Nov 17, 2007  Medal of Honor Heroes 2 Review Medal of Honor Heroes 2 for the Wii combines solid online play, sharp controls, and fast-placed gameplay into one of. Game Review: Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 (Wii). EA has managed to push the enevelope of Wii software yet again with Medal of Frank Caron.

As much as I love Metroid Prime 3, it's not the kind of shooter that you can just pick up and play once in a while on a whim. The steady flow and intricate design of the game just doesn't lend itself to that kind of play. Depraved heart patricia cornwell. Aside from the plunger shooting in Rayman Raving Rabbids, a good pick-up-and-play FPS game has been slow in coming to the Wii. Thankfully, Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 manages to fit that bill.

Unlike the less-than-stellar Medal of Honor: Vanguard, Heroes 2 combines a solid selection of responsive motion-based controls with the IR-aiming that is pivotal to the Wii FPS experience. Better still, a wide variety of adjustment options are available to fine tune the controls. This makes playing through the otherwise typical shooter far more enjoyable than its competition.

While the game doesn't veer far from the beaten path of the World War II genre, the campaign is still fun to play thanks to the tight controls. Once you get into the action, you'll find an assortment of typical assault and defend missions, as well as the requisite momentary bomb-planting, sniping, and turret-based tangents. If there's any one complaint about the single player offering, it's the old problem of duration: storming Northern France in the game's eight missions is a relatively short experience, as each mission will only take from 20 to 40 minutes to complete. The Wii Zapper friendly on-rails arcade mode is fun, but again, it's a short-lived thrill.

What really makes the game worth coming back to, though, is the excellent online multiplayer. While shockingly modest in comparison to the online offerings on competing consoles, EA has actually managed to fill a fairly significant niche on the Wii by presenting what is arguably the strongest online experience available on Nintendo's console.

At first glance, it's easy to dismiss the multiplayer. The graphics are abhorrent—I liken it to what the N64 would have produced if it had online play—and there are only three modes: deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag. The player customization is incredibly basic, with only a few permutations, and there are only a handful of weapons to choose from.

However, once you actually get into a game and start shooting others with the Wii remote, you'll forget all that: there's something so inherently rewarding about the level of physical skill involved in deftly avoiding death in Heroes 2.

Best of all, the game actually runs pretty well online: the framerate stays solid and there are few game-related connection issues to be found. Perhaps even more impressive is the implementation of 'EA Nation,' EA's proprietary online platform that arose this year from Madden 2008. After signing up for the service and picking a username, you'll find a helpful assortment of community tools that will allow you to find, register, and invite friends, send messages outside of games, and more—all without friend codes. And with support for up to 32 players online, there's simply no rival to Heroes 2 on the Wii.

Medal of Honor: Heroes2 may not be the prettiest or longest game around, but it offers a solid first-person shooter experience that is easy to pick up and play, and it has some serious staying power thanks to its strong online mode. It's surprising to say this, but EA has yet again managed to pushtheenvelope of Wii software.

Verdict: Buy
Price: $49.99
System: Wii, PSP ($39.99)
Developer and Publisher: EA
ESRB Rating: Teen
Other recent reviews:

Released to a muted fanfare on Wii and PSP almost three months ago in the US, Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 is the filler release you're expecting. The apathy surrounding it is hardly surprising. After more than ten different MOH titles since the back end of '99, we all know the drill: shoot clueless Nazis, wander around linear levels, blow stuff up, meet objectives, repeat until dead/bored.

Even if you're somehow new to killing brain-dead Nazis, Heroes 2 is so by-the-numbers that you won't be satisfied. If that sounds cynical, it's a fleabite on the gelatinous flabby arse of this bone-idle attempt to reprise the World War II shooter. You'd have to really want to own another World War II shooter, and on the Wii, to find sustenance in the few crumbs of comfort on offer, although, to be fair, if you ignore the bland, predictable, linear environments, the atrocious enemy AI, the boring objectives and the same old same old same old, the Wii version's control system is worth inviting into your tent to snuggle and compare haversacks.

Waving and drowning

Unlike last year's irredeemably awful Vanguard, EA has realised that waving downward to crouch and waving right to do a 180-degree turn are silly ideas. Instead, Heroes 2 takes its cues from the much slicker Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, rather than, say, Red Steel, and other awful Wii game attempts at FPS controls. Aiming is precise, movement polished, and simple actions like crouching and zooming down the sights are bound to buttons rather than dance moves.

Leaning involves a little tilt of the Nunchuk in the appropriate direction, and you can easily peep over the top of cover by zooming in while crouched. Reloading is still performed with a little shake of the remote (complete with a workmate-baiting 'Clunk-Click' from the Wii remote's speaker when you do), but it all works, so we'll forgive this rather silly concession to gesture controls. Better still, the ability to tinker with look-speed and aiming sensitivity makes it possible to refine it to your tastes - always appreciated - while the addition of a Zapper configuration also takes care of those who feel the need to fashion a gun-shaped peripheral out of their controllers and go 'pew pew!'

The Zapper doesn't really lend itself to full first-person controls, so the eight-mission Campaign mode feels far better played by the default method. On the other hand, the new on-rails Arcade mode works a charm with the Zapper, and is by far the most entertaining way to play. Taking place in the exact same levels as Campaign, and broadly involving the same objectives and enemy placement, you simply let the game take over movement and get on with the business of shooting those dastardly Nazis. The scamps. The other major difference is that ammo is unlimited, and so is health; so instead of the usual recharging system, you have to shoot health-packs scattered around to top up your health bar, just like Granddad did with Tom Hanks.