Anyone pick up Men of Valor?

I spent a good couple of hours with the Xbox version tonight. I should point out that I'm sad about the shift from WWII to Vietnam in games. I just find the WWII era more interesting. Also, it feels like your going to be in rice paddies or the jungle in a Vietnam game. It's hard to get a lot of variety in your maps there (although I thought Vietcong did a nice job on the PC [the console version was awful]).

I've enjoyed what I played so far (the fact that I went into a second mission [longer, too, to my chagrin]), despite the fact that Otogi 2 was sitting next to me is testament to the fact that I've enjoyed it.

There have been complaints about the framerate in reviews. So far, I've only had a problem in transitional moments (passing through a checkpoint or before/after a cutscene). Not ideal, but I haven't had a problem during action yet. The character movements are a little awkward, but it's the kind of thing I'm used to in these types of games, so I live with it.

The graphics themselves were underwhelming when I started the training mission, but I've grown to like them. However (and this is a problem, again, with the setting), your shooting at guys who are frequently quite far away on the rice paddy or shooting at them through heavy vegetation, so your not seeing much until they get right up next to you or you enter one of the jungle towns.

I'm enjoying the story and character. It's not an amazing story, but the voice acting is decent (do I detect Edward Herrmann as the narrator, too?) and I'm getting attached to the squad, which I'm sure will be bad in the long run. However, there are already a lot of cliches. Things like a sniper getting the guy in front of you. The water buffalo ambush. Stuff that really happened, of course, and it's too bad we're so used to it, but there you have it.

Control is okay. Crouch movement is a little too slow for my taste. I'm not sure how I feel about the whole B button bandage thing (sometimes, it raises the stakes and is quite interesting, other times you want to wrap some bandages around the idiot's neck who came up with the idea and pull tight). And I wish there was a zoom button, historical accuracy be damned. But I find the aiming speed just about right and walking movement pretty good, too.

Sound is amazing in 5.1. Really drives it over the top. It's great to have things flying overhead ('specially if their delivering some napalm, love that AM smell and all) and bullets whizzing all around.

If I had to put a number on it at this stage, I'd probably go 7.5 or so. Not amazing, but good enough if you're not tired of this sort of thing. Still, it is early in my playing, and I understand there are some urban settings ahead, which should add some nice variety, so that number could go up or down.

	Author	Topic: Anyone pick up Men of Valor? (Read 934 times)
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