by Chris "Big Skippy" Cooper
We are Hosted by:
| Genre: | Buggered if I know: it's all over the place. I assume Arcade style, FPS, squad-based action thing? |
| Players: | 1 - 4 |
| Developer: | EA Games |
What the bl**dy hell happened here?
With European Assault EA games have taken one of the most popular and respected WWII simulation franchises and turned it into... well, I'm not even sure how to describe it... a bloody mess?
I'm guessing that European Assault is EA's answer to Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 and as such adds a few new elements into the mix that were never there before. Unfortunately this is European Assault's downfall as the Medal of Honour franchise did perfectly well without them before and frankly it appears that the newer elements have just been thrown in at the last minute to compete with B.I.A.'s almost flawless squad based combat system.
I'm not sure what effect EA were going for with this game... in fact, I'm not even sure that they knew, but the game looks, feels and plays confused, as if there were no clear plan in mind at the start. It's not an arcade shooter, even if it has been built to feel as such, and it's not a strategic squad based shooter, even if there is a huge emphasis on squad tactics, in the end it becomes almost impossible for the gamer to find a play balance because MOH: EA is constantly switching between the two styles. So I have one question for EA, was this game even play tested before it hit the shelves?
In European Assault (M:O:H: E.A. from this point forward) you take on the role of American OSS super agent "Holt" and are charged with leading a squad of finely tuned (dumb as mud) soldiers through a series of impossibly stupid missions behind enemy lines. To be blunt, the artificial intelligence of your squad mates is utterly, utterly awful and not only will they get in your way CONSTANTLY, they will often stand out in the middle of a heated battlefield and get their heads blown off. The command system used is woefully inadequate whereby the only orders available are charge and regroup. Not only that, but the charge order only has a range of about ten feet, which makes it utterly pointless. Just try rushing a machine gun nest over open terrain and you'll see what I mean. The procedure goes something like this:
"Ok lads, CHARGE!"...
"No, don't stand there... CHARGE!"
"[Sigh]"
"CHARGE FOR F*CKS' SAKE!"
"Oh I give up!"
*At this point the player gets his head blown off*
And for some utterly inexplicable reason, you cannot leave your squad behind at any point, as when you tell them to stand somewhere they will happily ignore you on many an occasion and even disregard orders completely and follow you mindlessly into battle. Frankly this feature is quite ridiculous and insurmountably frustrating, especially when you want to quietly scout enemy lines. But wait, it gets worse! On one particular mission you are given a sniper rifle, as there is a heavy (HEAVY) emphasis on sniping during this mission. For reasons not even god can explain your squad mates will stand in front of you, blocking your scope and making sniping impossible! What the F*CK is wrong with the A.I. in this game? Frankly the guy who coded it should be made to face a firing squad. It really is that terrible.
The team A.I. gets far, far worse though, throwing grenades about the place like they were going out of fashion, often hitting you in the process. This isn't so bad as there is no friendly fire in this game, but you'll still get knocked off your feet and become dazed, which makes you an easy target for the impossibly accurate enemy.
Lastly and perhaps most frustratingly, you are tasked with keeping your squad alive by giving them first aid kits from your already limited inventory. This is frustrating for two reasons, the first of which is the fact that your team will stand in the middle of a crossfire weather you order them to or not, meaning you'll start to run out of med kits fast, and the second being that they don't stand still for a second, thusly you'll find that you have to chase them all over the battlefield (whilst getting shot at) trying to give them a bloody first aid kit. At times this borders on comical as you track the little blighter like a bloodhound merrily skipping between bullets and avoiding mortar fire... but mostly it's just frustrating.
