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Medal of Honor: Airborne

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Medal of Honor: Airborne
Developer(s)EALA
Publisher(s)Electronic Arts
Producer(s)Patrick Gilmore
Composer(s)Michael Giacchino
EngineUnreal Engine 3
Platform(s)PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
ReleasePC & Xbox 360:
NA September 4, 2007 (2007-09-04)
ASIA September 5, 2007
AUS September 6, 2007 (2007-09-06)
EU September 7, 2007 (2007-09-07)
PlayStation 3:
NA November 21, 2007
EU November, 2007
ASIA TBA
AUS TBA
Genre(s)First-person shooter
Mode(s)Single player, multiplayer

Medal of Honor: Airborne is a World War II first-person shooter computer game and the 11th installment of the Medal of Honor series. It was developed by EA Los Angeles and was released worldwide on the PC and Xbox 360 in early September 2007.[1] A PlayStation 3 version was released late November 2007.[2] The game takes place in the European theater of World War II, and is the first in the series to focus on paratrooper activities.

In the single-player mode, the player takes on the role of PFC Boyd Travers, a paratrooper in the US 82nd Airborne Division.[3] Missions include various insertions into Italy, northern France, the Netherlands and Germany, each one beginning with a jump behind enemy lines, and success requiring completion of given objectives. Airborne also features a multiplayer mode available for online play, where users have the choice of fighting for the Allies and parachuting down to the battlefield, or fighting for the Axis and starting on the ground, defending the position from enemy paratroopers.

The game uses a heavily-modified Unreal Engine 3.[4] Airborne employs a nonlinear gameplay style whereby the player can start the game anywhere in the map by directing where they land, as opposed to previous linear FPS games where the start point and direction is already laid out, such as Allied Assault.[5]

Story

In Airborne, the player assumes the role of Private First Class Boyd Travers, a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, and later the 17th Airborne Division, of the United States Army during World War II.[3] Travers's insertion is into major engagements in Italy, northern France, the Netherlands and Germany.

File:MOHA plane.png
Each mission begins with a jump from a C-47 plane

The game begins in 1943 with a drop into a small walled village as part of Operation Husky, the costly Allied invasion of Sicily. It is followed by Operation Avalanche, the invasion of mainland Italy, where Travers is inserted into an operation near the Greek ruins of Paestum. These ruins were used by the Axis as a staging area to counterattack the advancing Allies from the beaches of Salerno. The 82nd Airborne is then airdropped into France during the morning hours of June 6, 1944 as part of Operation Neptune. During this, Travers is part of the paratrooper force dropped inland the night before the Normandy beach invasion to clear the infantry's path into France. The player is able to see the Utah Beach landings of Operation Overlord while in the air.[6] Travers then drops into the Netherlands as part of Operation Market Garden, General Montgomery's failed plan to secure routes through Holland enabling a push into Germany. Largely featured is the partly destroyed city of Nijmegen and the attempt to secure the bridge over the Waal River for the Allies.[6] The game's finale takes place during Operation Varsity, which sees Travers parachuting alongside 30,000 soldiers into Germany in the single largest military airdrop in history. A limited training mission is available at the beginning of the game, which takes place in Tunisia, during Operation Torch.[7]

Gameplay

The main gameplay element, which is introduced in Airborne, is the paratroop jump. At the start of each mission, the player begins in a C-47 along with fellow soldiers preparing to drop. The team then jumps out of the plane and parachutes down to the ground, marking the beginning of the mission.[4] During the drop the player is able to freely control where in the field of battle they land; pre-determined drop zones are marked with a green flare, where the player will find their allies and supplies, however they can also choose to land elsewhere, which affects the way the game is played. For example, the player could land near the enemy stronghold and come up against heavy opposing firepower, or land on the rooftops with a sniper rifle and choose a stealthy approach to the mission. This free-roaming experience based on unlimited choice of landing spots offers infinite ways of gameplay, ensuring no two matches are alike. For Playstation 3, the SIXAXIS controller can be used to also determine which way the player leans, being accomplished by tilting the controller forward or backward.[4] Additionally, unlike previous scripted first-person shooters, the missions in Airborne have no specific start or end point. As the player can land anywhere in the map, beginning the mission where they choose, they can complete the given objectives in any order they wish.[4] The rate at which players become ready for battle depends on their skill at hitting the ground; a poor landing results in notification of a "botched landing", with the player having to spare a few seconds to regain composure. In addition to this, players can instantly kill an enemy soldier if they land on top of them.[8]

