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''Medal of Honor: Airborne'' is a
first-person shooter A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre, video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a First person (video games), first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through t ...
video game developed by
EA Los Angeles Danger Close Games (formerly DreamWorks Interactive LLC and EA Los Angeles) was an American video game developer based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in March 1995 as joint venture between DreamWorks SKG and Microsoft (later moved to Mi ...
and released worldwide on mobile phones in August 2007, on
Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
and
Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...
in September 2007, and on
PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE). It is the successor to the PlayStation 2, and both are part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. The PS3 was first released on ...
in November 2007. It is the 11th installment of the ''Medal of Honor'' series, and uses a modified version of
Unreal Engine 3 Unreal Engine 3 (UE3) is the third version of Unreal Engine developed by Epic Games. Unreal Engine 3 was one of the first game engines to support multithreading. It used DirectX 9 as its baseline graphics API, simplifying its rendering code. The ...
. In the game's
single-player mode A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the gameplay. Video games in general can feature several game modes, including single-player modes designed to be played by a single player in addi ...
, players assume the role of an American
paratrooper A paratrooper or military parachutist is a soldier trained to conduct military operations by parachuting directly into an area of operations, usually as part of a large airborne forces unit. Traditionally paratroopers fight only as light infa ...
in the
US 82nd Airborne Division The 82nd Airborne Division is an airborne infantry division of the United States Army specializing in parachute assault operations into hostile areasSof, Eric"82nd Airborne Division" ''Spec Ops Magazine'', 25 November 2012. Archived from tho ...
who is airdropped with his squadrons and fights against hostile forces across six large missions that take place during the latter half of the
European theater of World War II The European theatre of World War II was one of the two main Theater (warfare), theatres of combat during World War II, taking place from September 1939 to May 1945. The Allies of World War II, Allied powers (including the United Kingdom, the ...
,
while in its online game, online
multiplayer A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system (couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...
mode, players can choose to fight as Allied soldiers that parachute into the battlefield, or as Axis soldiers who defend on the ground. Unlike previous games in the series that employed a linear style of gameplay in its single-player mode, in which the start point and direction is already laid out, ''Airborne'' employs a more
nonlinear gameplay A video game with nonlinear gameplay presents players with challenges that can be completed in a number of different sequences. Each may take on (or even encounter) only some of the challenges possible, and the same challenges may be played in a ...
style in both modes, in that players can start their game anywhere in the map that they land in and complete the majority of a mission's objectives in any order. The game has received more favorable reviews for the PC and PlayStation 3 versions than its Xbox 360 version. While the game was planned to have versions made for
PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 Novembe ...
,
Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...
, and
Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...
, these were later cancelled,
with the first two consoles having '' Medal of Honor: Vanguard'' as an exclusive title between them instead.


Gameplay

In both modes of gameplay, players have access to three different categories of weapons that they can use in battles, either selected before or acquired during a game - Main Weapons, covering rifles, sub-machine guns, auto/assault rifles, shotguns and anti-tank weapons; Side-arms, which have infinite ammo and are mainly used as a back-up when out of ammo for main weapons; and grenades. Traditional game mechanics for the game such as crouching and "cooking" grenades, are complemented with the ability to lean out of cover to take shots at enemies, while players may also engage opponents in
close combat Close-quarters battle (CQB), also called close-quarters combat (CQC), is a close combat situation between multiple combatants involving ranged (typically firearm-based) or melee combat. It can occur between military units, law enforcement and cr ...
. Like many games in the ''Medal of Honor'' series, players have a health bar, divided into four units, that begins to deplete when taking damage; if the player avoids taking any damage, the current unit of health being depleted will regenerate in time, but any units lost will require the player to find first aid kits. The HUD allows the player to keep track of what weapon they are using, the amount of ammo they have in it and on hand to reload it with, how many grenades they have, and a compass that keeps track of where allies and enemies are, along with markers indicating which direction a player is being damaged from and where active grenades have landed. What makes ''Airborne'' unique in the series is the ability for players to choose where they land as a
paratrooper A paratrooper or military parachutist is a soldier trained to conduct military operations by parachuting directly into an area of operations, usually as part of a large airborne forces unit. Traditionally paratroopers fight only as light infa ...
on the battlefield in both modes. Once a player begins descending onto the map they are fighting on, they can direct where they will begin from, controlling the speed of the descent, thus giving greater flexibility and strategy on how they deal with enemies, with the added ability of being able to kick enemies they land upon.


Single-player

In the game's main campaign, players assume the role of a fictional paratrooper working alongside other members of an American airborne division, to complete a series of objectives within each of the campaign's six missions. The player is given a briefing on each mission's initial objectives, as well as a map of where they will be operating, including the location of heavy enemy concentrations (marked red) and safe landing sites (marked green). In this mode of gameplay, players can equip two main weapons, designated as primary and secondary weapons, and chose what loadout they have before beginning a mission from a selection of Allied and Axis weapons; additional weapons can be unlocked by either taking those dropped by enemy soldiers during a mission or reaching later missions where they become available in. During missions, weapons earn
experience Experience refers to Consciousness, conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience i ...
from killing enemies, with the amount per kill greatly increased from performing headshots, melee and multiple kills. Once a weapon earns enough experience, it receives an upgrade that improves how effective it is for the player, with upgrades ranging from increased damage, a higher rate of fire, and reduced weapon recoil. Each weapon can be upgraded three times, and has its own set of upgrades; once it is fully upgraded, the weapon's icon on the interface changes to reflects its fully upgraded appearance. When descending by parachute into a mission's battlefield, the type of landing the player makes affects the speed at which they can begin to fight - "Greased" landings, by moving forward before touching down, allow the player to be ready instantly to fight; "Flared" landings allow the player to land safely, but require a little time to be combat-ready; "Botched" landings, by coming in too hard, cause the player to be more vulnerable to attack as they recover and become combat-ready. The player can also perform a "Skill" drop, by landing safely and in a specific way, at a site designated by a white parachute (i.e. landing through an open doorway); each mission has a set number that the player can find on when on the ground, and which they can attempt at any time when their character is descending down onto a mission's battlefield. Once in a mission, players do not face enemies with randomized appearances and weapons, but rather a predetermined selection of enemy types; while the player faces the weakest kind to begin with, more difficult and challenging opponents are introduced as the game progresses. Each mission the player undertakes consists of two phases. In the first phase, gameplay is
non-linear In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system (or a non-linear system) is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathe ...
; in addition to choosing where they wish to land, players can decide the order in which objectives are completed, though they are restricted to landing and moving within the area of the map that is accessible to them. If the player is killed during this phase of a mission, they re-spawn in the air, descending down to the battlefield once more, and can thus take advantage of this to put themselves in a more favourable position to complete an objective. Upon completing the objectives outlined in a mission's briefing, the game's second phase begins and focuses on a more scripted and linear path, with objectives unlocked in sequence and a new area of the map becoming accessible. In this phase, the player no longer can parachute back down to the mission's map, instead re-spawning to the last checkpoint they reached.


Multiplayer

In the game's multiplayer mode, players work as a team, playing as either Allied or Axis soldiers, over six maps - while the game uses three from the single-player mode, along with another that is scaled down in size, the other two maps are original design. In a match, players begin by choosing what main weapon they begin with - rifle, SMG, auto-rifle, sniper and anti-tank - which is denoted by what role they are in (i.e. for SMG, Allies get the Thompson, while Axis get the MP40), and can scavenge a second main weapon during the match. If a player is killed, they can change what weapon they use before they respawn, though lose the second weapon they scavenged. Matches can be set to one of three modes - Airborne Objective (a variation on the "seize-the-objective" multiplayer mode), Airborne Team Deathmatch, and Team Deatchmatch - with the airborne-based modes utilising ''Airborne''s unique paratrooper aspects of gameplay, in which Allied players can land wherever they want on the map being used, including when they respawn, but are vulnerable during their descent as Axis players can shoot them down. Players can acquire access to weapon upgrades, similar to those in single-player, depending on what type of match they undertake - unranked matches grant access to upgrades and allow match's server settings to be optimized per what the player(s) want; ranked matches focus on persistent character development that grant gradual access to upgrades over time. The game's online servers along with ''Medal of Honor'' (2010) and '' Medal of Honor: Warfighter'' were shut down on February 22, 2023.


