Medal of Honor: Heroes for PSP

Mitch · 09-01-2007, 02:30 PM

Medal of Honor is one of the most well known World War II shooters; not because of its quality, but its quantity. Amidst the WWII games that were developed at the turn of the century, Medal of Honor was one of the new franchises that were battling for the top spot. Unfortunately, the numbers of their sequels that otherwise served as expansion packs that ran off of the same system with hardly any changes couldn�t compete with the content of other games, and thus was never put in such high regard. Sequel after sequel people started getting a bit agitated was the all too familiar gameplay. Now, the franchise has hit the PSP. While the series may be repeating itself over different consoles, this handheld version is quite refreshing and enjoyable.

Medal of Honor: Heroes takes the same FPS formula from its console predecessors and copies itself onto the Playstation Portable. I look at the game as more or less a conclusion of the previous installments. Heroes revolves around three different campaigns, each featuring a different �hero.� These soldiers make up characters from the previous titles, and while that not make much of a difference in terms of people who enjoy character development, it�s the battlefields each campaign offers that differentiates them. Holland, Italy and Belgium are the four different countries exclusive to each campaign, and offer a different array of scenery and enemies.

The gameplay is simplistic and fun. You gun your way through a battlefield using all too familiar weaponry from the previous games to complete your mission. There isn�t much more to it: there�s not much interaction in the environment except hitting a few switches and getting people to follow you. But that�s what the game is known for, right? It shouldn�t make a difference on whether or not you�ll enjoy playing the game. Running and gunning in these environments on sometimes chaotic battlefields are what gamers enjoy!

Everything in the graphics department succeeds. What appear to be normal PS2 graphics scaled down to a clean PSP screen makes the game really shine. There is hardly any pop up and everything is very smooth, ranging from soil you�ll run on the flare from your Thompson when you�re firing at the enemy. That�s what I like about PSP titles: on consoles, people usually complain about ugly textures at up close. On the PSP, up close is impossible. This game looks very nice.

Now, controls� oh, those pesky controls! Medal of Honor: Heroes copies the general control layout from other PSP shooters. If you�re not familiar, the PSP mimics a PS2 controller, but is left without thumbsticks. Instead, its substitute is a single, movable pad for your left thumb. But where�s the right? As all of us are used to using the thumbsticks for walking and strafing, that�s what the right hand buttons (square, triangle, circle and x) are used for. A bit annoying, isn�t it? It seems like a waste of buttons and definitely takes time to get used to. It reminds me a bit of playing Nintendo 64 back in the late 90�s, but only a little less functional if not smoother.

As another general sequel to an already tired game, Medal of Honor: Heroes is remarkably fun. It�s certainly one of the best handheld shooters I�ve played. If you�re familiar with the series, this is something you should definitely try!