When I finally get to play Medal of Honor's single-player for myself (starting with a Ranger mission in the middle of the campaign called "Belly of the Beast"), the first thing I see is a bunch of soldiers looking out at a group of Chinook helicopters heading to Afghanistan. This stands out because it's actually a modern day version of the opening scene from Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (which itself cribbed from the opening of Saving Private Ryan), in which the player is aboard a boat and looks out over the horizon to see all the other landing craft bearing their way to the beaches of Normandy. This modernization of D-Day continues onward, with lots of soldier banter and, when they step out of Chinooks, they get pounded by RPGs and assault-rifle fire the same way the Germans pounded the boats with machine guns. After the same initial shock of in-your-face combat, you (as Ranger Dante Adams) have to rally with the rest of your squad across a chaotic battlefield.
It's not just the situation of "guys in transports getting smacked
and then dealing with hostiles" that's the same in Medal of Honor. As I
zip around a village filled with insurgents, I notice another conscious
callback to the original game: leaning. It's not something you find much
nowadays, due to the preponderance of cover-based systems (which is
also loosely present in the game), and it's a bit awkward to pull off on
a gamepad -- you hold down the left-bumper to activate "lean mode"
where the Left thumbstick moves your head, not your body.
It takes some getting used to, but once I'm able to use Left bumper,
Left-trigger (to aim), and both analog sticks to position my head and
then my eyes, it turns out to be pretty helpful. I can go into a doorway
and lean out the frame enough to shoot some fellows while the rest of
my body is in relative safety. The "cover" system that complements this
leaning mechanic isn't anything super-formal: as you're running, you can
hit B to start "sliding" towards a nearby cover point. It's not at all
sticky or anything, and it doesn't change perspective -- it's just a
fast way to position yourself behind something and then use lean to
look-and-fire over. One thing I learned the hard way is that cover is
quite destructible; even stone gets chipped away under enough heavy
machine gun fire, and so I have to consciously remember to move around,
slide into different cover points, and be mindful of my safety when
leaning out.
The rest of this mission plays out like a traditional Medal of Honor. Lots of medium-to-close range combat. I weave around hills, rocks, village homes, and makeshift emplacements. I can only carry a couple of weapons, but I can also request ammunition from my A.I. squadmates; though I never actually do this -- I guess practicing with the Type 88 Marksman in Bad Company 2 and the DMR in Halo Reach has made me conservative with my shots. At one point, my squad assaults a heavy machine gun emplacement, and I simply have to lay down suppressing fire (i.e. hide behind a rock and fire my light machine gun in my foe's direction) until my squadmates can plant smoke grenades to designate the target for air support.
Everything proceeds as normal until the mission's end, when the squad
gets holed up in an abandoned house against unending waves of enemies.
It seems to be an echo of what happened to Gary Gordon and Randy Shugart
during the Battle of Mogadishu (watch or read Black Hawk Down),
in that they defended their position against wave after wave even when
their supplies dwindle to almost nothing. I actually expected this
mission to end in my squad's death -- but at the last moment, some
Apache gunships appear and lay down rocket and machine gun fire. Which
then prompts the transition to the next mission, "Gunfighter."
For this mission, you're the gunner of an Apache as it and its squadmate cruise around for a combat air patrol. It's pretty straightforward, and you don't have to worry about where you're facing or what your altitude is or anything. Your tools include machine guns that follow your reticule, forward-firing rockets, and Hellfire missiles which require a target lock initially. The mission plays out like a typical rail sequence, as the Apaches get caught up in military mischief like following some trucks carrying weapons, or taking on a series of mortar teams. It's a pretty straightforward shooting gallery, as you just need to aim and fire machine guns at bad dudes before they hit you. And whenever the Apache itself is facing towards the enemy, you then pepper them with rocket fire. At one point, your squadmate loses their weapons, and becomes a flying spotter -- designating targets on the ground for you to lock-on and fire off Hellfire missiles at. About the only thing that gives me some pause is that the standard regenerating health system applies here -- so there's the momentary suspension of disbelief as you gradually see your helicopter's system percentage drop down to like 34-percent, and watch that number climb back to 100 whenever you're not being fired upon.
