Time for a rant: realism ahoy!

Polished to match grade with a pair of old stockings. Ingenious!

We talked in the beginning of this review about how beautifully cinematic Medal of Honor: Airborne can be. Unfortunately, a lot of it is style without substance: there is a jarring discrepancy between the clothes and the flesh of the game. For a game that's dressed up as a WWII movie, with all the pathos and gravity of Saving Private Ryan, the gameplay is much too lighthearted (in a low-brow way). Headshot indicators, weapon upgrades and the insanely large amount of cannon fodder to mow down during missions make the dramatic mission-concluding cutscenes rather ridiculous.

The developers seem to have felt the need to justify these features, and have come up with an excuse for the weapons upgrades, citing Allied soldiers' ingenuity in using available materiel to cobble together upgrades for their weapons. Even though a few of the upgrades, like dual magazines taped together for faster reload, fit that description, most don't. Match-grade bolts, recoil compensators, leather holsters and tactical scopes are just some of the things the ingenious GIs were able to produce from spent shell casings and a piece of string.

The game's marketing spiel claims that all the six missions are based on real events, but in fact five of them are based on real airborne operations and one is a fantastic figment of imagination. I had no complaints until the end of the fourth mission, Operation Market Garden, where the famous Nijmegen bridge was suddenly guarded by a rather curious interpretation of Panzergrenadier soldiers. This term, used historically for motorized German infantry, is adopted in MoH:A for an anti-tank weapon wielding "boss" enemy with a sinister-looking red-goggled gas mask. These troopers can kill you with one shot, which makes taking the bridge a challenge, but it took me a while to get over the incredulity of dodging Panzerschrek rockets left and right. Any cover, no matter how flimsy, will stop bullets in MoH:A - you can crouch behind a tent and not get scratched by machine gun fire. The Panzergrenadier is tough mainly because his weapon can hurt you behind cover - like pretty much all boss enemies, once you figure out how to fight them they're easy to dispatch.

If... I... could... only... squeeze... one... through!

Shock! A big armored train and this guy just stormed in to spoil your victory party

The going gets even more ridiculous towards the end. The penultimate mission, Operation Varsity, is portrayed as a strike against a German munitions depot. History is bent a little bit here, as the 82nd Airborne never took part in Varsity; however, we'll just let this one slide, as there's better stuff to moan about. The German paratroop snipers in this mission make your life difficult by taking pot shots while you're landing, but the real whammy comes at the end of the mission, where you'll face a Pantzerzug armored train, and another boss enemy - the menacing Nazi Storm Elite.

This black-clad, gas-masked, machine gun wielding monstrosity can absorb ridiculous amounts of damage, and you'll have to crack him in the helmet three times to put him down. Having another corny boss enemy, straight out of Wolfenstein 3D, took the wind out of the parachute of Medal of Honor: Airborne. The final mission, Flaktürme, features a bunch of these bosses, with a score of German paratroop commanders serving the role of regular grunts. The less is said about this imaginary assault on an anti-aircraft blockhouse the better; the game would have been much better without it.