Medal of Honor: Vanguard

Medal of Honor: Vanguard
Developer(s)	EA Los Angeles, Budcat Creations
Publisher(s)	EA Games
Composer(s)	Michael Giacchino
Series	Medal of Honor
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2 Wii
Release date(s)	NA: March 26, 2007 AUS: March 29, 2007 EU: March 30, 2007 JP: May 24, 2007 (PS2)
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player, Multiplayer

Medal of Honor: Vanguard is the tenth installment in the Medal of Honor series of World War II first-person shooters. It was developed by EA Los Angeles and released for the PlayStation 2 and Wii.

Plot

Players take on the role of Cpl/Sgt. Frank Keegan, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division, and 17th Airborne Division fighting the Axis forces of Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy.

The first mission, which is Operation Husky places Keegan in a C-47 aircraft somewhere off the coast of Sicily. Suddenly, the plane explodes, and Keegan is thrown out. He manages to deploy his parachute and make it to the ground, where he meets with his sergeant John Magnuson. They fight through a town against Italian forces. Once through the town, they make their way around the coast to a bunker somewhere in Sicily, and shoot their way in, defeating the German forces inside, and blowing up massive cannons to prevent Germans from destroying US ships. For this level, you are armed with a Thompson submachine gun and the M1 Garand rifle, you may pick up weapons such as the MP40.

In the second mission, Operation Neptune, Keegan's glider unit for the invasion of Normandy. The glider crashes, and Keegan and one other soldier (Cpl. Garrett) are the only surviving soldiers. They fight their way to three other who parachute in (including Pfc. Pike and Pfc. Chalmers) , where they proceed to blow up key bridges across the Normandy landscape. Afterwards, Keegan crosses a swamp, cuts down paratroopers and destroys a halftrack. Keegan proceeds to destroy one other bridge, but the explosive goes off too early, killing some of Keegan's squadmates and leaving Keegan unconscious. Magnuson wakes him up next morning, but shortly after gets killed by a sniper. Keegan and his squad infiltrate the house where snipers were located, and make their way to the chateau where the Germans are headquartered. They fight their way through, only to discover it's a trap and they're fenced in by four Tiger Tanks. After defeating the tanks, Keegan is promoted to the sergeant due to Magnuson's death. This is the first level where you can use the MP44 gun.

The third mission is Operation Market Garden. As a sergeant, Keegan leads his squad through the battle. During the operation, Keegan's squad fights their way through the countryside until they reach the Dutch town of Grave, where they encounter heavy fire from MG42 machine gun emplacements throughout the town. The mission ends when Keegan destroys a Tiger tank in the town square, during which Chalmers is killed.

The fourth and final mission in the game is Operation Varsity, Keegan is transferred to the 17th Airborne Division. The mission starts when Keegan lands on the bank of the Rhine River, where they take heavy fire from Wehrmacht forces. They make their way to a German industrial complex, where they fight off terrible attacks before continuing on to a German trench system. After neutralizing the trenches and the defences surrounding them, Keegan is left alone in a wrecked factory full of German snipers. He manages to make his way through and regroups with surviving members of his squad just outside of the complex. Fallschirmjager troops then launch a big counter-attack with huge amount of tanks. They successfully repel the attack. The final scene shows German troops retreating back to hills.

Gameplay

The game shares many gameplay elements with Medal of Honor: Airborne. Players are able to customize their weapons, such as adding a telescopic sight to a M1 Garand rifle and a drum magazine for a Thompson submachine gun, although these upgrades are only available on certain levels.

At the start of each of the operations, players parachute onto a battlefield (with the exception of a glider insertion at the start of the Invasion of Normandy) and can roughly designate where they land. Players who land at points marked by green smoke will be able to pick up weapon upgrades and ammunition. Missions can be played out in different ways depending on where the player lands and which weapons he or she obtains.

Content-wise, both versions of the game are the same. However, the Wii version implements the Wii Remote to accomplish such movements as crouching, jumping, making quick turns, weapon strikes, reloading, and shooting. These actions are accomplished with a standard video game interface (buttons and joysticks) on the PS2 version and are also an option on the Wii.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer has been included in the game in the form of a 2-4 player split-screen mode with both the Wii and PS2 versions. (The PS2 version requires a multitap to support more than two players.) This is currently the last Medal of Honor game to feature split screen mode. There are five modes:

• Deathmatch
• Team Deathmatch
• Capture the Flag
• King of the Hill
• Scavenger Hunt

Reception

Reception
Review scores Publication Score PS2 Wii Eurogamer 4/10[1] Game Informer 6/10[2] 4/10[3] Game Revolution C−[4] C−[4] GameSpot 5.5/10[5] 5.5/10[5] GameSpy [6] [6] IGN 7.2/10[7] 7/10[8] Nintendo Power 6/10[9] PSM 7/10[10] Aggregate score Metacritic 63/100[11] 56/100[12]

Medal of Honor: Vanguard received "mixed" reviews on both platforms according to video game review aggregator Metacritic.^[11][12]

GameSpot gave the game 5.5 out of 10 for both the Wii and PS2 versions. Most criticism for the game focused the poor graphics engine, lack of online play, and poor enemy intelligence. Also criticized was the fact that many of the game elements were already featured in the series or by other World War II shooters (with the exception of the parachute drop). Aaron Thomas of GameSpot stated that "There's really no reason to pick it up on the PlayStation 2, and thanks to a higher price tag for the Wii version, there's very little reason to buy it for the Wii, either."^[5] United Kingdom-based Website Mansized gave the Wii version two out of five, claiming, "Vanguard is a pretty shocking game."^[13]

References

External links

• Official website
• Medal of Honor: Vanguard at MobyGames