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Genre: First-Person Shooter
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: EA LA
Release Date: November 13, 2007
 You
just can't escape WWII games. PCs, consoles and now Sony's PSP have been
added to the genre's beachheads; Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 brings
Hollywood-flavored action adventure to the small screen. Getting used
to an FPS on the PSP for the first time will probably be the least of
your worries with this title, especially if you find yourself online.
EA's Medal of Honor series has
had its ups and downs in the past few years, but it continues to plod
on in an eternal rendition of WWII, providing fans with an increasingly
imaginative take on history in an effort to keep them from feeling too
much of a sense of déjà vu. In this case, the story revolves
around you as a member of the top-secret OSS, the precursor to today's
CIA, as you head into the field in order to get behind enemy lines and
do a little creative intelligence gathering and sabotage to keep the Third
Reich from developing a new uberweapon. In some ways, this was pretty
much the same premise behind MOH: European Assault,
only with different levels, but players who've beaten the Wehrmacht in
other similar WWII shooters will take all of this in stride.
Much of the soundwork within Heroes 2
is nicely executed; plenty of explosive effects, sharp voice acting in
the mission briefings between each mission, and ambient explosive rumbles
from distant battlefields bring the decent visuals to life, although it's
short on the music. Granted, this is a PSP game so I'm not expecting it
to sport the same kind of graphics that I'd seen with Airborne,
but much of it delivers enough detail across its diverse backdrops to
keep you interested in what might be around the next corner. From the
frontlines on the beaches to a monastery teeming with Wehrmacht fanatics,
there's quite a bit here to explore, even though some of the bland textures
blur some of the details. Don't expect much variety from the Wehrmacht's
clone soldiers, either, although the animation work is pretty good. It
does get a little glitchy in places, with soldiers occasionally twisting
themselves into odd angles as they fire from behind cover.
This is the first FPS that I've played on a PSP,
and I was surprised at how the clunky feel of the controls didn't completely
sabotage the experience. There are different control schemes that you
can use to get around, and I had started out with the default Commando
setting, which worked out best for me once I was done tweaking the sensitivity
levels. In a reversal of the Commando control scheme, the Elite setting
uses the analog nub to look around while the face buttons control movement.
Either setting works well enough, but if you're used to having twin analog
sticks or a mouse and keyboard, neither setting will feel as natural.
Much of the formulaic action in Heroes
2 involves shooting just about everything that moves and occasionally
setting explosives or using artillery to blow up objectives that the dense
AI will do its best to defend. The AI's one-track playbook also makes
it difficult to not suspect that Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz (from
television series "Hogan's Heroes") are secretly giving the
orders. Foes pop up and down while hiding behind cover that they almost
never leave, they kneel and stay in the open to take potshots at you when
you come around a corner, and they run back and forth between the same
two spots as if they were in a five-yard relay race. Given how generous
the controls are, though, this might be another concession to make up
for how limited the PSP's controls can often feel.
Heroes 2 gives the player a lot of leeway
in aiming at the enemy. The aiming reticle is rather large so your shots
can obliterate the bad guys before they know what hit them. Even without
the aiming assistance enabled, you don't need to be as accurate as in
other FPS titles; you can still use iron sights to aim down the barrel
of your favorite weapon to practice your headshots. Grenade-tossing is
also made easy; they're so powerful that merely being close is good enough,
since a toss will usually clear the way.
All of this can make the title extremely predictable
but no less dangerous, thanks to the blind fusillade with which it often
loves to pray and spray. Its clown-car approach to spawns also turns some
of the later battles into repetitive slogs when you aim at the same, predictable
spots over and over again in a futile attempt to stem the tide until you
charge ahead. Granted, many shooters are guilty of this, but Heroes
2 makes it so obvious that the only thing missing is the actual
car. There's also no jumping in the game, and the levels are rife with
plenty of invisible "barriers" that keep you from going too
far off the linear path that you're supposed to be following. Forget about
leaping over crates, barrels, knee-high ledges or sandbags. For whatever
reason, boot camp left out that part from their obstacle course.
Working for the top-secret OSS could have provided
a lot of opportunities in order to put in a twist on the action; you could
have rubbed elbows with the local resistance in Paris, performed wetwork
from the shadows behind enemy lines, or disguised yourself as a Wehrmacht
or SS officer in order to blow up an ammo dump. Instead, as in Medal
of Honor: European Assault, you're pretty much the 1940s version
of Rambo as you wage a one-man war against the Third Reich. You'll occasionally
have fellow soldiers with you, but don't expect them to watch your back,
as they're more likely to stand there as you get perforated.
Given that you'll be working behind enemy lines,
it's usually a good idea to snag a local toy to make things easier as
you fight through the Wehrmacht's best, and Heroes 2
does a somewhat decent job in keeping you stocked with ammo and giving
you the tools you need to succeed. You'll also see soldiers drop their
weapons on the ground when they go down, only to grasp air when you run
over to gather up the ammo when it disappears with the body. If you're
not quick on your feet, they'll vanish before your eyes, making it feel
as if you might have stepped into an episode of "The Twilight Zone."
You can sometimes snag early replacements when random enemy soldiers drop
their munitions, but don't be surprised when most toys simply fade into
the ether.
The save point system that marks your progress
can't decide whether to gleefully annoy you or give you a fighting chance.
To avoid repetition in some missions, it judiciously updates to keep you
from repeating harrowing firefights in large areas. In other missions,
however, you might lather, rinse and repeat the same close shaves several
times; in one instance, you have to get through a minefield covered by
soldiers and then fight through a base at the other end until the game
finally decides to save your progress. In these instances, Heroes
2 can revive the old-school charm of older arcade titles, but it
still doesn't excuse how flawed it can often feel to players. It's difficult
to appreciate having to repeat the same by-the-numbers slog simply to
nail the one soldier who had rained on your parade.
The main campaign in Heroes 2
is spread across seven areas, and depending on what difficulty level you
choose, it can last from a single sitting to several hours once you've
gotten used to the controls. There are optional secondary objectives that
you can discover along the way to unlock in-game achievements, but once
you've won the war, there's not much to merit heading back into the single-player
segment.
Multiplayer mode can allow up to 32 wireless players
duke it out on EA's service across deathmatch, team deathmatch and capture
the flag across maps straight out of the single-player campaign. Ad hoc
connections allow up seven players to duke it out over their PSP Wi-Fi
connections. Setting up the connection to EA's service through a wireless
hotspot or your own router is easy enough to do, and the manual provides
step-by-step instructions on how to do this, although less technical players
may want some help if they're not comfortable with changing their settings.
After setting up a free account, you'll be launched into a lobby where
you'll be able to view games, the number of players in each one and the
connection quality. On the whole, online performance was relatively smooth
without much lag, and it's a nice option to have when you've finished
up with the main campaign.
Playing an FPS on the PSP for the first time was
a mix of fun action and occasional frustration, not only because of the
controls, but because Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 offers
a remarkably basic experience that hearkens back to the early days of
shooters. In some ways, it can still be a fun concept to wrap your trigger
finger around when you don't want to concern yourself with squad controls
or complicated rescue attempts. Medal of Honor vets
who have followed the series, along with experienced FPS fans, will find
the off- and online action to be simply more of the same, only in a smaller
package and with a few more limitations. Heroes 2 is
a relatively decent shooter for the PSP; it manages to deliver on the
action and presentation, but it won't rewrite history.
Score: 6.7/10
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