Plot

In 1943, following training in
North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...
, Private Boyd Travers learns that the
82nd Airborne Division The 82nd Airborne Division is an Airborne forces, airborne infantry division (military), division of the United States Army specializing in Paratrooper, parachute assault operations into hostile areasSof, Eric"82nd Airborne Division" ''Spec Ops ...
is to help with the invasion of
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
, beginning with
Operation Husky Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...
. After nearly being killed by friendly fire from the
US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
, Travers and his platoon land in the village of Adanti,
Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...
, where the group assists in neutralising several anti-aircraft nests while combating Italian soldiers, before venturing deeper into the village to find a missing sniper team and aiding his squadron in repelling a German counterattack. Travelling to the Italian mainland, the 82nd take part in
Operation Avalanche Operation Avalanche was the codename for the Allied landings near the port of Salerno, executed on 9 September 1943, part of the Allied invasion of Italy during World War II. The Italians withdrew from the war the day before the invasion, but ...
, eliminating a munitions stockpile, fuel depot, motorpool, and radio equipment at the
Paestum Paestum ( , , ) was a major Ancient Greece, ancient Greek city on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, in Magna Graecia. The ruins of Paestum are famous for their three ancient Greek temples in the Doric order dating from about 550 to 450 BCE that ...
archaeological dig near
Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...
, with Travers assisting in an assault on a ruined temple housing anti-air guns, destroying them before Allied
P-40 The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk is an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter-bomber that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time and enabled a rapid entr ...
fighter bombers arrive and destroy the German artillery located around the dig site. One year later, on June 6, 1944, the 82nd take part in
Operation Neptune Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...
, lending assistance to the American forces preparing to land on Utah Beach as part of
Operation Overlord Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allies of World War II, Allied operation that launched the successful liberation of German-occupied Western Front (World War II), Western Europe during World War II. The ope ...
. Working with his squadron, Travers manages to eliminate all potential threats to the invasion force, including a
Tiger tank Tiger tank may refer to: *Tiger I, or ''Panzerkampfwagen'' Tiger ''Ausf. E'', a German heavy tank produced from 1942 to 1944 *Tiger II The Tiger II was a Nazi Germany, German heavy tank of the World War II, Second World War. The final official ...
and a series of bunkers, before heading to the shoreline and eliminating German pillboxes that endanger the incoming landing forces. A few months later, Travers and his squadron take part in Operation Market Garden, assisting in the capture of
Nijmegen Nijmegen ( , ; Nijmeegs: ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and the ninth largest of the Netherlands as a whole. Located on the Waal River close to the German border, Nijmegen is one of the oldest cities in the ...
in the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
, while preventing the Germans from destroying the town's bridge with explosives planted on it. Despite a fierce counterattack, including the use of Panzerschreck rocket launchers and Tiger tanks, the 82nd manage to secure the bridge for American
Sherman Sherman most commonly refers to: *Sherman (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname ** William Tecumseh Sherman (1820–1891), American Civil War General *M4 Sherman, a World War II American tank S ...
tanks to cross, while Travers receives a promotion to Corporal for his actions. After Market Garden ends in failure for the Allies, Travers transfers to the 17th Airborne Division. In March 1945, his division takes part in Operation Varsity, landing within an industrial complex in
Essen Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...
, Germany, to destroy its stockpile of munitions and tanks, while shutting down its weapon production facilities. Despite a counter-attack by heavily armored
Allgemeine SS The ''Allgemeine SS'' (; "General SS") was a major branch of the '' Schutzstaffel'' (SS) paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany; it was managed by the SS Main Office (''SS-Hauptamt''). The ''Allgemeine SS'' was officially established in the autu ...
troopers wielding MG42s that inflict heavy losses on the Allied troops, Travers manages to overcome the new threat and successfully destroys an armoured ammunition train that arrives at the complex. A few days later, with Operation Varsity proceeding as planned, Travers finds his squadron going deeper into enemy-held territory within Essen, with the task of destroying a massive
flak tower Flak towers () were large, above-ground, anti-aircraft gun blockhouse towers constructed by Nazi Germany. "Flak" is short for anti-aircraft gun in German: ''Flugabwehrkanone''. There were a total of 8 flak tower complexes in the cities of Berlin ...
that Allied bombers had failed to level. Despite heavy opposition, Travers helps to neutralize key fortifications within the tower, before assisting an engineering unit and detonating charges placed beneath the tower, destroying the structure as the war in Europe begins to enter its final stages. In a closing report, Travers' CO comments on how history will remember the sacrifice and courage of the men in the Airborne divisions for what they did during World War II.


