Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault

Here's my brief review of a game which has seemingly taken up a lot of my time lately: Electronic Arts' Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault.

This has got to be the best World War II FPS that I ever played. That's no small feat, as all of the other World War II shooters I've played before are all pretty good games as well (Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Call of Duty). Mission goals are somewhat similar in scope (based on real World War II events, in this case, from Marine boot camp, to Pearl Harbor, to various Pacific islands on the way to Japan) but gameplay is a bit different, and a whole lot more realistic than in previous games. It's squad based, and you can issue basic commands to your squad (such as go forward, go back, gather up, fire). Your squadmates also happen to be intelligent enough that you don't have to micromanage them. As with real soldiers, they know what to do. Unlike other shooters were you mainly recover health points by picking up medical supplies, for the most part you recover health via your squad medic who you yell out to when your're close to death. Of course, his supply of bandages isn't infinite, so you have to make sure not to waste them. Your squadmates can get hit as well, and when they do, you have to wait until your medic gets to them, or, if you're feeling pretty heroic, you charge out to them, and carry them to safety.

As with other shooters, you have a wide assortment of weapons to choose from, though you can only carry two at a time. These range from various standard issue American weapons for the period, like the M1 Garand, the Thompson submachine gun, and the .45 caliber pistol, to Japanese weapons like Arisaka rifles and Nambu pistols. There are also fixed weapons like machine guns, mortars, howitzers and anti-aircraft guns you can fire as well. Weapon use is actually more accurate than in previous games, as loading a discharged firearm (especially shotguns, revolvers and bolt-action rifles) takes a bit slower, and weapon effectiveness is noticeably reduced compared to other games. It typically takes more than one shot to down an enemy soldier, depending on where you hit him. A head shot may take him out immediately, but multiple hits may be required if you him anywhere else, or if you're using a lower powered weapon like a pistol. As usual, there are also grenades and explosives at your disposal.

All in all, this is a very good game, well worth your purchase if you are into World War II shooters. Pretty realistic, with great graphics and sound. The effects are splendid, especially effects which take place whenever an explosion happens right next to you...your ears ring, the world seems to lose focus and everything is in black and white. And you can actually feel the tension during the gun battles, with dozens of Japanese soldiers firing at you, taunting you in Japanese, then charging straight at you with bayonets or swords...pretty heavy and realistic stuff. :-)

The system requirements aren't that heavy, (Windows XP or 2000, a 1.5 GHz processor, 512 MB RAM, optical drive, sound) but you do need a DirectX 8.1 or higher compatible video card, meaning at least an NVIDIA GeForce 3 or an ATI Radeon 8500. The NVIDIA Geforce MX series is not supported. Well, it's probably a good time now as any to upgrade the video card, don't you think? :-) The only complaint I have is the atrocious loading times. I'm using two 7,200 RPM drives in a RAID-0 array, and yet the loading times are excrutiatingly slow. I can only imagine how slow it would load on a system with a single drive.

But don't let that discourage you. It is an awesome game. And it teaches you at least some history about World War II in the Pacific. You even get to visit the Philippines. Now who said video games aren't educational? :-)