Lately I’ve been playing the heck out of Medal of Honor: Vanguard by EA Games. MOH-V is the tenth installment in EA’s series of World War II first person shooter games, and I’ve been enjoying it immensely. You play Corporal Frank Keegan of the 82nd Airborne in MOH-V, and the game is a mix of emotion and skill as you cut around corners, firing brief half-second bursts as you pop your head above the walls long enough as to not get hit by snipers.

First things first, the bad stuff (in this editor’s humble opinion, of course…)
MOH-V has at times some pretty muttled graphics – I found this specifically on some of the long distance views, and in a lot of high contrast light situations. I need to qualify that statement with the fact that this happens on just a few occasions. Overall, the graphics are fine – and where I have complaints about a few scenes, I also have major praises for many of them. One sparkling example of this is in the last mission, with a sniper rifle weapon upgrade; when you place the rifle’s scope to your eye, the view is absolutely stunning and beautiful – as beautiful as a war-torn landscape could be, I suppose, but still crisp, clear, and full of graphic detail of the surroundings.

The other negative thing I have to report, again in my humble opinion, is the length of the game. It’s too short! For the amount of time that I blew through the game, I was ready to get in the car and go purchase the previous installments!

(the Damage Indicator shows you from which direction you were hit, and displays red)

Missions:
For Medal of Honor: Vanguard, you navigate through several missions that take you from beaches to warehouses, to trenches and row house fighting, nearly hand-to-hand at times (and that’s if you DON’T get a punch or rifle stock jab in – there are lots of opportunities). The Italian and German soldiers are tough in all levels of difficulty, and the game is exciting.

The missions are:
Operation Husky, the attack on Sicily
Operation Neptune, the attack on Normandy
Operation Market Garden, fighting in Holland behind enemy lines
Operation Varsity, which was the largest and most successful campaign in history

Multiplayer
There is a multiplayer component to this game as well – play through several types of games, including

• Deathmatch
• Team Deathmatch
• Capture the Flag
• King of the Hill
• Scavenger Hunt

(the X means that is an Allied soldier! Don’t shoot!)

Weapons
Medal of Honor: Vanguard has a large selection of weapons to master. The German MP40 submachine gun and Thompson submachine guns; single shot K98, Enfield, and M1 Garand rifles; the STG 44 and BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle); stick and pineapple Frag Grenades; the Colt 45 pistol, and the very excellent and powerful M9 bazooka. You can also man an MG 42 machine gun nest, which is awesome in firepower, but very difficult to aim. Think quantity and not quality with these.

Movement
Moving around with the wiimote and nunchuck is actually quite intuitive, despite the reviews that other sites have given this trait. Your weapon is trained (pointed) with the wiimote, and the joystick on the nunchuck moves you around. Top button on the wiimote makes you stand up and jump, and the bottom button has two levels of lower maneuvring – squatting and crawling. One of the best features of MOH-V is the ability to crawl around a wall, sneak your head out, and fire. Pressing A on the wiimote makes your character stop moving and use the iron sights on weapons. This is how the accuracy component comes into play.

Medal of Honor: Vanguard is well worth picking up. It has very exciting and grabbing action – you’ll be breathing quietly in your own living room trying not to let the enemy know you’re waiting outside the door.

Check out Medal of Honor: Vanguard at Amazon.

Need a Wii-Mote?

Need a Nunchuck?