File:MOHA drop.png
The first and most critical part of the mission, the jump. Players can choose where in the map they land by steering their parachute, a feature unique to Airborne.

Airborne uses a health regeneration system similar to one used in Pariah where the health status bar is split into four quarters. If a whole quarter of health is lost, a health pack is needed to replenish it, although if the quarter is not entirely lost it will slowly refill if the player finds cover and rests for a few seconds.[9] The game also has an unlimited sprinting ability where the player can speed up, however they will not be able to shoot while sprinting. Like other more recent FPS games, Airborne makes use of iron sights, where the player can improve their accuracy by looking down the sights of the weapon. The game's crosshair is dynamic where it will grow larger while the player is running, indicating that firing is less accurate while on the move.[8]

Weapons

A wide range of weapons is available in Airborne, such as the Thompson submachine gun and the Karabiner 98k rifle, which have defined previous Medal of Honor titles.[10] Grenades can be kicked away, and if one explodes too close, the player experiences blurred vision and shock effects.[9] Players are able to carry two primary weapons, a side-arm and 16 grenades (8 frag, 8 stick grenades).

Airborne uses a weapon upgrade system, whereby the player is awarded with add-ons to their selected weapon as they become proficient with it. This feature is based on the idea that not every weapon in World War II was the same as every other one, soldiers had a wide variety of field modifications and upgrades that they could apply to them. Every weapon in the game can achieve three upgrades e.g. the Thompson SMG evolves to resemble the infamous 1920's gangster weapon of choice "The Tommy Gun" after the addition of a forward pistol grip (for stability), a "Cutts Compensator" to divert the muzzle gas upwards (eliminating muzzle rise during rapid fire) and a drum magazine, increasing ammo holding capacity from 30 to 50.[11][12] Also less well known weapons are available as upgrades, such as the rifle grenade. A notification appears each time a headshot is performed, the player gains a number of kills in rapid succession, or performs a melee kill, all of which earns the player reward points.[9] Even if the player drops their weapon, any others they pick up of the same type retain the upgrades.

Multiplayer

Airborne features a multiplayer mode for online play. Users can play as either the Allies or the Axis on six multiplayer maps, three of which have been adapted from the single player aspect of the game: Operation Husky, Operation Avalanche, and Operation Neptune. The remaining three maps are all adaptations of multiplayer maps from a previous Medal of Honor title, Allied Assault. While the basic design and layout of the maps are the same, they have been decreased in size, to further balance the two teams. These maps are Destroyed Village, Remagen and The Hunt.[10]

Currently there are three gamemodes in Airborne. The first is "airborne deathmatch" where the Axis must defend against the Allies who are dropping in from the sky. The second is "team deathmatch", in which the Allies spawn on the ground instead of jumping from a C-47. In both teammatch modes, the side that gains the most kills after a specified time or frag limit wins. The third gametype is an objective-based mode where players must capture three neutral flags, similar to the main gamemode of Battlefield 2. The middle flag requires two soldiers to be near it, in order to capture it.[13] The winning team is the one who manages to control the most flags the longest, after a set period of time. There has been some criticism in the MOH community for the lack of a classic non-respawning "objective" gametype, of which many clans and competitive ladders of Allied Assault are based around.[14] While EA has not commented specifically on this gametype, it has been said that all concerns within the community are noticed and those issues will be addressed with future patches.[15]

