A lot of people sacrificed the sizeable 1.2Gb single player MOH: Airborne demo when it was unleashed a few weeks ago and were left suitably impressed, if not disappointed that the demo cuts the mission short before you get to fight the Germans. Probably the most annoying part of your single player experience will be going through that mission again but we’re getting ahead of ourselves and I’ll get to that eventually.

The single player campaign in MOH: Airborne is broken up into 7 different operations: Training, Husky, Avalanche, Neptune, Market Garden, Varsity and Der Flakturm. The game is nice enough to auto-save at every checkpoint you reach, the only issue you might have is the following; say you complete the game on easy and want to try it at the normal level. While you unlocked every mission by playing it on Easy, as soon as you choose to have a go at the Normal level, all your checkpoint saves from the Easy campaign are erased so you’ll have to soldier on and get the job done all over again. It’s just one of those little things. Starting a campaign kicks off with initial training

The Weapons:

Allies:

Colt 45 – Upgrades include beefier bullets

Garand – Upgrades include slightly zooming iron sight reticle and grenade launcher

Thompson – Upgrades include accuracy improvements and 50 round drum

BAR – Upgrades include improved accuracy and quick reload magazine

Springfield – Upgrades include quicker reload and grenade launcher

Shotgun - Upgrades include Bayonet attachment for easy slashing

M18 Recoiless Rifle

Axis:

C96 Mauser - Upgrades for this handgun make it a virtual machine gun pumping out 20 rounds in a matter of seconds with one click.

KAR98 – Upgrades include improved accuracy and grenade launcher

MP40 – Upgrades include a dagger for Melee attacks and bigger clip

STG44 – Upgrades include a scope and quick reload magazine

G43 Rifle – Upgrades include a scope and bigger magazine

Panzerschreck

TRAINING

This one is pretty self explanatory, training requires you nail three landings in the nominated green zones before you pass. It’s a pretty simple task, the only annoying thing was the final drop that is supposed to teach you how to do a “Greased Landing”, that is a landing where you hit the ground running and instantly ready to fight. The instructions on how to do this aren’t 100% clear and it took me an embarrassingly long time to discover you don’t flare your chute at all, hold down the forward key and aim for a fairly level surface to grease a landing.

Passing Training will bring you to a familiar environment, the briefing room from the SP Demo. It is for this reason I won’t go in-depth with this Operation and will only cover what happens after the demo cut-off point. If you rack your brains you will recall the main objective is to silence four AA guns and gun down burly Italian Blackshirts along the way.  Once the guns were destroyed in the demo, you were sent to reinforce Setzer at the other end of town who was being counter-attacked by Germans. It was at this point the demo rudely concluded.

The fact the demo concluded there is pretty sad as the Germans offer a totally different experience to those measly Blackshirts. Straight away they attempt to charge and push up on your position, lobbing copious numbers of stick grenades along the way. Your objective changes to locating a missing sniper team which ends up being conveniently stuck on the top floor of a building occupied by a bunch of Germans with a ruddy great MG42. Finding the sniper team introduces you to the Springfield sniper rifle, as you are suddenly required to pick it up and eliminate a German commander in a building in the distance. The sniper scope is quite nifty, with different zoom levels, a feature where it becomes unfocused if you don’t keep it steady and a stability meter that responds to you holding your breath (which is done by holding the jump key). Interestingly, the game developers seem to have modelled AI snipers on Roo Shooters, as you’ll find that there is an unexplainable halogen like beam that emanates from their rifle. I’m guessing that’s supposed to represent light reflection from the scope, but when you see how bright it is you’ll agree it seems like serious overkill (this scope light isn’t present in the Multiplayer component thank goodness).

Your final task is to head back to the Mayor’s Residence in the centre of town to repel a final German counter-attack. The fire fights with the Germans are fairly hard and thoroughly enjoyable until one comes from nowhere and belts you on the back of the noggin.

