Each weapon has multiple upgrades, and you earn these by using a weapon spectacularly. For example, score three, or even five, kills in a row with a specific weapon, and your experience with that weapon jumps up. Whenever you fill up a weapon's experience meter, you unlock an upgrade for it. These can range from a satchel pack to carry extra grenades (the next upgrade is a bandolier of grenades); a hair trigger for the automatic pistol, allowing you to fire much more rapidly; a pistol grip for the Thompson submachine gun, improving accuracy; and more. When you do unlock that upgrade, the game slows down to something like bullet time while it presents you with it, and you're temporarily invincible during these sequences, so if you're quick, you can use it to good effect. Even better, these weapon upgrades are permanent, so if you upgrade the Thompson during the first mission of the game, you'll have that upgraded Thompson the rest of the game.

Both the PC and Xbox 360 versions looked excellent, and they're visually indistinguishable from one another, thanks to the highly modified Unreal Engine 3 technology that powers the game. The level of detail in these kinds of games continues to get even more impressive, but what really caught our eye were the elaborate light and shadow effects. Battling it out in a darkened manner and then seeing the face of a German soldier illuminated by the bright, white burst of his assault rifle is a very cinematic effect.

Perhaps the best way to sum up our experience is to point out that we started each battle multiple times, and each was a completely different experience due to where we landed and what we decided to do. In one play-through, we were content to simply stick to the rooftops and snipe at pockets of enemy resistance. In another, we charged down and battled to an objective, which involved blowing up an antiaircraft gun. In another, we went straight for the enemy headquarters, running inside the mansion and engaging in close-range firefights. It goes without saying that this helps keep the gameplay fresh, and you have to stay on your toes, as opposed to the old days of simply memorizing the timing and appearance of each enemy in the game. Medal of Honor: Airborne looks more than capable of rejuvenating the franchise and injecting some much-needed innovation in a very tired genre. But perhaps the best news is that the game is in the late stages of development, and it's scheduled to ship this August, just a few months from now.