Medal of Honor Heroes 2 (Wii) Review
Posted by Ramon Aranda on 12.12.2007
Take complete control of you weapons and bring the pain to the Nazi army.
Title: Medal of Honor Heroes 2
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Type: Shooter
Players: 1 (32 players online)
EA’s first FPS effort on the Nintendo Wii was the first Medal of Honor Heroes. While the game looked impressive enough having better graphics than its counterpart, Activision’s Call of Duty 3, the game lacked true FPS controls and failed to provide a solid experience. Enter Medal of Honor Heroes 2; Electronic Art’s second crack at the first person shooter. When I previewed the game back in July, I was told by the game’s producers that they had taken into account the flaws and complaints of the first MHH and worked on giving gamers a better experience, one that would rival Metroid Prime 3 in the controls department. How did it fare? Well let’s find out.
Gameplay
Let me get this out of the way: MHH2 controls better than Metroid Prime 3. That’s right I said it and apparently I’m not alone as other journalists have pegged MHH2 as having the best FPS controls on the console market. The minute you pick up the Wii remote and nunchuck, the controls just feel right. The developers give you various control options but the advanced settings work best. The camera will stay still while you can move your reticule around the screen to aim while moving the reticule to the edge of the screen will move the camera around. Though still not as accurate as a PC’s mouse, the controls come as close as any game I’ve ever played. There are other things you can do with the Wii remote as well such as chucking a grenade while holding the B-trigger. One of the cooler weapons I found was the bazooka. When you grab the bazooka you’ll be instructed to flip the Wii remote onto your shoulder which will ready-up the bazooka. You then hit the trigger button to fire off and you’ll hear the missile leave the barrel through the Wii remote’s speaker; cool stuff. You’ll find other cool uses such as twisting the remote to tune into a radio and twirling the nunchuck to move around an anti-air weapon. There are plenty of innovative ways to use the Wii’s controls and an explanation will be given for every new functionality that you discover.
The game is broken down into three game modes: Campaign, Arcade and Multiplayer. The campaign mode is pretty straight up. You’ll enter various sections of Germany with objectives and secondary objectives that do not need to be completed to advance. At the end of each round, you’ll be given a score of how well you did based on kills, accuracy and the amount of secondary objectives you completed to name a few. It’s a neat take as it’ll provide you some incentive for playing the same levels more than once if you want to get a gold medal. The objectives for each level are pretty straight forward and more of the same of what you’re used to from WWII games. Nothing really stands out but at least the secondary objectives give you something else to search around for besides running down an army of soldiers. What I did find somewhat annoying from the campaign mode however was the lack of very intelligent A.I. Various times I found enemy soldiers shooting at the ground or turning away from me while in plain sight. Other times, enemy soldiers would take cover even while I was standing right next to them so they appeared to be kind of stupid. Another fault I found was that my fellow troops didn’t seem very helpful as most of the time I’d have to be the one to gun soldiers down. They don’t work very well as a team.
The Arcade mode is a cool little addition that throws in some light-gun style play into the mix. As you can guess, Arcade mode literally plays as a light-gun game in which you are taken through a handful of the campaign’s maps albeit in smaller doses meaning the maps will be smaller. You can also use the Wii’s Zapper as MHH2 is Zapper compatible. You basically run through this mode, gunning down Nazi’s while collecting as many points as possible. A lot of the Wii remote’s functionalities are removed for this mode as it is an on-rails shooter. The camera will direct you to your next location and you shake the remote downward to reload your weapon. If you want to collect an item, you simply aim and shoot at it. This mode is a fun little distraction that will appeal to the casual fan who wants to get his WWII fix without all the complicated controls found on other consoles. As your high score is being kept, you may want to revisit this mode a few times to improve your score.
Where the game really shines is in the Multiplayer mode. Unfortunately there is no split screen local multiplayer but most of you won’t care as we finally get an online shooter for the Nintendo Wii. The game uses EA Nation which means you won’t have to use any annoying friend codes to add friends to your list. You simply create an EA Nation account or use an existing one to get online and you can hop directly into a game or search for various game types. It’s also pretty easy to add a friend as you can ask them to be a friend while in a game’s lobby. You can play Deathmatch games which will likely be the favorite or in a Capture-the-Flag mode. One thing that hurts when playing in team games is that there is no online chat. You can use predefined commands using the Wii remote that do help, but not having chatting capabilities really hurts the experience and makes working as a team more of a nuisance than enjoyable. Nonetheless, my online playing experience was a blast and I never once noticed any lag while playing through various game types which can be played with 32 players; a first for any console.
Graphics
Much like the first Medal of Honor Heroes, MHH2 looks pretty good. The lighting effects are impressive while the detail found in the weapons is exceptional. The landscapes look pretty good too which makes for a nice looking game. The one fault I saw is that after killing an enemy soldier, the body will disappear, which hurts the experience and overall believability. This is due to some technical limitations that were necessary in order for the game to run smoothly while maintaining a visually pleasing look.
Fun Factor
The campaign mode is somewhat bland in the sense that it’s not very fresh. Kill Nazi’s, blow this up, move on; that’s the kind of thing you’ll be doing but I do like the addition of the secondary objectives as it gives you something different to look for during the campaign. The arcade mode is pretty fun though a little short but is a fun way to get new gamers into this game. Online multiplayer is where it’s at though folks! The addition of online play is something that was sorely missed from the first Medal of Honor Heroes and from its competitor Call of Duty 3. This is a great way to spend an afternoon or evening as online FPS games are always fun to play but now with pin-point accuracy thanks to the Wii remote.
Lasting Appeal
The campaign mode is pretty lengthy and with various medals and scores to attain, you’ll want to play through at least some of the different levels a few times. Looking past the questionable A.I., the campaign is rather enjoyable. Arcade mode will probably have you coming back a few times as well if you’re the type that needs the highest score possible but everyone will keep coming back to the Multiplayer mode. It’s easy to connect to games, there’s virtually no lag (I experienced zero lag) and it feels great playing with tighter controls. The one thing that I would like to see in EA’s next effort is a ranking system. Though you can rank up during the campaign mode, there is no ranking system ala Battlefield 2 when playing online. I would love to see that added next time as it would keep players coming back for more. Everyone knows that ranking up is half of the fun and a good way to show off.
The 411
Medal of Honor Heroes 2 is not without its hiccups, but ultimately is the finest FPS experience you can have on the Wii. Add to that online play and you have a winning combination that needs to be experienced by Wii players.
Graphics
8.5
A fine looking title with great lighting effects
Gameplay
8.5
Awesome controls, bad A.I.
Sound
9.0
Sounds great in surround sound. The sounds coming out of the Wii remote are especially pleasing.
Lasting Appeal
9.0
It's online!
Fun Factor
8.0
Multiplayer is a blast, arcade mode and campaign mode are enjoyable.