Registration of an EA account is required in order to play online.[16] Server admins will have the ability to set their servers as ranked or unranked in the future, however only unranked is currently available.[17] The maximum number of players per server is 12 for the Xbox 360 and for PC listen servers, for dedicated servers the number is expected to be much higher, however has not yet been determined.[18] More maps and gametypes have been slated for addition via downloadable content, although a date is unknown.[18]

In an attempt to curb cheating in the multiplayer mode of the game, EA has included Punkbuster with Airborne, and said that they were investigating providing hooks for DMW as well.[10]

Technical

Development

Development of Airborne started in late 2004[19] when the game designers wanted a new game that would "really revolutionize the Medal of Honor scene".[20] The idea of a paratrooper-based gameplay came up and as such a free-roaming environment was needed, which became the key focus of the game. Each mission starts with a jump and the developers wanted to make the experience as nonlinear as possible, with no starting points and as such the scenario unfolding in a different way each time, as opposed to previous World War II FPS games where there is a set starting and end point.[11]

The development team had their own historical advisor, who is a leading expert on the Airborne forces and weapons of World War II, ensuring historical accuracy and authenticity.[11] Each audio sound in the game was recorded from hundreds of real WWII-era artifacts, including real weapons, tanks, items, and one of the last remaining airworthy C-47s in the world.[21] The audio element of Airborne is immensely detailed, even going as far as recording two sets of sounds of boots stepping across different surfaces, one for American boots and another for German boots.[22]

Allies about to advance on an Italian position in Operation Husky

Airborne was developed in close consultation with the Medal of Honor community, via forums and summits.[23] Certain community leaders who run Airborne fan-sites were invited to a multiplayer preview summit in July 2007, and many problems were identified that would hamper the game's popularity within the MOH community, the most important ones being lack of a dedicated server and issues with mouse lag and low frame rate. As a result of the summit, the most critical issues were able to be fixed in time for the game's release, and the other issues in time for the first patch.[10]

A single-player demo was released on August 23, 2007, featuring Operation Husky.[24]

Game engine

Main article: Unreal engine

Airborne uses a heavily modified Unreal 3 engine. The game's core development was started with EA's acquired Renderware engine, but it made the switch to the Unreal 3 engine in early 2006 which delayed the game by over a year.[25] The engine was specifically designed for DirectX 9 and 10 PCs, PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, and supports many rendering techniques utilized within the graphics capabilities of Airborne, including HDRR, per-pixel lighting and dynamic shadows.

AI awareness

Because of the non-linear gameplay style of Airborne, the developers had to build an entirely new artificial intelligence system to deal with the many ways the player can interact with or approach the computer-controlled allied and enemy soldiers (NPCs), and for them to react to the situation accordingly.[26] With "Affordance A.I.", the characters have an awareness of enemy approach patterns, and also features of the terrain and urban infrastructure that provide a tactical advantage, such as cover, high ground and open doorways. This allows AI characters to take intelligent combat actions based on their surroundings, as opposed to the scripted movements of previous linear FPS games.[26]

Airborne uses two systems to guide the physical and emotional reactions of the AI characters to what is happening around them. "E-cap" (emotion capture) is used to create more human-like emotions on the characters' faces by blending textures to give the appearance of facial expressions, wrinkles and tension.[11] A "procedural awareness system" gives every character an emotional state such as defensive, nervous, hysterical, etc,[11] and also an awareness of their surroundings and other NPCs, for example an AI soldier that started to move forward would jump back for cover if an ally next to them was shot.[27]

Release and distribution

Airborne was first announced on May 8, 2006. The release date for all three gaming platforms was originally announced as August 28, 2007,[3] however the PlayStation 3 release was pushed back in July 2007 three months later to November, without any explanation from EA.[28] Later in the month the PC and Xbox 360 versions were also delayed, this time however by only a week to September 4, 2007, with the reason stated as "more time for modifications and improvements".[1]

Expansions and modifications

Patches

A version 1.1 patch was released by EA on October 5, 2007.[29] This patch enables players to join dedicated servers, as well as fixing various gameplay and multiplayer issues such as the damage dealt by anti-tank weapons such as the Panzerschreck. An update to this patch, version 1.1ds, was released on October 30, 2007, fixing several problems with dedicated server functionality.[30]

A second patch was released on December 13, 2007. The patch adds support for 24 players, edits the various maps and adds two new ones, and balances the multiplayer weapons, bringing the total size to 1.3GB.

