CoD is a good game, but ill also have many fun nights playing Airborne.
Gameplay
The main gameplay element of Airborne is the jump.
At the start of each mission, the player begins 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. During the drop the player is able to freely control where in the field of battle they land; pre-determined drop zones are marked with a green flare, where the player will find their allies and supplies, however they can also choose to land elsewhere, which affects the way the game is played. For example, the player could land near the enemy stronghold and come up against heavy opposing firepower, or land on the rooftops with a sniper rifle and choose a stealthy approach to the mission. This free-roaming experience based on unlimited choice of landing spots offers infinite ways of gameplay, ensuring no two matches are alike.
Additionally, unlike previous scripted first-person shooters, the missions in Airborne have no specific start or end point. As the player can land anywhere in the map, beginning the mission where they choose, they can complete the given objectives in any order they wish. The rate at which players become ready for battle depends on their skill at hitting the ground; a poor landing results in notification of a "botched landing", with the player having to spare a few seconds to regain composure. Players can also instantly kill an enemy soldier if they land on them.
Airborne uses a unique health regeneration system where the health status bar is split into four quarters. If a whole quarter of health is lost, a health pack is needed to replenish it, although if the quarter is not entirely lost it will slowly refill if the player finds cover and rests for a few seconds. The game also has an unlimited sprinting ability where the player can speed up, however they will not be able to shoot while sprinting. Like other more recent FPS games, Airborne makes use of iron sights, where the player can improve their accuracy by looking down the sights of the weapon. The game's crosshair is dynamic where it will grow larger while the player is running, indicating that firing is less accurate while on the move.
The Airborne development team originally planned for drivable vehicles to be available, and EA went as far as signing a deal with Jeep to use their vehicles in game. However it was felt that they didn't fit well into the design of the game, and that their inclusion would detract resources from other priority game elements, most notably the main focus of the drop.
Weapons
A wide range of weapons is available in Airborne. Players can choose from allied weapons including the M1 Garand rifle, Springfield M1903A4 sniper rifle, Thompson submachine gun, M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, M12 Combat Shotgun, M1911 pistol, Mk 2 hand grenade, and German weapons such as the Karabiner 98k rifle, Gewehr 43 sniper rifle, MP40 submachine gun, Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifle, Mauser C96 pistol, Panzerschreck, and Steilhandgranate. Grenades can be kicked away, and if one explodes too close, the player experiences blurred vision and shellshock.
Airborne uses a weapon upgrade system, whereby the player is awarded with add-ons to their selected weapon as they become proficient with it. The player receives commendations for special achievements in the field of battle, such as a "Marksman" award for gaining a large number of kills, and a "Sniper" award for proficiency with a sniper rifle,and with them come the weapon upgrades. This feature is based on the idea that not every weapon in World War II was the same as every other one, soldiers had a wide variety of field modifications and upgrades that they could apply to them. Each weapon in the game has three upgrades, for example, the Thompson SMG can have a forward pistol grip added which stabilizes the weapon, then a Cutts compensator can be put on which ejects the muzzle gas upwards, largely eliminating muzzle rise, and finally a larger magazine is available bringing the amount of bullets per clip from 30 to 50. A notification appears each time a headshot is performed, the player gains a number of kills in rapid succession, or performs a melee kill, all of which earns the player reward points.
In multiplayer mode, players have the ability of a second primary weapon, picked up from a dead teammate or enemy player.
Multiplayer
Airborne features a multiplayer mode for online play. Users 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. While the basic design and layout of the maps are the same, they have been extended to make them larger, and new routes or points of access have been made to further balance the two teams. These maps are Destroyed Village, Remagen and The Hunt.
Currently there are three gamemodes in Airborne. The first is "airborne teammatch" where the Axis must defend against the Allies who are dropping in from the sky. The second is "regular teammatch", in which the Allies spawn on the ground instead of jumping from a C-47. In both teammatch modes, the side that gains the most kills after a specified time or frag limit wins. The third gametype is an objective-based mode where players must capture three neutral flags, similar to the main gamemode of Battlefield 2. The middle flag requires two soldiers to be near it, in order to capture it. The winning team is the one who manages to control the most flags the longest, after a set period of time. There has been some criticism in the MOH community for the lack of a classic non-respawning "objective" gametype, of which many clans and competitive ladders of Allied Assault are based around. While EA has not commented specifically on this gametype, it has been said that all concerns within the community are noticed and those issues will be dealt with as of the game's release or with a patch.
Registration of an EA account is required in order to play online. Server admins will have the ability to set their servers as ranked or unranked, however at release only unranked will be available. The maximum number of players per server is 12 for the Xbox 360 and for PC listen servers, for dedicated servers the number is expected to be much higher, however has not yet been determined. More maps and gametypes have been slated for addition via downloadable content, although a date is unknown.
