Medal of Honor Retrospective: Medal of Honor Vanguard

Medal of Honor Vanguard was released for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii in March 2007, developed by EA Los Angeles and published by Electronic Arts.

Medal of Honor Vanguard has you in the role of Sgt. Frank Keegan as you play through major airborne events as Operation Varsity and Operation Market Garden. Despite attempting innovation in being one of the Airborne (meaning you parachute onto a starting area rather that just appearing there), the mechanic wasn’t used for anything in particular and wouldn’t be used to it’s fullest potential until the next game in the series.

A lack of motivation highlights the entire game, however, as Vanguard is easily the worst game in the entire franchise. The game returns to the linear roots of prior games, but without the effective moments that defined those games, like Pearl Harbor for Rising Sun or the D-Day invasion of Frontline and Allied Assault. The game is also extremely short, which is actually faint praise since nothing is the game is very memorable. The look and feel of the game feels like a step back from the prior European Assault and, sad to say, the entire game feels completely inessential. There’s nothing it does that evolves the franchise in any way and this game, more than any other in the series, defines how far the series had fallen since it debuted on the PlayStation.

However, two portable releases came along in the same time frame that kept the series somewhat fresh. Medal of Honor Heroes was released on the PlayStation Portable in October 2006, developed by EA Canada. You took control of several players, all of whom came from previous entries in the franchise. Lt. Jimmy Patterson, from the original Medal of Honor, Sgt. John Baker from the Allied Assault expansion Breakthrough and Lt. William Holt from European Assault. The game’s structure is fairly simple and objectives are familiar from previous entries in the series. Despite the odd control scheme, due more to the problems with the PSP’s button layout, the game is very playable and a solid if unspectacular entry in the franchise.

Medal of Honor Heroes 2 was released on the PSP and Nintendo Wii in November 2007, also developed by EA Canada. I played the PSP version and it felt much more like a “real” Medal of Honor game than the first Heroes game, which felt like a series of multiplayer maps with single player objectives. In this game, you control Lt. John Berg as you play through seven missions based loosely on the Battle of Cherbourg. The game felt much more like a standard console entry in the series which, for being on a portable, was very impressive. Everything that makes Medal of Honor memorable (the weapons, music, climatic moments) were all present in the portable iteration. Medal of Honor Heroes 2 is by far the best portable entry in the entire series and is the best version of Medal of Honor if you’re looking for the game on the go.

Overall, however, Medal of Honor Vanguard represents a moment in time when the franchise overextended itself and fell off the radar of many gamers. From the peaks of Frontline and Allied Assault to the gameplay innovations of European Assault and the story innovations of Pacific Assault, Medal of Honor had tread a lot of ground. Vanguard wasn’t able to tread new ground like the other games had. For that reason, it is the most forgettable entry in the franchise and a low point for the series as a whole.

Next time: Medal of Honor looks to the skies and re-embraces innovation in Medal of Honor Airborne.