AVALANCHE – Paestum, Italy

When I think German strongholds in World War 2, I think old Roman ruins…. Well, not really but I have to admit, they make great cover. Avalanche drops you right in the middle of an Archaeological project swarming with Germans who have dug in. Your task is to locate and destroy their fuel depot, communications centre and munitions dump. To add to the excitement, its night time and that makes it hard to spot ninja Germans who flank through the bushes surrounding the ruins. I will say this before I continue, yes I whole heartedly agree that the actual Airborne paratroopers in WW2 were brave but what happens in the plane on the way to Paestum in this game really made me want to puke. You come to acknowledge that pretty much every in-plane sequence culminates in being shot at then jumping out, in Avalanche, one of your buddies gets some shrapnel in the back and someone claims he’ll get to go home instead of jumping. All good, I thought, he can stay for all I care; I do all the work around here anyway. Then came the vomit worthy trademark MOH series trumpet music and a “No! I’m jumping with you guys…”

It’s in Avalanche you first make friends with the German G43 semi-auto rifle, almost every foe you encounter has one and on top of making an awesome sound, it’s highly effective. Making your way through the ruins is a slow and tedious process, especially as you head to the communications centre objective as you’re forced through a semi-underground excavation where Germans, grenades and pain abound. Thankfully the developers saw fit to let you pick up a conveniently placed shotgun as you move through this area. Nothing makes a German officer fly back further than the sweet boom of a shotgun, you’ll be hard pressed not to crack a wry smile when you pull this sucker out.

Completing the main objectives reveals one final objective, assembling with the 5th Army demo to mark a couple of Flak88’s for destruction, fighting off waves of unhappy enemies along the way. I will warn you, it gets tricky in these ruins too and there is one annoying clipping bug. In the screenshots you’ll see a boring picture of a wall and a set of stairs. Don’t take cover behind this wall and peek up the stairs, you’ll soon discover that either the Germans have covered the wall with Tarzan’s Grip or there is some annoying clipping issue. It took me 3 suicides to learn that lesson. Marking the Flak88’s is as easy as shooting the fuel barrels next to them until they explode in to flames. Taking out a nearby AA gun clears the way for a couple of friendly fighter-bombers to do the rest, ending your campaign in Italy.

NEPTUNE – Audouville, France

The next stop on your tour of duty is Audouville, Normandy where, not surprisingly, you’re expected to assist the D-Day landings. Specifically you’re told there is a coastal battery assisted by a radar tower that is preventing the navy from closing in to give the landings artillery support. You’re dropped in a small village at the base of the hill upon which a spotting tower and the radar facility are perched. The added bonus is there is a Tiger tank skulking around the village, lucky for you an M18 Recoiless Rifle was dropped from the plane as well, just in 4 different packages. It’s up to you to run like buggery, find the 4 packages, shoulder the M18 and take out the Tiger. I will say this, I quite liked taking out the tank as I discovered the hard way that you can take out the tank’s tracks so it can’t move but the gun still fires. When you do completely destroy it, you might here an odd sound, that’s the sound of muffled screams and banging on the walls of the flaming wreckage, sort of cool but a tad off-putting.

Once that tank is out of action it’s up to you to charge onwards to take out the radar assembly and clear the spotting tower. Make sure to conserve your grenades for this one, there’s a lot of fighting indoors and the most effective way of surviving is to cook a grenade long enough so it explodes just as you lob it through the door, keep an eye out for enemy grenades though. As you clear the spotting tower and destroy the radar assembly, you then move to clear the central casemate and head out to the beach. The Germans you meet here are all toting STG44 Assault Rifles, pretty scary things. Of course, your job is never done and you’re expected to plough through these enemies and go on to clear two MG Pillboxes firing on the landing beach.

When you reach Operation Market Garden, you’ll have noticed to yourself that so far things haven’t gotten horrendously hard. Nijmegen is where things get cranked up a notch. You parachute into a mangled wreck of a city and are expected to make your way over to secure the Nijmegen Bridge. If only things were that simple, alas of course they are not. The Germans have rigged the bridge with explosives and your task is to run through the ruined city, locate and destroy a field radio, cables and the explosives plunger to keep the bridge intact. Along the way you’re also expected to clear some MG nests and to top it off, there’s a Tiger tank cruising the area that you’re also expected to destroy, just this time you haven’t got an M18. Instead you must rescue a batch of Gammon Grenades (they look something akin to a novelty Kangaroo scrotum money pouch) the Germans stole from your drop. From there it’s up to you to try ninja your way close enough to the tank to throw these suckers at it, it’s not easy, it takes around four good hits to do the job. All along the way there is heavy house to house fighting. The audio is exceptionally cool in this level with the sound of your feet pounding broken roofing tiles, wood, crappy muddy dirt all adding to the atmosphere. I might go as far to say this is probably the prettiest level in the game and it would have done great as a Multiplayer conversion (alas, it wasn’t done).

If you survive the initial objectives, you’d think you were all set to head to the bridge. Unfortunately no and you wonder why you though that’d be the case as it’s starting to become clear that the main objective is always set back by two or three dodgy minor objectives that pop up during the level. Your latest thrill is destroying yet another Tiger tank that decided to run over two of your buddies. There is in-fact a little cut scene that’s probably designed to try get you all emotional over the fact that Derrick and Dwayne (or whoever the hell they were) got run over. All that cut scene did for me was tick me off for interrupting the game. Take out the big bad nasty tank and you’ll finally get to go to the bridge.

Once you regroup with your buddies at the start of the bridge, a bunch of Sherman’s roll in and everybody suspects things are hunky dory. It’s here we meet Mr. Panzerschreck, or more like 38 Mr. Panzerschreck’s, in fact they’re everywhere. Evil little guys with gas masks running around trying to blow you sky high. Of course, you charge on, picking up a stray Panzerschreck for yourself for some sweet revenge, the satisfaction of watching a fellow Panzerschrecker fly for miles as he’s blasted off his lookout platform is amazing. Your final objective lies at the other end of the bridge, yep, you guessed it, another bloody tank. Once you take it out, so ends Operation Market Garden and you’re left hoping you don’t have to destroy another tank ever again (and you’re looking for the Kleenex as you remember what top mates Derrick and Dwayne were).

VARSITY – Essen, Germany

So it’s time to jump into Germany. In Essen it’s your duty to locate and destroy tanks that are secured for transport on railcars, an ammo cache in the tank factory basement, the tank factory control room, a rail gun and a chemical factory. If this top shopping list wasn’t enough to ask of you, when you jump in you suddenly notice that this place is very industrial with lots of hidey holes. Unfortunately for you, those hidey holes are full of, and I mean full of snipers. The second you touch down the camping sniper losers are onto you and you desperately look for some cover. Thankfully if you remember what I said about the sniper in Husky, the snipers here are also equipped with the Roo Shooter halogen spotlight system and it’s not long before you pick them off one by one, it’s a bit detrimental to the experience I think. Completing the objectives is a slow and arduous process in this one, running in and out of factory’s full of gang walks and Germans you’re really hard pressed to make progress without losing a lot of health. As you hit the Tank Factory control room objective make sure to look out for the safe there. It’s got an explosives plant spot and blowing that safe will present you with the C96 Mauser handgun.

Once all the main objectives are complete your final task is to secure the drop zone, doing this presents you with a cut scene and I actually thought that was it, then an armoured train (Panzerzug) rocked up. Out of the train’s steam stepped one mean looking dude in a black Nazi uniform, gas mask and a shiny black helmet (endearingly named the Nazi Elite Trooper). What distinguished this guy from the rest was the fact that he was carrying an MG42 and firing it off the hip, Rambo style. Not only was this badass scary looking, he could take a lot of hits. Fire all you want, he just won’t go down until you get several good rounds into his cranium. That’s when I discovered a batch of Gammon Grenades (the tank destroying ones) in a box in the corner and I went to town on that psycho. Two Gammon grenades and the big scary guy was reduced to a sorry looking ragdoll stuck to the front of the train he rolled in on. I met two of these guys from the train, then had to pick off a few lowly soldiers before going on to destroy the train, so ending Operation Varsity.

