The Medal of Honor series is getting a bit long in the tooth. It was not the first WWII shooter - that honor goes to Wolfenstein 3D, and it is no longer holds the title of best WWII shooter, which sits neatly on Call of Duty 2, but it certainly has the most WWII games. What it has been is remarkably consistent. Barring the misstep that was Rising Sun, the Medal of Honor games have always been fun, looked good for their time, and delivered a good balance of tense moments and thrilling firefights. Airborne more than lives up to its predecessors, changing just enough to keep it relevant and leaving the right amount behind for nostalgia.
Every level in Airborne begins, unsurprisingly, with you jumping out of a plane. Sometimes the plane is on fire, sometimes your own Navy is shooting at you; it’s never boring. While floating down, you are able to survey the entire battlefield in surprising detail, and as you get closer you can see German troops mobilizing to meet you. The ‘safe’ landing areas are marked with green smoke. If you land somewhere near there, you arrive mostly undamaged. Miss by too much and your corpse makes a nice decorative piece for the terrain. This whole process pulls you in by allowing you to decide where to begin each level, something that is very helpful when getting killed over and over again on one objective.
Airborne is much more difficult than previous Medal of Honor games. You have a good old fashioned health bar, refilled by picking up health packs. It’s archaic, but a welcome break from the soldiers with a mutant healing ability from Call of Duty. Also, by opening up the levels and giving you the option of what objectives to try, the game gives you a great many ways to get yourself killed by doing them wrong. Death will come quickly, and often. Thankfully, completed objectives stay completed, and you get to jump out of a plane again to try a different approach. It can get a bit repetitive, but odds are, if you keep dying in the same place, there is a much better way to tackle the task you’ve assigned yourself.
Your teammates are not a lot of help. On many occasions, I settled down behind cover only to have another soldier muscle in next to me (or on me) or run out in front of me only to be shot in the back. The enemies have some of the same habits, but they at least look for cover when being shot at, and will re-attack if you hide for too long. They also have incredible aim, and an apparent specific dislike for the player - especially the mini-gun toting super-Nazi that makes an appearance in the last two levels. He feels oddly out of place, like a refugee from Return to Castle Wolfenstein, but he kills you just the same.
Graphically, Airborne gets the job done. Levels are varied and detailed, getting better as you progress through the game. The Flak Tower, a single massive building that is host to the final level, simply must be seen to be appreciated. It is monstrous and frightening. On the other hand, the environments themselves offer little interaction. Bullets and shells leave no damage, only smoke. It is disappointing, but not to the point of distraction.
Muliplayer is a mixed bag. I could find no way to view rooms before entering them, which prevented me from finding games with a decent ping. The matchmaker simply picks a room and sends you on your way. This led to some laggy, unplayable matches. When it did work, there was nothing broken about the multiplayer, just nothing very special, either. Most levels even have you parachuting in, just like for the single-player (which can lead to similarly embarrassing deaths).
In the end, your enjoyment will hinge on whether or not you have become tired of killing Nazis yet. Airborne is good mix of old and new, with a familiar, if a bit tired, enemy. With big-name AAA titles coming out later this year, playing Airborne was like spending time with an aging friend. I just didn’t know I missed it that much.
