One step forward, one step back.
by AC - permalink
I saw a copy of Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault sitting on a retail shelf for twenty bucks the other day, so I grabbed it. I also saw the Medal of Honor War Chest, which I thought was out of print, for thirty, but I passed. I might have been wrong about that. The War Chest has MoH: Allied Assault, which I already have, plus its two expansion packs, one of which I know is supposed to be really good, and I do want it. Just not for thirty dollars.
Anyway, back to MoH: Pacific Assault. I've been meaning to get this for a while, because Allied Assault is one of my favorite shooters, and I knew from reviews that I trust that it's pretty good, if not great, and makes some interesting and significant gameplay changes to shift more towards the realism side, and that it pushes the Quake III engine much further. After playing the game roughly halfway through, I agree with all that. But I do have some beefs.
First, though, the good stuff. The graphics really are pretty damn nice. I've never seen the Quake III engine, which was already five years old when this game was released two years ago, pushed this far. It actually looks a lot like Far Cry. Not because of the jungle settings so much, but for texture detail, especially in character models and the little detail objects. Textures look so good that at times they fool you into thinking they're bump-mapped and have specular lighting. It looks nothing like Allied Assault or Call of Duty. Pacific Assault is a breakthrough in terms of up-close detail for the Q3 engine, while CoD's expansion United Offensive created the same sense of immersion with massive battle sequences. Both deliver framerates that seem almost unnaturally high on modern hardware considering how good the games look. But that's the genius of the Q3 engine, isn't it?
Which makes me wonder why Pacific Assault doesn't support anti-aliasing out of the box. I couldn't even force it to work via Catalyst, like you can do with older games like Quake III or Half-Life, which were released before AA was a major feature. That means AA is intentionally disabled in Pacific Assault. I assume that's for performance reasons, but still, what the hell? It's the only game I own that won't let you use anti-aliasing. Turns out I'll have to download more than 220MB worth of patches to even have the option of enabling AA at any level, and even then the only options are 1X, 2X, and 16X. Since I generally use 4X and 6X, this is less than helpful. Thanks, EA.
Anyway, Pacific Assault's presentation, the game's "feel," is all nice and polished. One of my favorite little things is the wartime radio station that plays in the background of the main menu mini-map. The cut-scenes are pretty nicely done (better than Far Cry's, anyway), but are a little long and are basically just exposition for a plot that doesn't really exist. They let you get to know the game's main characters - your squad - who stick with you throughout the game. It's a nice touch to elaborate more on persistant squad members, who seem to have their own AI tendencies during a firefight. One of the things I liked about Call of Duty and United Offensive was how a number of missions kept you with the same NPC's, and how they appeared in that game's various episodes (US, British, and Russian). Pacific Assault takes that aspect about as far as I've seen in this type of shooter.
It ain't all ham and jam, however. In Allied Assault and Call of Duty, you can take down enemy soldiers pretty easily with just about any weapon, even the pistols, and one rifle shot is almost always enough. This keeps those games moving along nicely, and it's really satisfying to snapshot a bunch of guys in a row. But in Pacific Assault, it takes way too much to kill the bad guys. Submachine guns like the tommy are so ineffective that even using aim-down-the-sight, which Allied Assault didn't have, doesn't work unless you're less than ten feet away. That makes those weapons pretty much useless, because you're constantly running into situations where you're faced with a dozen or more enemy grunts, spread out behind cover and having no trouble at all hitting you with whatever weapons they may be holding - even pistols. The rifles aren't much more useful. Landing a headshot with a sniper rifle won't take down a guy wearing a helmet. That's just wrong. Is this a game or a training manual for SWAT teams?
It's this balance between realism and, well, fun, that Pacific Assault doesn't get quite right. If you get wounded, there are very, very few medpacks to pick up. Instead you have to call your medic, which you can only do so many times. And he might be busy patching up one of your squadmates, leaving you to find cover before he can help you. Even when he's coming, you might have to cover him from enemy fire. This is good stuff, but adding enemies that are almost unkillable really slows down the game and requires frequent saves and loads.
And that's another issue. Even quickloads take a long, long time. On a fast PC by today's standards, waiting so long for a two-year-old game to load gets irritating real fast. Even starting the game takes too much time, as you're forced to sit through little ads for EA Games, THX, and Intel, then spend a few more seconds reading the game's ESRB rating, and then the main menu has to load.
Pacific Assault does have its moments, though. Again, I haven't finished it yet, but so far it's the less conventional missions I've had the most fun with. Making your way through the listing and burning USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor, carrying wounded soldiers to safety - that's good times. Following the previous Medal of Honor games, you earn medals as you complete the game, but the "hidden objective" medals, like finding that captured airman in Lighting the Torch in Allied Assault, are scattered throughout every mission in Pacific Assault, and are harder to find, adding to the replay value. But some of the missions just don't make you want to replay them. You'll know you're not playing Far Cry, despite the jungle environment, when you suddenly realize you're on a corridor-crawl, leading your team down a very tightly constricted path and running into a half-dozen enemy grunts every forty feet. In fact, you might think you're playing Doom 3 in that respect - not good times.
