplayer modes, but lacking in other areas. The single player campaign feels like playing through a game we completed 5 years ago.
Control 10/10: Superb controls! EA truly has raised the bar on the standards of FPS controls on the Wii.
Graphics amp; Sound 6 /10: Generic World War 2 sound effects and an uninspired soundtrack, combined with Wii graphics. Ouch…
Replay Value 8/10: Very few unlockables or extras to warrant playing the full single player campaign. Multiplayer, however, provides enough hours of entertainment to keep you coming back.
Overall 8/10 (Good): Wii owners can finally test their skills in 32 person multiplayer. That alone is reason enough to buy this game. If that’s not your thing however, then you may want to rent it first. Apart from the multiplayer, there’s nothing here that hasn’t been seen and done before.