| Medal of Honour: Infiltrator review |
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It's always good when people learn from their mistakes. Medal of Honour: Underground showed that First Person Shooters on a small screen with a digital pad are a nightmare to get right. So Infiltrator comes as a welcome return to some ace 2D shooting action.
Looking at the screenshots, Capcom's Commando springs to mind, and in many ways it is a similar game. A lone soldier (that's you), equipped with only a few guns and grenades, takes on an army. Rather than being restricted to moving up the screen, the lush environments scroll perfectly smoothly in any direction as your brave (insane?) trooper explores each level. The maps are pseudo 3D, so soldiers jump off ledges and bullets can’t go through objects on the same level as you. Many buildings can be entered – the roof disappears allowing you to search for objective items like secret documents or help items like different guns or health. When coming under fire, the first thing you notice is that the bullets are fast; there’s no slow bullet dodging to be had here. If the Germans have you in their sights and range, they really let rip. Luckily it’s not one-hit-kills, so quite a few stray bullets can be endured, although getting tagged impairs movement for a fraction of a second – scary and deadly if being attacked from all sides. Stacking the odds against you, the D-pad restricts the player’s firing angles to just 8 directions, but your foes can quite happily cover all the angles in between to track your runs past them. Strafing is possible by holding R, but this reduces speed substantially. Pressing L to reload before a new attack wave gives you a fighting chance.
The main campaign consists of two types of mission. Assault / Stealth missions make up most of the game and are 2D Commando style affairs. These are occasionally interspersed with Operation Wulf style cross-hair rapid-fire shooting sections. Thankfully the latter are few and far between since they are just far too easy. They are an interesting diversion at best and most will complete them on the first attempt, which isn’t going to get the pulse racing, as intended. The assault bits of missions have you running around sharp-shooting and picking off every single enemy in order to progress. The stealth stages have you dodging searchlights and bayoneting guards to keep quiet, because if you are seen or heard all hell breaks loose as German soldiers start swarming towards you. The all-out shooting levels are definitely the most tense and satisfying. The stealth areas are well implemented but lack the ultimate fun from just running around gunning people down.
Adding spice to the game are some nifty touches. Take out whoever’s manning a gun emplacement and grab it for some serious firepower. Find a tank depot and requisition one of them for your own ends, which normally means taking out small people with large tank shells or just running them over. The tank can strafe too and is very intuitive to control. Different weapons are at your disposal if you find an armoury. Rapid-fire small-calibre automatics impart low damage but are good for controlling the enemy. Medium-rate medium-calibre guns are a halfway house really, being passed up much of the time in favour of the other weapons. Semi-automatic high-calibre shotguns pack some serious punch allowing quick disposal of enemies carrying rocket launchers – good news, because they are scarily accurate once they know where you are. These shotguns come with explosives so, although you can’t lob them over walls like grenades, they make taking out target objectives like ammunition dumps or fuel storage facilities much easier. You can use rocket launchers too, but the slow reload rate makes you a sitting duck. Fun to try out, but that’s all.
In between missions, there’s a whole load of unnecessary FMV but these (and the menus) can be skipped through very fast if a restart is needed. The whole game is polished, with suitable war-movie style background music and a decent variety of samples for in-game effects. Unfortunately the gameplay doesn’t always attain the same high quality. Attempts at running amok, guns blazing, generally end in an early grave, due to the large number of enemies encountered. This eventually forces the player to sneak about and shoot enemies as soon as their feet appear on the edge of the screen to avoid being shot at first. This dampens the fun slightly, but is more apparent on a few of the levels than many of the others.
Some of the levels are very easy to complete and others are a complete chore, but most find a decent balance. Occasionally, your soldier gets ambushed or locked down into a small area where the screen scrolls little if at all. These moments fill you with dread because invariably they appear at the end of a long, harsh mission. Anything that can instil these levels of fear should be commended – they force you into a delicate ballet of pinpoint accuracy and timing of shots. Once through, there is a tangible sense of achievement.
Dipping into the unlocked levels on their own in quick-launch seems without purpose, but the campaign mode scores highly during its first run through, even if there’s not quite enough game to make you want to face the challenge again. There’s lots of fun to be had and importantly Medal of Honour: Infiltrator shows that to make a good game for the GBA requires simple controls and an individual style, rather than the latest 3D engine. |
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System: Nintendo GameBoy Advance
Genre: Action
Developer: EA Games
Publisher: EA
Players: 1
Version: European
Reviewed: Oct 2004
Writer: Charles Rodmell
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Pros:
- Crisp visuals
- Level variety
- A modern Commando
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Cons:
- Little replay value
- Difficulty varies radically
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