"Maybe Allied, not Pacific Assault?" – you probably want to ask me now. But no, there is no mistake here. . And now I will try to explain why exactly.
I would venture to guess that not all of you watched “Pearl Harbor” and know that the Second World War was fought not only in Europe and North Africa, but also in the Pacific Ocean. Just imagine – there are absolutely heavenly places around, with white sand, tall palm trees and the scarlet glow of the sunset. Places where you immediately want to go on vacation, where you want to lounge on a sun lounger, sip a mojito and enjoy the sun setting over the horizon. And against the background of this silence and serenity – aircraft carriers on the water, "Zero" – in the sky and the Japanese with bayonets and shouting "Banzai" at the ready – in the jungle.
Actually, this is the first thing that makes Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault stand out – the original setting. EA Los Angeles did everything to ensure that their game did not look like another “shooter about World War II”. And the jungle trick, despite Vietcong being released a year earlier and Men of Valor being released a week earlier, was still quite original. Of course, everything was not so severe (there were no camouflaged death traps, for example, and you didn’t have to turn to the moonlight to look at the map), but the associations were very vivid – after a couple of hours of fighting in the jungle of Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, some Crysis seems like nothing more than a tourist outing.
Second is the pace of https://casinoallbritish.co.uk/bonus/ the game. If in Allied Assault the cry “Banzai” was needed more by you than by your enemies, then here it’s exactly the opposite. The game is deliberately leisurely – firing a rifle takes a few seconds, during which your trembling hands fiddle with the bolt, and you have to hide to reload – changing the magazine takes a good 5 seconds. And even a machine gun is not a panacea for all ills. The game was as merciless to the player as possible (for a pop blockbuster, of course) – you moved slowly, clinging to rocks, corners of buildings and fallen palm trees with your feet, taking aim for a long time, changing weapons even longer, and the bullets themselves did not always fly to the target.
As a result, reflexes receded into the background, and the brain came into play (for a popcorn shooter – something unimaginable). The style of play from Allied Assault here instantly ends in death – holding the trigger and running past five enemies, mowing them down with one burst, will not work here. Here you need to act extremely thoughtfully and carefully – carefully choose a position behind cover, fire to suppress, and with feelings of primitive rage and primitive fear rush into a bayonet attack.
Yes, yes, you heard right. Hand-to-hand combat in Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault is as much a part of the game as scripts or the subordinate management scheme. The moment “Before” and the moment “After” are equal to zero here – you will win only by accurately calculating the moment of impact (until you think of taking an “Arisaka” with a bayonet from the nearest corpse).
7 years later with Battlefield 3, DICE will try to make something very similar, but more player friendly, and for a lot of money. But these seemingly very different games have one thing in common – the way they work with your ears. Firstly, the sound. What EA Los Angeles did in 2004 was as amazing as Battlefield 3 in 2011. I would venture to guess that there were no microphones located two kilometers from the sound source, but the sound was very good (especially if you have 5.1 – system). And secondly, the soundtrack. As it should be – orchestral, epic, inspiring, and most importantly – there is simply a lot of it. But more importantly, EA Los Angeles also uses it correctly, namely in strictly designated moments when it is important to emphasize what is happening.
And as a result, something incredible happened – you began to believe in what was happening on the screen. Everything played into this – a very good picture for those times, competent level design, partners screaming nearby, handling weapons, ballistics, videos with the main characters chatting between missions, sound, and even a seemingly deliberately simplified plot.
But even now, in 2022, you have one very good reason to see Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault with your own eyes. Which? Without spoilers, the answer is this: you will see what Americans have been trying with all their might for more than 80 years to transform from a terrible shame into a great feat of the American nation. Until now, in all 18 years since the game’s release, no one has dared to show this better than Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault.