Medal of Honor: Vanguard for Nintendo Wii
- HDTV Support: Without HDTV Support
- ESRB Descriptor: Violence Blood Language
- ESRB Rating: T - (Teen)
- Publisher: EA - Electronic Arts
- Genre: Shooter / FPS
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227
Van Guards May Be Necessary for the Riots That Will Occur After People Play Vanguard
Pros
Some intense battles. The game has great sound.
Cons
Poor graphics, aiming, and physics engine. Too straightforward.
Recommended it?
No
The Bottom Line:
With much better and less frustrating war titles out there, even for the Wii, that there's really no reason to buy this. Skip this.
World War II shooters were a blast when they first came out, but several years later, when pretty much every one that comes out is the same thing, it's nearly impossible to get excited about a new one coming out. Now mix the repetitive nature of World War II games with four words that have gained an extremely negative connotation, Wii first person shooter.
Story:
The story is just like any other war title. It follows the story of a soldier as he goes through various World War II battles.
Gameplay:
The gameplay feels like a dumbed down version of any other war fighter. All you have to do is run through a level, while shooting every Nazi that comes into your path. While this may be fun at times, and certainly intense, after so many war games coming out that already offer deeper and more fun gameplay, you have to make your WWII game more than just a run and gun. Don't expect to wander towns while destroying radios and searching for documents, expect running through towns and killing everything in your way to get to the end. Hurray for mindless violence!
One bit of bittersweet news about this game is that it isn't as easy to kill everything in your path as the other ones and this is caused by good and bad things. The game steers a little towards a Brothers in Arms type approach. You will often be aiming with your sights instead of your crosshairs because the crosshairs don't seem to be very accurate. The inaccuracy of the crosshairs isn't caused by a more realistic approach, but by a bad hit detection system. You'll hit shots over and over again perfectly with the crosshairs, but they never seem to hit. On top of all of that, you can shoot a guy in the head and he won't die, and shoot another guy in the hand and he will die. It really doesn't take a whole lot of bullets to be taken down. Your life does recharge, but being out in the open for a few seconds can get you killed which makes it extremely annoying when you have the poor hit detection system.
Like most war games, the artificial intelligence is horrible. For instance, if a man on a gatling gun gets killed, the enemies don't register it that they could actually have another person on their squad to get back on it. The enemies will be mindlessly running towards you in situations where they have absolutely no chance. They are extremely predictable because they always do the same thing; find cover, stick their heads out and shoot a bullet, go back into cover and do the same thing. On top of all of their stupidity, the enemies only go after you. Seems kind of unlikely that the complete Nazi army would only go after one unknownsoldier. The guy on the gatling gun will only aim for you while you have guys throwing grenades at you while you have about ten other guys shooting at you. After a few levels it starts getting extremely unfair because you won't be able to stick your head out without getting hit by a barrage of bullets.
The campaign mode is really quite short at around six hours and after you play through it, there really isn't much reason to go back to try it again. You'll start to get bored with it at about the third of four chapters. There is some split-screen multiplayer, but it's not all that fun.
The controls in the game do hinder the experience quite a bit. Like other Wii first person shooters you control your character's movements with the Nunchuk and aim by pointing the Wiimote at the screen. This system, yet again, proves to be a poor control system for first person shooters. The aiming is definitely a challenge because it scrolls too fast making it hard to aim shots on the enemies. The grenade throwing is extremely inaccurate and after the first level, you'll likely never even use the grenades again. They did put motion sensing into the Nunchuck for this game, but it is some of the worst I've seen yet. Apparently, to reload your gun you have to thrust the Nunchuk to the right. Whenever you do this, your guy does a 180 spin. There are about 4 different Nunchuk movements, and none of them ever seem to work. You'd be surprised how angry you can without being able to manually reload.
Medal of Honor: Vanguard is below average, but still fun at times because of the mindless run-n-gun violence. Now take the fact that you can find this experience in any WWII game, (and a much better one in most) and then give it the horrible controls of Wii first person shooters and you have a game that is really bad. It's not really worth even renting. Why play a game you've basically already played with a more annoying control scheme? This may be a pretty drastic statement because there are so many stinkers, but I think that Medal of Honor: Vanguard is the worst first person shooter to come out on the Wii so far.
Graphics
The graphics in the game are pretty bad. The whole game has a really dull matte look to it, almost like it's made of clay. The textures all seem really brown, tan and sometimes blurry. The character models look really odd; they all look like they are dolls. Sometimes the graphics get so blurry that you can't tell what you are seeing on the screen. Surprisingly, they did something that developers used to do with the early 3d titles. Things that don't move around, we'll use a tree as an example, were designed in 2d. So if you look at a tree and spin around it, the tree will spin around with you. This disappointed me when Tiger Woods 99 came out, I can't express how much it disappoints me with a "next generation" video game. Most of the time if you shoot a guy, he'll just do his standard animation of death, but sometimes he'll go ragdoll physics style. Very rarely do the ragdoll physics work though. You'll shoot him and it will look like he super-jumped in Halo 2. He'll fly across the map doing tons of flips and spins and it looks horribly unrealistic. The frame rate is decent, but there are a few situations with slow down, especially when there are explosions involved.
Sound
The sound is actually pretty good. The game has great voiceovers. Your teammates constantly give you help that is actually useful. The sounds of the bullets and explosions flying all around you are intense. And to top it all off, there is a full orchestral soundtrack. Everything sounds crisp and clear. It feels like they spent more time on the sound for the game than the actual game itself.