So Pacific Assault is hit-or-miss for me, at least so far. For $20, I'd say it's probably worth it. On a technical level, it's much more impressive than Allied Assault, and on par, for different reasons, with CoD: United Offensive. But from what I've seen, it's just not as much fun.
by AC - permalink
I saw a copy of Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault sitting on a retail shelf for twenty bucks the other day, so I grabbed it. I also saw the Medal of Honor War Chest, which I thought was out of print, for thirty, but I passed. I might have been wrong about that. The War Chest has MoH: Allied Assault, which I already have, plus its two expansion packs, one of which I know is supposed to be really good, and I do want it. Just not for thirty dollars.
Anyway, back to MoH: Pacific Assault. I've been meaning to get this for a while, because Allied Assault is one of my favorite shooters, and I knew from reviews that I trust that it's pretty good, if not great, and makes some interesting and significant gameplay changes to shift more towards the realism side, and that it pushes the Quake III engine much further. After playing the game roughly halfway through, I agree with all that. But I do have some beefs.
First, though, the good stuff. The graphics really are pretty damn nice. I've never seen the Quake III engine, which was already five years old when this game was released two years ago, pushed this far. It actually looks a lot like Far Cry. Not because of the jungle settings so much, but for texture detail, especially in character models and the little detail objects. Textures look so good that at times they fool you into thinking they're bump-mapped and have specular lighting. It looks nothing like Allied Assault or Call of Duty. Pacific Assault is a breakthrough in terms of up-close detail for the Q3 engine, while CoD's expansion United Offensive created the same sense of immersion with massive battle sequences. Both deliver framerates that seem almost unnaturally high on modern hardware considering how good the games look. But that's the genius of the Q3 engine, isn't it?
Which makes me wonder why Pacific Assault doesn't support anti-aliasing out of the box. I couldn't even force it to work via Catalyst, like you can do with older games like Quake III or Half-Life, which were released before AA was a major feature. That means AA is intentionally disabled in Pacific Assault. I assume that's for performance reasons, but still, what the hell? It's the only game I own that won't let you use anti-aliasing. Turns out I'll have to download more than 220MB worth of patches to even have the option of enabling AA at any level, and even then the only options are 1X, 2X, and 16X. Since I generally use 4X and 6X, this is less than helpful. Thanks, EA.
Anyway, Pacific Assault's presentation, the game's "feel," is all nice and polished. One of my favorite little things is the wartime radio station that plays in the background of the main menu mini-map. The cut-scenes are pretty nicely done (better than Far Cry's, anyway), but are a little long and are basically just exposition for a plot that doesn't really exist. They let you get to know the game's main characters - your squad - who stick with you throughout the game. It's a nice touch to elaborate more on persistant squad members, who seem to have their own AI tendencies during a firefight. One of the things I liked about Call of Duty and United Offensive was how a number of missions kept you with the same NPC's, and how they appeared in that game's various episodes (US, British, and Russian). Pacific Assault takes that aspect about as far as I've seen in this type of shooter.
It ain't all ham and jam, however. In Allied Assault and Call of Duty, you can take down enemy soldiers pretty easily with just about any weapon, even the pistols, and one rifle shot is almost always enough. This keeps those games moving along nicely, and it's really satisfying to snapshot a bunch of guys in a row. But in Pacific Assault, it takes way too much to kill the bad guys. Submachine guns like the tommy are so ineffective that even using aim-down-the-sight, which Allied Assault didn't have, doesn't work unless you're less than ten feet away. That makes those weapons pretty much useless, because you're constantly running into situations where you're faced with a dozen or more enemy grunts, spread out behind cover and having no trouble at all hitting you with whatever weapons they may be holding - even pistols. The rifles aren't much more useful. Landing a headshot with a sniper rifle won't take down a guy wearing a helmet. That's just wrong. Is this a game or a training manual for SWAT teams?
It's this balance between realism and, well, fun, that Pacific Assault doesn't get quite right. If you get wounded, there are very, very few medpacks to pick up. Instead you have to call your medic, which you can only do so many times. And he might be busy patching up one of your squadmates, leaving you to find cover before he can help you. Even when he's coming, you might have to cover him from enemy fire. This is good stuff, but adding enemies that are almost unkillable really slows down the game and requires frequent saves and loads.
And that's another issue. Even quickloads take a long, long time. On a fast PC by today's standards, waiting so long for a two-year-old game to load gets irritating real fast. Even starting the game takes too much time, as you're forced to sit through little ads for EA Games, THX, and Intel, then spend a few more seconds reading the game's ESRB rating, and then the main menu has to load.
Pacific Assault does have its moments, though. Again, I haven't finished it yet, but so far it's the less conventional missions I've had the most fun with. Making your way through the listing and burning USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor, carrying wounded soldiers to safety - that's good times. Following the previous Medal of Honor games, you earn medals as you complete the game, but the "hidden objective" medals, like finding that captured airman in Lighting the Torch in Allied Assault, are scattered throughout every mission in Pacific Assault, and are harder to find, adding to the replay value. But some of the missions just don't make you want to replay them. You'll know you're not playing Far Cry, despite the jungle environment, when you suddenly realize you're on a corridor-crawl, leading your team down a very tightly constricted path and running into a half-dozen enemy grunts every forty feet. In fact, you might think you're playing Doom 3 in that respect - not good times.
So Pacific Assault is hit-or-miss for me, at least so far. For $20, I'd say it's probably worth it. On a technical level, it's much more impressive than Allied Assault, and on par, for different reasons, with CoD: United Offensive. But from what I've seen, it's just not as much fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment