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MEDAL OF HONOR VANGUARD
WALKTHROUGH GUIDE FOR PS2 & WII

Medal of Honor: Vanguard Review: It's bad enough publishers insist on churning out WWII first-person shooters, but Medal of Honor: Vanguard reduces the series that started the trend to "worst offender" status. In short order, it streaks through all of the war in Europe with a series of vignettes that reprise the best moments from prior outings. There's the "creep through the trenches and destroy artillery guns" mission, the "run through a bombed-out French village" level, the "slink through a sniper-infested gauntlet to clear the way for your buddies" stage, the "lead an assault on a Nazi field HQ and then defend it from counterattack" level. Yep, if it's in this Medal of Honor, it's been in one before. Only this time out it feels more like leafing through a series of postcards sent from someone playing through a real Medal of Honor game. 
Those other times also didn't involve fighting the controls just to play the game. Like Red Steel before it, Vanguard illustrates that the rush to put shooters on the Wii comes more from an attempt to capitalize on a fertile market than being a natural extension of the Wii remote control system. Waving a laser pointer around might earn a few yucks in a grade school classroom, but as an FPS control scheme, it elicits only groans of frustration. The root of the problems lies in the lack of any physical center reference point as you wave the Wii-mote around in space. 

With some practice, aiming might almost become tolerable, were it not for the haphazard hit detection. But as soon as you get the hang of the mechanics, you wonder why you even bothered when a perfectly lined-up headshot fails to connect. At least the gesture-based controls bring a few good moments to the game. You know given the Wii that you're bound to get things like chucking grenades with a flick of the wrist; it nonetheless works pretty well. Using the remote and Nunchuk to simulate tugging on the parachute lines to control your descent goes a little beyond the ordinary, and delivers the game's best moments -- both of them. That this wasn't fleshed out further as a bigger part of the game is disappointing. 

And for every good gesture control, Vanguard counters with a bad one. The various controls assigned to snapping the Nunchuk different ways results in all sorts of inopportune dancing. One direction reloads your weapon, a common task, and the last thing you want to be fooling around with in a firefight; the other direction, though, does an about-face. Accidentally whipping around in front of the enemy while trying to reload is not what you might call an endearing feature. And, just for fun, up and down movement on the Nunchuk controls your stance, switching between standing, crouching, and prone. So, every so often, you inadvertently stand up as well. Adaptation of controls that break fundamental mechanics like this brings back into focus the whole issue of incompatibility between the Wii and FPS games. 

Looking at the other hallmarks of WWII shooters furthers the argument against the platform choice here. For instance, visually, this version struggles to match up with its PS2 sister. At one particularly glaring point, the sarge reaches out to help you up from the ground with a hand so blocky it could be made from Lego bricks. On the multiplayer front, four-player splitscreen brings back other Nintendo memories...from two generations ago on the N64. It's a long way back to cutting cardboard dividers to hang on the TV, with everyone then huddled around squinting at a tiny patch of screen. 

By dragging us all back in time, this game does a disservice to both the Wii and the Medal of Honor franchise. For one, Nintendo's vision of the future involves everyday people casually playing around the TV; for the other, the visual arms race knows no limit with ever more competitors entering the WWII fray. Vanguard sorely misses on both counts. 

OTHER WII MEDAL OF HONOR VANGUARD WALKTHROUGH ARTICLES: 

http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10023.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10024.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10025.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10026.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10027.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10028.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10029.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10030.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10031.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10032.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10033.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10034.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10035.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10036.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10037.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10038.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10039.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10040.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10041.htm
http://wii.wonderdogsoftware.com/GUIDES_4/MEDV_10042.htm

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