Medal of Honor Vanguard

At the vanguard of the Wii's FPS explosion?

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Before I begin, this game is unarguably going to be compared with Call of Duty 3, currently the Wii's only other World War II based first-person shoot 'em up. That almost goes without saying and was almost certainly the first thing gamers will think when they first see this title, so now that it's out of the way... onto the review.

WWII is almost by now considered an FPS sub-genre, given the sheer quantity of titles available with this particular conflict as their theme. Medal of Honour is a bit of a veteran in that respect, with many solid additions to its name. It's gained a relatively good pedigree over the years and deservedly so, as the series has never really faltered in its near-cinematic presentation and at the least very playable gameplay. Vanguard marks this series' first iteration on the Nintendo Wii and generally continues the overall quality of its predecessors on a console where the FPS genre is set to be heavily represented.

If we're doing Call of Duty 3 comparisons, graphically, Vanguard comes out on top. As in the past, MoH: Vanguard is beautifully presented visually, with smooth, flowing cut-scenes and respectable in-game graphics. Its linear levels are defined well, with a rustic, almost historical sheen. Something about the texture shades used give a decent impression of the time period, coupling with intelligent level modelling to produce a factually accurate representation of buildings and scenery. This creates a fitting backdrop for the again well defined character models, meaning you'll rarely lose sight of who you're supposed to be shooting at (which is handy, considering the default controls, but more on that later). Enemies have been given realistic animations, particularly when dying, which proves highly satisfying when you send a random Nazi flying through an open window onto the cobbles. There's a noticeable level of attention to detail apparent through small experiences like this, faithfully applied to things such as your weaponry and other important equipment; the ripples of the water around your beach landing, or even simply the grain of the wooden crate you're hiding behind.

Despite this (and rather unfortunately) the graphical improvements in the Wii version over its PlayStation 2 counterpart are somewhat disappointing. In this respect, Vanguard seems to subscribe to the growing trend of Wii ports that are just that; blow-for-blow ports with minor touches and shoehorned controls. Still, no matter how small, the improvements are there, pushing the Wii version above that of the PS2 to create the comparatively beautiful presentation I outlined and this is at least some small consolation.

The audio is also on an almost cinematic level, with a full score accompanying the dramatic cut-scenes and more action packed in-game moments. Enemies let out satisfying screams as they fly through the aforementioned windows, guns fire with subtly different shots, the speech is thankfully synchronised to the character models and on this front, everything is present and correct (obligatory army-esque reference). This is vital, as losing audio presentation would've taken away the movie-like effect the developers were obviously aiming for. It's good to see that the level of detail paid to the graphics has carried over to the audio sections.

Unlike the controls. Going back to Call of Duty, the controls in CoD3 were tight and responsive, tweaked to a level where the player and subsequently the camera would swoop at seemingly just the right level of sensitivity. In Vanguard, this is sadly not the case. It's important to remember that you can adjust this, but from the default, camera controls and movement are jerky and twitchy, taking away from the precision that a Wii remote really ought to provide in an FPS.

Don't get me wrong; Vanguard has some fantastic ideas tucked up its sleeve, like a refined zooming method, a great relief after not only Call of Duty but most Wii FPS' clunky efforts (I'm looking at you, Red Steel). Throwing grenades has been satisfyingly taken away from the nunchuck and handed to the Wii remote in a seemingly obvious move that so many other developers have overlooked completely. There's also the simple yet rather excellent ability to peak tentatively around corners and over obstacles whilst zoomed in, giving you back that superb level of precision taken away by the normal camera. Then there's the paratrooping sections, where you get to control the speed and direction of your slowly descending self in a parachute, via tactful tilting of the Wii remote and nunchuck. This is all explained through simple on-screen tutorials as and when you need them, which is a nice and intuitive move on the developer's part.

The problem is that for every clever idea Vanguard implements, the basics it gets not wrong but just not quite right subtract tenfold. Paradoxically, sometimes the controls will feel sloppy and wholly unresponsive, like operating a melee attack (Stabbing forward with the Wii remote) whilst others responds with a tight twitch that sends the camera into a dizzying spin (half turns with a left-flick of the nunchuck).

The controls are not unplayable and, as I said, are customisable through the options menu, but they don't seem to have been given as much care as the presentation aspects of the game. Too much of the old style-over-substance approach here, which unfortunately carries over into the overall level structure and fundamental drive of the single player mode.

For single player, the story might as well not exist. You know it by now anyway; you're liberating an area of the world from the evil Nazi Germans, because you're the old fashioned gung-ho type of elite soldier that's got just enough skill to get the job done. The actual story is something closer to being gunned down over Europe, but it soon degrades into the usual good-vs-evil style of the World War II setting, something that I suppose is not exactly a negative. It is, again, factually accurate; A member of the 82nd Airborne Division really could have been shot down over Europe and ultimately the plot is not a driving device. It's there to give you an excuse to shoot people, which it does rather well and which you'll get the chance to do a fair bit of.

There are some intelligent moments in the general gameplay of Vanguard too, as you plough through each of the ten missions usually with a team of AI controlled allies. They're actually quite smart, moving to blatantly pre-set points of cover but importantly knowing how to utilise them. A couple of the missions have multiple paths that you can choose, although you'll always be strongly pushed towards a single, linear track through the level. The difficulty curve also seems completely out of whack, with the early missions being just too easy to show any kind of dynamic progression before throwing up a serious controller-wrenching challenge of a final level, completely out of nowhere. However, some might be drawn to this surprising leap in difficulty, if only for the point of variety.

Each mission has medals that can be achieved (hence the title) to give the game some replayability, but obviously EA have also pinned a fair bit of this on the multiplayer modes. There are a few, but they consist of a basic deathmatch, three variants of capture the flag and nothing else. The deathmatch is well executed, with each of the half-dozen or so arenas feeling suitably tight and claustrophobic for the frantic killing action sorely lacking from the single player game, but the latter three are seriously lacking. It wouldn't be so bad if the various modes felt at least marginally different from each other, but unless you and up to three of your friends (the Wii has no online play, of course) are seriously into capture the flag, you won't find enough variety in this arena to keep your mates from asking you to put 'that sports game' on again after about half an hour.

It might seem from my review that I've been overly critical of Vanguard's bad points. This is because the game's good points are fantastic in places but for the most part simply decent, as they've always been. Medal of Honour: Vanguard is not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. It would even be unfair to label it as average, as most aspects are just above and the Wii version is very much superior to its PS2 equivalent. Once you've tweaked the controls, you'll find a solid, well-presented game waiting for you.

So the final question. Is it better than Call of Duty 3? From my point of view, no. Simply because of its style-over-substance approach, inherent in the beautiful presentation overlaying slightly above average gameplay and not-quite-right controls. But, and here's where I roll out my reviewers cliche handbook, fans of the genre looking for more really will enjoy the game.

70%

By Zayne Finch