Third-party mods

EA had expressed a desire to make the game extremely mod-friendly.[31] EA had said that an SDK/MDK would be released on their website soon after the game shipped, along with tools export/import models in various 3D editing programs.[32] However, such support was not forthcoming after release and there is little appetite in the MoH modding community to work on the game.[33] EA has now stated that the mod tools will not be released. [34]

Soundtrack

Main article: Medal of Honor: Airborne (soundtrack)

All the in-game musical scores and tracks on the Medal of Honor: Airborne soundtrack were composed by Michael Giacchino, who also composed scores for the previous Medal of Honor titles Underground, Allied Assault, and Frontline, including the main theme for the whole series.[35] The Airborne soundtrack has been said by Giacchino to be based on the Medal of Honor themes of the past, but "brings a dark uncertainty that communicates the ominous journey of the first US Airborne combat troops".[36]

Reception

Upon revewing the game after its release, IGN awarded Airborne an overall rating of 7.9/10, saying that "Airborne, while not perfect, is definitely the best game in the franchise to come along in quite a while".[37] GameSpot awarded the game 7.0/10, saying "the single-player campaign doesn't get cooking until the last two levels, but those two levels combined with solid multiplayer make it worth enlisting in Airborne."[38] Press Start Online stated that Airborne was "a Medal of Honor game that's not only good, it demonstrates a level of imagination and innovation that's becoming increasingly rare in the genre".[39] As of November 1, 2007, Airborne has received a GameRankings average of 78% for the PC version[40] and 75% for the Xbox 360 version.[41]

The reception from the Medal of Honor online community has not been as positive. There has been widespread criticism from gamers who feel that the development of the multiplayer aspect of Airborne was rushed, to the point of an unfinished game being released.[42] The game experiences connection issues, low frame rate, high CPU usage,[43] and many features the community expected of a 2007 first-person shooter were not included with the game, such as support for dedicated servers, LAN support, content downloading, in-game remote server administration capability (RCON), and support for more than 12 players.[44] Furthermore, the community has provided EA with an extensive list of bugs including instances of clipping, unresponsive controls and HUD design flaws.[44] There has been discontentment with perceived hypocrisy from EA, who stated during the game's development that issues addressed during the July 2007 multiplayer summit would be included, however this is not the case.[42] Some gamers feel that EA has not learnt from the dissatisfaction with the previous Medal of Honor title, Pacific Assault which also experienced issues with game playability.[45]

While many gamers are skeptical that EA will continue support for Airborne in the face of community discontent, some even as far as nicknaming the game "Stillborne",[46] the EA developers have maintained that they will fully support the game and continue to provide patches to address the community's concerns.[47]

According to The Escapist's Zero Punctuation, while Yahtzee took a couple of stabs at the United States and World War II, "the gameplay is repetitive, the animation is jerky, the AI is irritating, and the whole game is very brief."

