Developed by EA Los Angeles, Medal of Honor: Airborne is a first-person shooter which once again takes place in the European theater of World War II, and is the first in the series to focus on paratrooper activities. In the game, you assume the role of Private First Class Boyd Travers, a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, and later the 17th Airborne Division, of the United States Army during World War II. Travers's insertion is into major engagements in Italy, northern France, the Netherlands and Germany.

Unlike the previous Medal of Honor games, the main gameplay element of Airborne is the jump. At the start of each mission, you begin in a C-47 along with fellow soldiers preparing to drop. The team then jumps out of the plane and parachutes down to the ground, marking the beginning of the mission. Once on the ground, the game becomes much like any other squad FPS game. You and a group of nameless allied soldiers (AI) must accomplish some set of goals - capture key points or destroy things. The missions are lightly scripted. You can accomplish the mission goals in any order you like and mission objectives are often updated and added during the course of your missions.
The single player campaign consists of six missions (Operation Husky, Operation Avalanche, Operation Neptune, Operation Market Garden, Operation Varsity, and Der Flakturm /The Flak Tower/) that are historically accurate. I ran through all six of them in about an hour each, for a total single player experience of about six hours. The first mission begins in 1943 with a drop into a small walled village as part of Operation Husky, the costly Allied invasion of Sicily, followed by Operation Avalanche, the invasion of mainland Italy, where Travers is inserted into an operation near the Greek ruins of Paestum, which was used by the Axis as a staging area to counterattack the advancing Allies from the beaches of Salerno. The 82nd Airborne is then airdropped into France during the morning hours of June 6, 1944 as part of Operation Overlord, in which Travers is part of the paratrooper force dropped inland the night before the Normandy beach invasion to clear the infantry's path into France. The player is able to see the Utah Beach landings while in the air. Boyd Travers then drops into the Netherlands as part of Operation Market Garden, General Montgomery's failed plan to secure routes through Holland enabling a push into Germany. Largely featured is the partly destroyed city of Nijmegen and the attempt to secure the bridge over the Waal River for the Allies. The final mission takes place during Operation Varsity, which sees Travers parachuting alongside 30,000 soldiers into Germany in the single largest military airdrop in history.

The first three levels aren't very interesting. They're fairly linear, take place in unexciting settings, and don't play to the game's strengths. Starting with the fourth level the game picks up since you're given more freedom as to how you want to tackle the levels. Although, some of each level's objectives end up forcing you down a direct and linear path like a corridor shooter.

Increasing replayability is a big thing these days so Airborne does come with multiplayer. You can play as either the Allies or the Axis on six multiplayer maps, three of which have been adapted from the single player aspect of the game: Operation Husky, Operation Avalanche, and Operation Neptune. The remaining three maps are all adaptations of multiplayer maps from a previous Medal of Honor title, Allied Assault. There are no 24- or 32-player rooms, but instead are limited to 12. The three online games are Team Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch Airborne (Axis must defend against the Allies who are dropping in from the sky), and objective (players must capture three neutral flags, similar to the main game mode of Battlefield 2)

Some weapons that you will have access to on the Allied side are the M18 Recoilless Rifle, M12 Combat Shotgun, Colt M1911A1, Thompson Machine Gun, M1918A2 BAR, M1 Garand Rifle, and the trusty M1903 Springfield. On the Axis side, C96 Mauser Pistol, Sig 44 Assault Rifle, MP40 Machine Gun, G43 Rifle, K98K Rifle, and the Panzerschreck Rocket Launcher. You will also have access to grenades on both sides. Each of the weapons that you use in Airborne has three different upgrade levels that it can reach. When you start killing opponents with a weapon, you'll see its icon in the bottom right corner of the screen start to fill up with blue. When it reaches the top of the icon, you'll unlock a new ability for the weapon. You can carry two weapons at a time as well as a pistol, which isn't very powerful but has unlimited ammo. Grenades are often tough to come by, but ammunition is plentiful, as are health packs, which are scattered throughout the levels. You temporarily get infinite ammo when the screen goes blurry, so try to kill a few more enemies when it does!

Overall, Medal of Honor: Airborne is a game that rewards those who are patient enough to stick with it. Due to the length of the game though, I'd have to say I recommend waiting for the price to drop. Right now, I would rather spend my $50 on The Orange Box and get Half-Life 2 episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal. That is going to be a great deal.

Also, definitely download the demo before purchasing the full version to determine how it will run on your PC.

related links: demo (1.27GB), cheats (demo), cheats (retail), trainer +3, trainer +8, trainer +3 (v1.1.), trainer +8 (v1.1), patch v1.1, Gametrailers video-review (7.8/10)

System Requirements:

Minimum: Intel P4 2.8 GHz or AMD Athlon 2800+ for Windows XP / Intel P4 3.0 GHz or AMD Athlon 3800+ for Windows Vista, 1GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT, ATI Radeon X1300 Pro, or better with Shader 3.0 support for Windows XP or Vista (Note: NVIDIA 6800XT, 6800LE, 7100GS, 7200GS, 7200LE, 7300GS, 7300GT cards not supported). NOTE: NVIDIA SLI and ATI Crossfire modes are not supported in Medal of Honor Airborne, DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card (Note: For Creative Sound Blaster Audigy cards running under Windows Vista you should expect lower performance), 8X or faster DVD-ROM drive, 9 GB or more of free HDD space, Multiplayer: 2 to 12 players, Internet connection required (Cable, DSL, or faster connection), OS: Windows XP (SP2), Windows Vista (32-bit; 64-bit versions of Windows Vista are not supported)

Recommended: Intel P4 3.4 GHz or AMD Athlon 3400+ for Windows XP / Intel P4 3.6 GHz or AMD Athlon 4200+ for Windows Vista, 1GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT, ATI Radeon X1300 Pro, or better with Shader 3.0 support for Windows XP or Vista (Note: NVIDIA 6800XT, 6800LE, 7100GS, 7200GS, 7200LE, 7300GS, 7300GT cards not supported), DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card (Note: For Creative Sound Blaster Audigy cards running under Windows Vista you should expect lower performance), 8X or faster DVD-ROM drive, 9 GB or more of free HDD space, Multiplayer: 2 to 12 players, Internet connection required (Cable, DSL, or faster connection)