The Video Game Revue

Mercury Meltdown Revolution, Medal of Honor Heroes 2

Strangely enough, I've let a couple of the more exciting Wii releases slip past me so far--Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and Trauma Center: New Blood, both of which I'll probably get sometime after the holiday rush dies down--but I've found time to try out a couple of more obscure (by my personal standards, at least) games: Mercury Meltdown Revolution and Medal of Honor Heroes 2. Both of these titles made it into my library primarily because I was able to pick them up cheaply.

Mercury Meltdown Revolution is a lot like Marble Madness or some such action-puzzle game, but with novel Wii controls. Having played this for nearly an hour, I didn't see anything in it that couldn't have been done with conventional console controls, but the Wii control scheme certainly adds intrigue. Had this been a Wii launch title, I think it would have been a pretty big deal; as it stands, it's still worth checking out, especially if you like puzzle games. I expect myself to keep coming back to it, and it's definitely a fair deal at bargain-bin prices.

Medal of Honor Heroes 2 actually sat un-opened on my shelf while I played other stuff such as Mario Galaxy (fair enough!) It's not much of a secret to those who know me that I don't much care for Medal of Honor, or even Call of Duty, in spite of the fact that I have a bit of a soft spot for the World War II genre. Given all of that, MoHH2 impressed me a great deal.

As you've probably heard, the graphics in MoHH2 range anywhere from weak to terrible, unless perhaps you're comparing it to games on the PSP. The level of detail is comparable to similar games of the previous generation (PS2, Xbox, and GameCube.) One noticeable strength is the smooth frame-rate, which is not rock steady but seems to be above 30 fps much of the time (based on my highly approximate naked-eye assessment.) Aside from helping the bland visuals a little, the smooth frame-rate also boosts with the game's real selling point: the gameplay.

The control scheme for MoHH2 is excellent. It's certainly not as powerful as the standard WASD + mouse scheme, and I'm not even convinced that it would beat a standard dual-analog gamepad controller for overall speed and accuracy, but these comparisons are somewhat beside the point. MoHH2's control scheme is both innovative and immersive, and because the controls are so fluid and fun, I found myself drawn into the game right away. It was a genuine "wow" moment.

In fact, the intense gameplay managed to keep my attention away from the uninteresting level designs and the rather shoddy enemy AI. My main gripe about the levels (given that I've only played the first two, so have your grain of salt ready please) is that they are so blatantly linear and contrived in feel. When I play a modern FPS, I like to feel like there's a bit of an open world element--ie. that I'm not simply running an obstacle course. My main gripe about the AI is that enemies don't react believably in melee situations: for one thing, you can get right on top of them and they hardly even bother to face you until you start hitting them. Combined with the graphical shortcomings of the game, these flaws really make MoHH2 feel like a port of an FPS from five years ago.

And yet in spite of all of that, MoHH2 is still a great deal of fun, and I still look forward to playing it because of the awesome control scheme! I didn't think that it would stand a chance given all of the other FPS games I've been playing (Orange Box, BioShock, Stranglehold, Halo 3, Gears of War, The Darkness) and all of the much more exciting FPS games currently available that I don't have yet (Call of Duty 4, Unreal Tournament III, Crysis, Quake Wars: Enemy Territory), not to mention the other non-FPS Wii games that I want to play, but I honestly think that I'm going to come back to it and maybe even bother to finish it, which would be a first among all of the Medal of Honor games that I've played. It's all thanks to those amazing Wii controls.

At this point you may be thinking that I've become one of those Wii-nuts who always rants about the innovative technology of the Wii thinking that somehow it makes me more hardcore than the "hardcore" console gamers who play Halo and blah-blah-blah. I've gotten that attitude a lot, personally, and frankly I've grown very skeptical of the Wii. I've heard about how, say, it's really fun to grab and shake enemies using the Wii controls in Godfather: Blackhand Edition, and my general response has always been to the tune of "yeah, great, but it's still just a really weak rip-off of GTA3, which I was already sick of back in 2002." (To be fair, I haven't played the Godfather game at all, so my opinion doesn't count for much.) I like Wii Sports but I also find it tedious and hardly ever play it, and my favourite features in the Wii Zelda and Mario games have had little to do with the "revolutionary" Wii controls. I'm not on the Wii's "side" here, although I do like the system overall.

Is that to say that MoHH2 is truly all that great and you should rush out to buy it immediately? No, not really--unless perhaps you're bored and have some money to burn, I guess. But you definitely should make an effort to try it, whether that means renting it, borrowing it for a friend, or maybe even buying it (especially if you can get a deal on it, like I did.) I find it amazing that such a bland and stale FPS series has managed to deliver such an exciting and innovative game experience on the Wii. Any serious Wii owner must try this game, and I look forward to future Wii titles that learn from what MoHH2 has accomplished.

posted by Parappa @ 10:50 AM