References

  1. ^ a b "MOH: Airborne Release Date Pushed Back". Planet Medal of Honor. 2007-08-02. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ "Medal of Honor: Airborne Game Profile". IGN. 2007-08-07. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ a b c "MoH Airborne Announced!". EA Games. 2006-05-08. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ a b c d Shoemaker, Brad (2006-10-28). "Medal of Honor: Airborne First Look". GameSpot. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Grbavcic, Dejan (2002-02-08). "Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Review (PC)". ActionTrip. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ a b Miller, Jonathan (2007-05-16). "Medal of Honor: Airborne Interview". IGN. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ "Airborne Airdrops: Ask JPaq #6". EA Games. 2007-04-06. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ a b "Developer Walkthrough Part 1" (flash video). Gametrailers.com. 2007-08-02. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference pmohhandson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ a b c d "Medal Of Honor Airborne - Multiplayer Review". After-Hourz Gaming Network. 2007-08-01. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ a b c d e Cite error: The named reference dkinterview was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ "Multiplayer Objective Airborne Gameplay Trailer" (flash video). Gametrailers.com. 2007-08-02. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ "Multiplayer Objective Airborne Gameplay" (flash video). Gametrailers.com. 2007-08-02. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  14. ^ "EA Forums - objective/s&d ?????????". MOH Community. 2007-08-07. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  15. ^ "Regarding the concerns everyone has - Read this!". EA Games. 2007-08-07. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  16. ^ "Airborne Multi-Player Summit Preview". Worm's World. 2007-08-01. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. ^ Davis, Jerry (2007-08-01). "Total Airborne's Multiplayer Summit Reactions". Total Airborne. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  18. ^ a b "Preview: Medal of Honor: Airborne". Gamepro. 2007-08-06. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  19. ^ "Medal of Honor Airborne - but not on PC". Playfuls.com. 2005-06-16. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  20. ^ "E3 2007 Battlefield Interview with Rex Dickson" (flash video). Gametrailers.com. 2007-07-12. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  21. ^ "Airborne Airdrops: C-47 Audio Capture" (flash video). EA Games. 2007-03-27. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  22. ^ "Airborne Airdrops: Interview with Paul Lackey". EA Games. 2007-07-06. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  23. ^ "BlackHat's Official Airborne FAQ Thread". EA Games. 2007-04-23. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  24. ^ "Medal of Honor Airborne Demo". EA Games. 2007-08-15. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  25. ^ "Medal Of Honor, From Renderware To Unreal Engine". GameSetWatch. 2006-11-25. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  26. ^ a b "Executive Producer Interview". Xbox.com. 2007-07-20. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  27. ^ "Trailer Analysis - Part 4: Man down". FPS Game Forums. 2007-04-26. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  28. ^ "PS3 MOH: Airborne grounded until November". GameSpot. 2007-07-05. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  29. ^ "Dedicated Server and Patch 1.1 Released". EA Games. 2007-10-05. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  30. ^ "Dedicated Server Package Update Released!". EA Games. 2007-10-30. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  31. ^ "Airborne - The next big WWII FPS?". Gaming With Attitude. 2007-07-07. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  32. ^ "Medal of Honor Airborne - Summit Two". Total Medal of Honor Airborne. 2007-05-25. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  33. ^ "What Matt Pruitt has to say about the upcoming client patch". The Modding Theater. 2007-11-27. Retrieved 2007-12-12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  34. ^ No Mod Tools
  35. ^ "EA Announces Michael Giacchino as Lead Composer for MoHA". EA Games. 2007-07-03. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  36. ^ "Medal of Honor Airborne Score Available Now!". EA Games. 2007-07-31. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  37. ^ "Medal of Honor: Airborne Review". IGN. 2007-09-04. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  38. ^ "Medal of Honour: Airborne". Gamespot. 2007-09-05. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  39. ^ "Medal of Honor: Airborne". Press Start Online. 2007-09-22. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  40. ^ "Medal of Honor: Airborne - PC". GameRankings.com. Retrieved 2007-11-01.
  41. ^ "Medal of Honor: Airborne - X360". GameRankings.com. Retrieved 2007-11-01.
  42. ^ a b "EA Forums - Blackhat - please have Mr. Gilmore stop by and answer these questions". MOH Community. Retrieved 2007-11-01.
  43. ^ "I'm done with AirBorne..." MOH Community at Total Airborne. Retrieved 2007-11-01.
  44. ^ a b "The Airborne 1.2 fix list". MOH Community at Total Airborne. Retrieved 2007-11-01.
  45. ^ "IGN: Reader reviews for: Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault". IGN. Retrieved 2007-11-01.
  46. ^ "Moh:Airborne a Dead Stick". V4V.us. 2009-10-09. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  47. ^ "Blog from Patrick Gilmore". EA. 2009-10-30. Retrieved 2007-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Fixed By Ryanh

http://www.ea.com/moh/airborne/index.jsp


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