Medal of Honor: Vanguard

EA's Wii-exclusive snowboarding romp.

	Version Wii, PS2	Developer EA	Publisher EA	Genre Sports

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So what does the Wii version do differently? Well, it uses the control scheme like Far Cry, CoD or Red Steel and does nothing special with it. A few set pieces (parachuting, for example) are reasonable distractions but nothing to get worked up about and the whole thing feels - as it does with a lot of Wii games - over-sensitive, inaccurate and thoroughly pointless.

The one real joy of the Wii control scheme comes with grenade throwing, which is well implemented and works how it should. One element from however many, though, is not a good thing. I'm not saying I have all the ideas on how to make control schemes on the Wii work, but I do have the right to criticise ones that feel so utterly shoddy and game-breaking. Maybe it will help show EA they should be making games around the machine, not simply throwing enough IP at it until some sticks.

Vanguard looks very much like a last-gen game, even on Wii. It's not about the graphics, yadda yadda, but some graphical sheen on Nintendo's more than capable machine would have been nice. It's understandable on the PS2, and it looks nice enough comparatively speaking on the Sony machine, but it's still nothing special. At all. Epic orchestral score? Check. Humourous and poignant banter from comrades? Check. Accurately sampled mcshooty noises? Check. It's all in there, presentation-wise, but so it bloody well should be - they've been making the same game for however many years now.

It isn't the worst game committed to memory - Far Cry on Wii can take a bow for being a contender in that category - but Medal of Honor: Vanguard is pretty pointless and unimaginitive. The PS2 version is a shoddy game which should be avoided, with Brothers in Arms picked up instead, and the Wii version is a shoddy game with an even shoddier control system shoehorned in for the sake of it.

The series has stagnated where others in the WWII genre have moved on. Call of Duty is a better series, as is Brothers in Arms. Vanguard would have been an interesting game five years ago, but now it's redundant. Best avoided altogether

Graphics Sound Gameplay Depth Presentation OVERALL 6.0 7.0 4.0 3.0 8.0 4.5

THE VERDICT: The Wii control scheme does nothing good for the game, bar the grenade throwing, and just serves to highlight that the 'obvious' games shouldn't necessarily be being made for Nintendo's console. As for the PS2 version, you can probably add a point to the final score, but unless Medal of Honor: Airborne really reinvigorates the series, it's a brand that would be best left to die with the last-gen consoles.

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