I’m sure most of you 360 owners have been gleefully rolling their Big Daddies into giant, rotund thingamajigs thanks to the onslaught of demo releases as of late. Want more? Get ready to have Medal of Honor: Airborne slapped into that sallow jukebox of download goodness, the demo is going live on August 23rd. PC gamers will get to join in on the love as well, though there doesn’t seem to be an official word on the PS3 version yet. From the official press release:

Demo Mission: Operation Husky
A joint allied operation into the island of Sicily, Operation Husky follows Boyd Travers and the 82nd Airborne on their first combat jump on July 11, 1943. After securing and sabotaging four anti-aircraft guns, Boyd is sent to rendezvous with a group of Airborne paratroopers at the edge of the village. Here, they run into the German Heer army, who is attempting to recapture the village from the Airborne. Boyd must push to the end of this small hamlet, eliminating Germans along the way, then find a sniper rifle and eliminate the German commander. He’s successful, but not before the commander has successfully called in reinforcements.

I can’t wait to see how this touted non-linear “open battlefield” structure will work to the game’s less-than-original subject matter, or should that be overly explored? But imagine the openness of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but with an actual war going in the haze! That’s got to be imaginative on some level.

Click below for the full list~

(more…)

Tell some one that a new WWII game is on the horizon and you will be greeted with groans. After having been through hordes of Nazis, its all but natural that a feeling of overkill has crept in. After all, how much of a same dish can one digest? What was once the main course has slowly been relegated to the side dish. So much so that the developers have been forced to try and spice things up. Sadly not many have succeeded in doing so save for Gearbox with their much acclaimed Brothers In Arms series that brought to a stagnant genre some new game play elements. However, not much innovation has been seen since then. Medal Of Honor: Airborne aims to change all that with their new offering.

While you might be excused for assuming that it will be another one of those typical WWII shooters where you are supposed to charge from point A to pint B, mowing down the enemy in between and take out a few anti aircraft guns in the process, disable a few tanks and probably blow up a fuel dump or two. But from what we have seen of it till now, Airborne is looking set to change everything on its head.

Agreed, you still get to shoot Nazis and do all the other stuff mentioned above, but the main thing is that how will you go about doing it. The main twist in the tale comes from above, quite literally at that. Being one of the elite American Paratroopers, you will be dropping down into the enemy territory, right in the heart of the action. Now, where you land dictates how you gain your start into the level. Airborne chucks the scripted sequence formula out of the jump door and instead ushers in a complete new experience where, where you drop shapes up the type of fight you will experience.

That means you can land up right in the middle of the enemies and have to battle through them towards the objective. And that can also mean that you can land at that sweet spot on that tall building which was build just for snipers to rack up their headshots. Once you have left the plane, it’s up to you to control your decent and land where you want to. Needless to say, if you manage to hit the sweet spot, it would mean a prime position to take on the enemies and gain a head start. Mess it up and you would find yourself weighing yourself much more than what you started out with, thanks to some hot lead.

Each map will feature points which will provide you with an excellent start-point, if you manage to land on it, that is. Miss it and you will find yourselves in the company of the not so friendly Nazis, ready to make a sieve out of you. That means that a sniper wielding soldier will be aiming for the roof tops while the trooper with the Tommy Gun will be looking for a spot closer to the enemies. If you want to play it safe, then you will have green smoke markers telling you where you will have good supply of fellow troopers to share the bullets with.

Every jump will result in you landing in a new place all together, which further means that you will have to navigate through a different terrain and take on enemies that will behave differently. The spruced up enemy AI means that they will be an able match for you, ducking and dodging and always on the lookout to shorten your stay on the battleground. The Unreal 3 engine ensures that the game won’t be short on eye candy which means gorgeous explosions as you blow up that fuel dump and realistic dirt spry to cloud up your vision as the grenade goes off.

The bottom line is that even though the premise may be the much tried and tested WWII backdrop, the game will be anything but the same old wine in a new bottle. So gear up and get ready, for this is the time to make men out of the boys.