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MEDAL OF HONOR AS a series has always been about the visceral experience of World War II. Levels like the classic Omaha Beach storming brought to new generations a glimpse of what soldiers on that day faced. While a healthy percentage of the European conflict has been tapped by the series there has always been a lack of coverage of the Pacific campaign. With the release of Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, the series looks to be rectifying that by giving players a solid look at what soldiers faced in this campaign.

It is especially relevant for us here in New Zealand as most families here will have memories of the fears, news reports and general tension we suffered as a country thanks to the advance of the Japanese Empire. With our troops fighting largely in the European campaign only a small force was available to aid the American and Australian forces but our 'Coconut Bombers' worked hard to help in the long process of clearing island after island as the path was cleared to Tokyo.

Pacific Assault aims to take us from Pearl Harbour to Guadalcanal and other places besides. Hopefully we will also see Iwo Jima, the fighting at Wake Island and probably the finale will be the heavy fighting on Okinawa during which the heavy casualties suffered by both sides was a heavy influencing factor in the decision to use nuclear weapons at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. To make all this possible a new rendering engine has been put together taking advantage of Direct X 9 level hardware to permit a detailed jungle to be rendered along with heavily detailed fellow soldiers.

Along with the graphical updates the soldier AI has been worked on as well as a new simplified command interface that allows you to control your squad in general terms. Perhaps the most interesting tweak is the new importance of the medic: rather than using first aid kits scattered through the level you now call for medical assistance. For a limited number of times he will patch up and even revive fallen soldiers. We really like this twist - it puts control back in the hands of the player as well as providing a compelling gameplay reason for caring about the lives of your in-game squad mates.

While the demo is short it does make it clear that the scripted but cinematic experience the series is famous for is intact. All in all, given the quality of previous entries in the series, Gameplanet is looking forward to this one. It promises to be quite the ride.

Show me the screenshots!