DER FLAKTURM – Germany

Now when I went to Europe in 2005/2006, I saw a couple of old flak towers and went into one in Vienna that was converted into a tropical animal house and aquarium. Nothing I saw over there quite looked like the monstrosity we’re presented with in Der Flakturm. This thing is like the Empire State Building, only far less interesting. What I’m getting at is it’s not a very believable representation of what you'd think a flak tower would be like.

 
The odd thing about this jump is you get so shot up, you end up jumping out of where the nose of the plane used to be before tumbling wildly for a while. You’ve then got two choices, plant yourself on the roof or float to the ground and make your way up the tower from below. This thing has it all, on the roof are 3 huge artillery pieces you’ve got to blow, a bunch of AA turrets and of course, every type of soldier under the sun. You’ll meet your old mate the Panzerschrecker, Captain sniper and several incarnations of that Nazi Elite Trooper. I chose the roof for my attack route. As you destroy the artillery and AA guns, you move inside where you discover a huge ammo lift that your next objective is to disable it. A word of advice at this point, be careful when you go up to have a look how far down it goes, it goes a long way and you won’t survive ok?

The fighting in this level is pretty full on, especially in Expert mode, you’ll grow to reaaaaaallly loathe that Nazi Elite Trooper as there are 3 or 4 on every level. Blasting your way down the levels in a blaze of glory completing odd jobs on the way, you’re eventually required to secure the base of the tower. It’s being lightly defended by three half tracks and a bunch of troops. Your job is pretty easy though thanks to conveniently placed fuel barrels that take only a few rounds or one grenade to blow, taking out everything around them. Securing the base then magically gives you access to the main control room, unfortunately that means fighting your way back up three levels of the tower through another wave of Germans that came out of the woodworks and of course the main control room is defended by your ever annoying foe, Mr. Nazi Elite Trooper. From the main control room you get to take an elevator ride to the basement to help the demolition team down there. On arrival you find they’ve got it all set up and are just about ready to go. You can guess what happens here, a bunch of Germans run for your position in the weird red smoke filled basement and your mates clear off leaving you to clean up the mess. Following the fuse cable along through the smoke will lead you outside but rest assured along the way you get lumbered with the task of defeating many enemies, several of which are, you guessed it, Mr. Nazi Elite Trooper. Towards the end this started to get tedious and felt more like the original Wolfenstein as you battled against weird hybrid soldier dudes as you tried to escape a Nazi fortress.

If somehow you survived being hunted down by 4 or 5 Nazi Elite Troopers while a bunch of buggers in the rafters thought it’d be funny to throw grenades at you, you end up running through sewers and emerge on the street. It’s here you discover the two cowardly demo team troopers that bailed on you and left you to fight the entire German army in the basement got their just desserts. One is totally dead and the other is crawling along the ground like a demented sloth. It’s left to you to pick up the explosive detonator and crank it until the tower in the distance explodes into flames. Let me just add, it’s probably the most disappointing final explosion I have ever seen in a game. That being said, that is the end one of the most ludicrously over-dramatised levels I have ever seen in a WW2 shooter.

Finishing The Flakturm, you’re left with a strange feeling as the dodgy triumphant cut scene plays and the credit starts rolling. You eventually figure out what that feeling is, where the hell is the rest of the game!? With seven missions in total, minus one which is just training, each one might take 30 to 45 minutes max to complete, even if you’re being Captain Careful, you can’t help but feel slightly ripped off. Top that off with the current lacklustre Multiplayer experience and you’re probably going to sit there thinking that’s money I might have been better off saving.

Like I said in the Multiplayer review, there are declarations of future content from EA in the form of new weapons and levels, whether this includes single player levels I have no idea. Yes, the Dedicated server release should fix up most of the issues with Multiplayer and make it pretty fun but even then, 6 maps are going to get boring fast and so far I’ve seen no mention of a release plan for SDK or map editing tools.

Overall, the game was pretty, fun, exciting and all sorts of positive words over the sun; it’s just the longetivity sucks, big-time. Once you finish it, then finish it again at a higher level, what else can you do?