As a committed pacifist, I can’t believe what I’m about to write. I played a war game at EA’s offices this week and found it downright delightful.
Those of you who follow theMedal of Honorseries closely probably found yourselves wallowing in asweet miasmaof shame and disappointment over the previous Wii installment,Medal of Honor Vanguard. It’s no secret that theVanguardport controlled like a drunken walrus in ballerina slippers. On top of that, it just wasn’tthere. The Nazi shooting gallery felt so awkward that you kept expecting a carny to hand you a large purple elephant doll as a reward for your sharp eye. Thankfully, none of this is the case inHeroes 2.
EA Canada has collected some intelligent, dedicated designers that poured their hearts into creating what could be the Wii’s quintessential first-person shooter. Let’s run through some stats. Online multiplayer modes featuring up to 32 human combatants: check. Intense showdowns in varied historical locales that run in a smooth, lag free 60 frames-per-second: check. Graphics that look like they took longer than a couple of80-hour crunch weeksto create: check. Absolutely no friend codes needed for convenient match-ups with your pals across EA Nation’s server: holy mother of God, check.
Hit the jump for my hands-on preview and conversation with the game’s lead producer, Matt Tomporowski.
Themultiplayermode might be the most exciting feature of the game. This section wasn’t available to experience atEA’soffices yet, but the details sound promising. We’ll be able to compete against 31 other players online in three different challenges: capture the flag, death match, and team death match. You can select between six different maps that feature similar settings to the single player campaign, but have been customized to improve themultiplayerexperience. When EA decided they would allow up to 32 players to compete, they knew they would need to ditch the friend code system and host the game on their own servers. I askedTomporowskiif he found there was a lack of online infrastructure from Nintendo to support the game. He responded that it “was definitely a challenge. It wasn’t for lack of desire or trying. You know, theWii’sreally new hardware. There’s a lot of challenges. I think, long term, it’s going to be easier and easier to develop with Nintendo online and we’re going to be seeing a lot moreWiigames online. You know, at Christmas and next year. I think we’re probably at the front of a big wave of online [games].”
