Medal of Honor: Heroes (Sony PSP)

My kids wanted this for Christmas and have enjoyed playing the game. My kids are older but would recommend that you do not give this game to younger children.

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I just picked up a PSP Daxter bundle, with five more games (not including the game with the bundle), including this one. I was eager for some FPS WWII action and some godd multiplayer on the go. Sadly, this game doesn't rise above average.

First, let me start with the controls. This is how to do a FPS on the PSP. One uses the X, O, triangle, and square buttons to look around and the analog stick to move. The shoulder buttons are for zooming and shooting, and the d-pad is used to use medkits, reload, and cycle weapons. As you can see, every button is used to the fullest, and there is little room to do anything in the game but shoot Germans. Most of the missions involve capturing a post or picking up some secret plans, and then escaping. It would get repetitive, except for the fact that the game doesn't even last long enough to do that. I was on veteran (medium) difficulty and the game lasted 3-4 hours. Even on hero difficulty, it took less than six hours. It's not that the missions aren't difficult, but that they are too short. The longest one took was about fifteen minutes, and there were a couple I beat in three, leaving me with a sense of wanting much more. Your squadmates will constantly throw grenades and hit you, and with only one medkit, some of the missions would depend on finding another health pack.

Now, I have been a bit critical. However, there are many good aspects to the game. First is the controls. The shooting controls are tight and frantic, even on a handheld. They may take a bit to get used to, but they work extremely well once you do. The graphics are also very good for a handheld, probably in the line of late PSone, early PS2 games. The colors are bright, but it's hard to enjoy them when you've faced the same generic forest, snow, and open plain levels in other, better WWII FPS games. The multiplayer also holds up very well, and is extremely easy to set up. It would be tons of fun, but, sadly, few people are ever signed on.

All in all, it turned out to be only decent. It rehashed many themes done in previous games of the like, but it did rehash them pretty well, and provides some good shooter action on the go. Don't go in expecting too much, and you may want to pick this one up on the bargain rack.

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Well, I had been playing the excellent SOCOM Seal games and I decided to pick up Medal of Honor as I had hoped it would be another shooter of the same quality.

Nothing makes sense.

I'm playing green level (easy play, limited unlockables) because I like to play the stories through before going back and playing at harder levels.

You can't clear an area. You move in and clear a building, doing all the right things. There is no way into the building - but enemies keep appearing out of the building. There is no strategy - all you can do is move and shoot. The tactic that works this time will get you killed next time.

For some levels, the victory conditions are just not well laid out. I could not figure out that I had to hold a particular flag for 180 seconds - and once I did the level became overly simple, all you did was back into a tunnel and defend - this worked most of the time, unless multiple enemies were created at your rear.

Your own men jump in front of you - which is disconcerting until you realize that you can shoot through them.

Fragging is a mess - your own men are constantly fragging you - they throw grenades in random directions and if you are lucky you can kick them away. The only good news is that you seem to be able to take a lot more frag damage than the Germans.

The other disconcerting thing is that the German weapons are better than yours. Better mag sizes, (the Thompson has the small mag that holds 20, and the German equivalent holds 32. The BAR holds 10 and the German equivalent holds 30. But the shotgun seems to be the best for anything except distance work. In skirmishes I always want a shotgun - also, reloading the shotgun makes the most sense. So you are constantly picking up weapons and then killing people and running into fire to get the ammo that they drop - which, again, makes NO SENSE. But you have to do it.

Compared to the SOCOM US Navy Seals Fireteam Bravo game, the shooting is miserable. There is no target locking - you are aiming at the enemy by swiveling and strafing. Nothing you can do in a game makes any sense as compared to real shooting, but I've fired competition combat pistol and 3 gun matches and you mentally snap from target to target - so the whole concept of target lock and snap to different targets makes more sense in a simulation of the real world.

So: No real strategy, bad shooting, and the one thing that could allow this all to make sense, a good story line that you could actually play through, is also missing, because even at green levels, you can't figure out how to win the levels.

Buy the Seal Team Bravo game - when you get done with the story, you can play with others and frag to your heart's content - on the Internet if none of your friends have the game.

And in a way, I feel bad that the Medal of Honor is tied to this game.

I gave the game three stars because, well, it has not hung up yet.

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