Just mediocre

Medal Of Honor: Vanguard is not the best of Second World War games.

The first-person shooter franchise that sprung from the mind of Steven Spielberg is heading to next-generation consoles later this year, so Medal of Honor: Vanguard is probably the swan song for the best-selling Second World War shooter series. That's a shame, because rather than going out with a bang, this rehashed game from Electronic Arts surrenders to mediocrity.

A lot has changed in the Second World War game landscape over the years, thanks to such excellent franchises as Call of Duty and Brothers in Arms.

Vanguard, in which you play 82nd Airborne paratrooper Frank Keegan, looks and plays like the old Medal of Honor games. Dated graphics, washed-out backdrops, horrendous artificial intelligence and lack of originality make the game seem more like a part of history than a re-creation of historical events. The franchise has never really been about authentic history, but it did once offer fun gameplay. There's nothing fun or original about this game. Here, the Nazis are just plain stupid, except for when they're sniping you from two miles away. Bullet detection makes battles hilarious, as soldiers on both sides shoot and no one goes down.

Although the Wii version looks a bit better than the PlayStation 2 game, it suffers from a host of other problems. Wii makes aiming your gun extremely difficult (and seemingly random). Good luck lining up that headshot and having the Wii Remote hit it. Using the Nunchuk is also a mess; it's easy to hit Reload and instead watch your soldier pull an about-face in the middle of a firefight.

The lack of a multiplayer option – other than a two-player, split-screen game on PS2 or a four-player, quad-screen game on Wii (from the Nintendo 64 era) – kills any chance of making Vanguard even worth a rental. Here's hoping Medal of Honor: Airborne for next-gen consoles is where EA has been focusing all its attention. But then why did the developers bother to frustrate loyal fans with this horrible game?

Medal Of Honor: Vanguard comes with a Teen rating and is available on the Wii and PS2 platforms.