|
|
|
Medal of Honor Heroes 2, Wii
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
Medal of Honor Heroes 2, Wii
I think it was around the time that Saving Private Ryan was released to mass appeal and critical praise that game developers turned their eyes on the World War II genre. Sure, Nazi blasting games like Wolfenstein 3-D on the PC had been around a while, but since the late ‘90s, you could count on a bevy of WWII shooters each year, and the Medal of Honor series has been one of the most long running and productive. Medal of Honor first appeared last year on the Wii with Vanguard, a game the received mediocre reviews on all systems but Nintendo’s, where it did even worse and was lambasted as a rushed port with awful controls. That said, many Wii owners might be cautious to pick up Heroes 2 – or might even be sick of the genre altogether – but the game does a lot for the future of Wii games by nailing the controls. One of my biggest problems with Wii games has been that not many developers outside of Nintendo have fully utilized the Wii’s motion controls, resulting in the games feeling like dumbed-down, recycled material. While Heroes 2 doesn’t wow in the plot or gameplay departments – it’s more of the same missions, equipment, and story – the controls are what makes it fun. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, showed that a first-person shooter could really work well on the Wii, and Heroes 2 takes that foundation on builds on it. Using the Wii remote to aim your weaponry and the accompanying nunchuck for movement, the controls feel intuitive, and you’ll get to do fun things like flick the remote to pump your shotgun and make overhand throwing motions to lob grenades into enemy machinegun nests. There's also a control scheme that supports the recently released Wii Zapper, but I didn’t play with one. The game also supports online play through the console’s built in wi-fi, and that works well, too, allowing you to take on up 31 of your friends in deathmatch and capture the flag modes. A veteran of a lot of PC-based multiplayer games, it took me a while to get used to the tv and not being directly in front of the screen. After about five minutes, though, I was scoring some points. And if you get bored with the single-player and multi-player modes, you can tackle a lot of the game’s levels in arcade mode, an on-rails shooter reminiscent of the old arcade shoot-em-ups. On the downside, the games sports some of the worst artificial intelligence ever seen in first-person shooter. Wave after wave of enemy soldier will sometimes completely ignore you, refuse to take cover, or run straight into your midst. Same goes for your squad mates, who seem quite adept at shooting up walls and closed doors for no reason. Overall, the game is pretty fun. It’s nice to see that EA did actually put some work into making this an actual Wii game, which hasn’t been happening enough in the console’s year of existence.
- Activism
- Arts
- Arts Events
- Books
- Dance
- First Person Fest
- Last Chance
- Museum
- On the Fringe
- Philly Artists
- The Curator
- Theater
- Visual Art
- Arts News
- Artist Profile
- Arts Preview
- Street Art
- Been There, Done That
- Big Ups
- Comedy
- LOL With It
- Stand-up
- Critical Mass
- DVD
- Events
- Friday Fill-in
- Ice Cubes
- In Memoriam
- Interview
- Just Do It
- Just Opened
- Kaleidoscopic
- LGBTQ
- Art Phag
- Mailbag
- Movies
- Film Fest
- Movie Review
- On set
- Scenester
- screening
- trailer!
- Music
- 10 Track Mind
- Album
- Album Review
- Concert Review
- DJs
- Local Support
- Now Hear This
- One Track Mind
- Philly Bands
- Show
- Somebody Else Was There
- Song
- The Showdown
- concert photos
- jazz
- DJ Nights Blogged
- Night Watch
- Now See This
- Poetic License
- Printed Matter
- Radio
- Shopping
- Coveted
- Fashion
- What We Heart
- TV
- 24
- Idol Hands
- Mad Men
- ProjRun
- True Blood
- Useless Lost Recaps
- Couch Potato
- Shore Trash
- Turned ONN
- TopMod
- Video Games
- Free Online Game
- PSP
- PlayStation 2
- The 1-Upper
- Wii
- Web Junk
- CAGE MATCH
- Free Online Toy
- Weekend Omnibus
- Win
