Medal of Honor Retrospective: Medal of Honor Pacific Assault

Medal of Honor Pacific Assault was released for the PC in November 2004, published by Electronic Arts and developed by EA Los Angeles.

Medal of Honor Pacific Assault is the second PC entry for the franchise and the second entry to take place in the Pacific. Despite the power of the PC platform giving the game its first strong narrative arc, the results end up being less than spectacular.

The best part of this game by far is the narrative presentation. This is the first Medal of Honor game to have a strong narrative arc, and it benefits greatly.  Telling the story of Pvt. Thomas Conlin, it goes from boot camp pre-Pearl Harbor all the way to the Battle of Tawara, midway through the war. Touching on events like Pearl Harbor and Guadalcanal, it mines similar territory to what Rising Sun did, but it ties it together with a much stronger narrative than that game, or any other Medal of Honor game before or since, has.

The biggest problem with the game is that, beyond the story presentation, there’s nothing else of note about the game, aside from the always excellent sound design and music. The levels are very linear, and the gameplay is more of the same style that has been in the franchise since the beginning. No new gameplay elements are introduced, and since the game is the second one set in the Pacific, the freshness of seeing those areas isn’t there. Even the Pearl Harbor sequence, despite being much more interactive, ends up not making as much of an impact as Rising Sun‘s version of the event.

Medal of Honor Pacific Assault, despite being the most narratively ambitious game in the entire franchise, ends up failing due to the lack of focus on the rest of the game. It’s still a solid effort, far from the worst in the series, but it doesn’t excel at anything other than the story and presentation.

Solid, but unexceptional.

Next week: Medal of Honor returns to Europe in Medal of Honor European Assault.