The enemy A.I. (what the hell was E.A. thinking with this?) is nigh on tragically difficult and not in a good way. The basis of their smarts lies in the "fall back, shoot, fall back" tactic, which, I might add, is all scripted and NOT down to smart coding. Secondly they are impossibly accurate at mid range, meaning you will get hit often no matter how careful you are. Literally they'll skip across the battlefield and hit you in the head with a single shot "without" aiming. Worse still EA thought it would be a good idea to throw in a few "Boss" battles which, to be frank, suck in ways you cannot imagine. The bosses themselves (usually "Random Von General" or some such) are ridiculously hard, ripping into your health metre should you be caught out in the open for more than a split second and taking what seems like an age to bring down. At one point I managed to corner one of them, and the woeful AI couldn't cope with this at all so he just sat there looking stupid. It took me three (yes that's 3) full clips of Thompson ammunition, in sustained fire, without missing before the f*cker finally dropped. Whose bloody stupid idea was that?
Speaking of boss battles, you'll find that at several points you will have to bring down tanks, usually of the Panzer variety, always stupid. This is simply a case of standing over the respawning grenades in the immediate area and throwing them in the tanks general direction. These are really poor excuses for set-piece battles and to be honest I would prefer that they weren't there at all as they are far too easy and time consuming.
And a few words on the mission structure dynamic. It's poo! You'll be given secondary objectives, and you are encouraged to explore the map to unlock them... but you're directed to them during the course of the mission anyway, which completely defeats the point. Secondly the battlefields may seem quite open, but for the most part there isn't much to do in them apart from following up on your objectives, which again defeats the point of having open battlefields.
Ok so we've now established that the game plays like poo, what else does it have going for it? Not the visuals, that much is certain. Ok, so they do the job, but I've seen better... far better as a matter of fact. EA obviously aimed low and hit their mark with this one. The sounds are also bordering on the upper end of average, with the soundtrack being it's only redeeming feature, not that you'll hear it as the music is nothing more than a series of 10 - 20 second clips tied in to certain events... more pointlessness from a game built on a façade of pointlessness. On the subject of sound, a note to EA, NOT ALL BRITISH ARE COCKNEY! Mind you I did find a Scottish guy in there at one point, but the accent was just plain comical.
But hold on there cheesewire, there is a redeeming feature to this game and it lies in the somewhat implausible story. MOH: EA is almost (but not quite) an official acknowledgement by the United States that they did not save the world and defeat the evil nazi menace alone... and it's about bloody time. In the first mission you team up with British Commando's in northern Europe. The opening video hails them as heroes, which, might I add, is also about bloody time.
In later stages you'll meet with the Desert Rats, the Russian Partisans and finally fellow Americans in the Battle of the Bulge... mind you they're all just as stupid as each other so it really makes no difference who you're fighting with.
Collision detection? Please tell me you're joking! Using the aim function is pointless because the collision detection is so bad, you can hit the same guy in the head two or three times before it registers. Using the aim function negates the autoaim, thus bullets will often miss even when on target... why EA, why? Compounding the awfulness is the fact that you cannot aim AND move at the same time? EA, what the hell were you smoking when you thought up that one? Stuffing things up even further (if it were possible) is the fact that bullets that missed you by a country mile will occasionally hit you anyway. You'll see the tracer whip past your head, the next minute you're lying on the floor in a pool of blood!? Still sucking in the realms of the impossible is the fact that enemy fire will often rip through parts of the scenery! You'll be hit even if you're sitting comfortably on the other side of a ten-foot thick concrete wall!... I'm starting to hate this game >:(
Enemy spawn points are used far too often. You'll clear an area, move past it then suddenly get hit in the back of the head by machinegun fire. Worse still is the fact that you will die in under a few hits and on the harder settings and this makes certain sections of the game neigh on impossible.
Multiplayer could have been a redeeming feature... it isn't. It's far too generic. The missions are fun enough but for some reason EA didn't think to include bots and four players really isn't enough to constitute all the effort they went to with the various game modes, nor is it enough to hold interest for more than a few minutes.
There are many, many other flaws in this game but I honestly can't be bothered to go through them all. Just think of it as Medal of Honour: Allied Assault's inbred, ugly, slightly retarded, country-hick of a cousin and you've got European Assault.
78/100
Die hard fans of the series may get a momentary kick out of this title, everyone else will probably have more fun trying to kick themselves in the nuts. Rent it, don't buy it... you'll only encourage more of this half-arsedness.