Suitability for kids
Obviously, since this is a WWII game, the game is going to have some violence, but this is one of the least violent war shooters out there. There's very little blood in the game and some suggestive language (it's not horrible language though). It's rated T for teen and this is probably the least explicit WWII game you'll find on the current generation systems.
Should you purchase this?
There's really no reason to purchase this. It is your run of the mill World War II title with some added annoyances.
Story:
The story is just like any other war title. It follows the story of a soldier as he goes through various World War II battles.
Gameplay:
The gameplay feels like a dumbed down version of any other war fighter. All you have to do is run through a level, while shooting every Nazi that comes into your path. While this may be fun at times, and certainly intense, after so many war games coming out that already offer deeper and more fun gameplay, you have to make your WWII game more than just a run and gun. Don't expect to wander towns while destroying radios and searching for documents, expect running through towns and killing everything in your way to get to the end. Hurray for mindless violence!
One bit of bittersweet news about this game is that it isn't as easy to kill everything in your path as the other ones and this is caused by good and bad things. The game steers a little towards a Brothers in Arms type approach. You will often be aiming with your sights instead of your crosshairs because the crosshairs don't seem to be very accurate. The inaccuracy of the crosshairs isn't caused by a more realistic approach, but by a bad hit detection system. You'll hit shots over and over again perfectly with the crosshairs, but they never seem to hit. On top of all of that, you can shoot a guy in the head and he won't die, and shoot another guy in the hand and he will die. It really doesn't take a whole lot of bullets to be taken down. Your life does recharge, but being out in the open for a few seconds can get you killed which makes it extremely annoying when you have the poor hit detection system.
Like most war games, the artificial intelligence is horrible. For instance, if a man on a gatling gun gets killed, the enemies don't register it that they could actually have another person on their squad to get back on it. The enemies will be mindlessly running towards you in situations where they have absolutely no chance. They are extremely predictable because they always do the same thing; find cover, stick their heads out and shoot a bullet, go back into cover and do the same thing. On top of all of their stupidity, the enemies only go after you. Seems kind of unlikely that the complete Nazi army would only go after one unknownsoldier. The guy on the gatling gun will only aim for you while you have guys throwing grenades at you while you have about ten other guys shooting at you. After a few levels it starts getting extremely unfair because you won't be able to stick your head out without getting hit by a barrage of bullets.
The campaign mode is really quite short at around six hours and after you play through it, there really isn't much reason to go back to try it again. You'll start to get bored with it at about the third of four chapters. There is some split-screen multiplayer, but it's not all that fun.
The controls in the game do hinder the experience quite a bit. Like other Wii first person shooters you control your character's movements with the Nunchuk and aim by pointing the Wiimote at the screen. This system, yet again, proves to be a poor control system for first person shooters. The aiming is definitely a challenge because it scrolls too fast making it hard to aim shots on the enemies. The grenade throwing is extremely inaccurate and after the first level, you'll likely never even use the grenades again. They did put motion sensing into the Nunchuck for this game, but it is some of the worst I've seen yet. Apparently, to reload your gun you have to thrust the Nunchuk to the right. Whenever you do this, your guy does a 180 spin. There are about 4 different Nunchuk movements, and none of them ever seem to work. You'd be surprised how angry you can without being able to manually reload.
Medal of Honor: Vanguard is below average, but still fun at times because of the mindless run-n-gun violence. Now take the fact that you can find this experience in any WWII game, (and a much better one in most) and then give it the horrible controls of Wii first person shooters and you have a game that is really bad. It's not really worth even renting. Why play a game you've basically already played with a more annoying control scheme? This may be a pretty drastic statement because there are so many stinkers, but I think that Medal of Honor: Vanguard is the worst first person shooter to come out on the Wii so far.
Graphics
The graphics in the game are pretty bad. The whole game has a really dull matte look to it, almost like it's made of clay. The textures all seem really brown, tan and sometimes blurry. The character models look really odd; they all look like they are dolls. Sometimes the graphics get so blurry that you can't tell what you are seeing on the screen. Surprisingly, they did something that developers used to do with the early 3d titles. Things that don't move around, we'll use a tree as an example, were designed in 2d. So if you look at a tree and spin around it, the tree will spin around with you. This disappointed me when Tiger Woods 99 came out, I can't express how much it disappoints me with a "next generation" video game. Most of the time if you shoot a guy, he'll just do his standard animation of death, but sometimes he'll go ragdoll physics style. Very rarely do the ragdoll physics work though. You'll shoot him and it will look like he super-jumped in Halo 2. He'll fly across the map doing tons of flips and spins and it looks horribly unrealistic. The frame rate is decent, but there are a few situations with slow down, especially when there are explosions involved.
Sound
The sound is actually pretty good. The game has great voiceovers. Your teammates constantly give you help that is actually useful. The sounds of the bullets and explosions flying all around you are intense. And to top it all off, there is a full orchestral soundtrack. Everything sounds crisp and clear. It feels like they spent more time on the sound for the game than the actual game itself.
Suitability for kids
Obviously, since this is a WWII game, the game is going to have some violence, but this is one of the least violent war shooters out there. There's very little blood in the game and some suggestive language (it's not horrible language though). It's rated T for teen and this is probably the least explicit WWII game you'll find on the current generation systems.
Should you purchase this?
There's really no reason to purchase this. It is your run of the mill World War II title with some added annoyances.