Development

Development of ''Airborne'' started in late 2004 when the game designers wanted a new game that would "really revolutionize the ''Medal of Honor'' scene". The idea of a
paratrooper A paratrooper or military parachutist is a soldier trained to conduct military operations by parachuting directly into an area of operations, usually as part of a large airborne forces unit. Traditionally paratroopers fight only as light infa ...
-based gameplay came up and as such a free-roaming environment was needed, which became the key focus of the game. Each mission starts with a jump and the developers wanted to make the experience as
nonlinear In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system (or a non-linear system) is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathe ...
as possible, with no starting points and as such the scenario unfolding in a different way each time, as opposed to previous World War II FPS games where there is a set starting and end point. The lead designer was Rex Dickson, and the executive producer was Patrick Gilmore, who previously worked on ''Medal of Honor: Allied Assault.'' The development team even had an actual historical advisor, who is an enthusiast on the
Airborne forces Airborne forces are ground combat units carried by aircraft and airdropped into battle zones, typically by parachute drop. Parachute-qualified infantry and support personnel serving in airborne units are also known as paratroopers. The main ...
and
weapons A weapon, arm, or armament is any implement or device that is used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime (e.g., murder), law ...
of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, attempting to ensure historical accuracy and authenticity. Each sound was recorded from hundreds of real World War II-era artifacts including real weapons,
tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; ...
s, and one of the last remaining airworthy
C-47 The Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota ( RAF designation) is a military transport aircraft developed from the civilian Douglas DC-3 airliner. It was used extensively by the Allies during World War II. During the war the C-47 was used for troo ...
s. Originally, the game was going to include pathfinder missions done by soldier Eddie LaPointe that would include more stealth. They would come before Travers' drop. This was later cut as EA wanted to simplify the action and focus on large scale fights with Travers instead. EA signed partnership with
Jeep Jeep is an American automobile brand, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with other assets, from its previous owner, American Motors Co ...
to feature drivable vehicles in the game. This was taken out of the final version as well, because levels were made with cramped spaces and short roads and alleys, so there was no room left to drive. ''Airborne'' was developed in close consultation with the ''Medal of Honor'' community, via forums and summits.
/ref> Certain community leaders who run ''Airborne'' fan-sites were invited to a multiplayer preview summit in July 2007, and many problems were identified that would hamper the game's popularity within the ''MOH'' community, the most important ones being lack of a
dedicated server A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone else. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organizations have ...
and issues with mouse lag and low
frame rate Frame rate, most commonly expressed in frame/s, or FPS, is typically the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images (Film frame, frames) are captured or displayed. This definition applies to film and video cameras, computer animation, and moti ...
. As a result of the summit, the most critical issues were able to be fixed in time for the game's release, and the other issues in time for the first patch. A single-player demo was released on August 23, 2007, featuring the first half of
Operation Husky Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...
.


Game engine

''Airborne'' uses a heavily modified version of the
Unreal Engine 3 Unreal Engine 3 (UE3) is the third version of Unreal Engine developed by Epic Games. Unreal Engine 3 was one of the first game engines to support multithreading. It used DirectX 9 as its baseline graphics API, simplifying its rendering code. The ...
game engine, engine. The game's core development was started with EA's acquired
Renderware RenderWare is a video game engine developed by British game developer Criterion Software. Overview Released in 1993, RenderWare was a 3D API and graphics rendering engine used in video games, Active Worlds, and some VRML browsers. RenderWar ...
engine, but it made the switch to the Unreal 3 engine in early 2006 which delayed the game by over a year. The engine was specifically designed for DirectX 9 and 10 PCs,
PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE). It is the successor to the PlayStation 2, and both are part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. The PS3 was first released on ...
and the
Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...
, and supports many rendering techniques utilized within the graphics capabilities of ''Airborne'', including HDRR,
per-pixel lighting In computer graphics, per-pixel lighting refers to any technique for lighting an image or scene that calculates illumination for each pixel on a rendered image. This is in contrast to other popular methods of lighting such as vertex lighting, whi ...
and dynamic shadows.


AI awareness

Because of the
non-linear In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system (or a non-linear system) is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathe ...
gameplay style of ''Airborne'', the developers had to build an entirely new
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
system to deal with the many ways the player can interact with or approach the computer-controlled allied and enemy soldiers (
NPCs A non-player character (NPC) is a character in a game that is not controlled by a player. The term originated in traditional tabletop role-playing games where it applies to characters controlled by the gamemaster (or referee) rather than by a ...
), and for them to react to the situation accordingly. With "Affordance A.I.", the characters have an awareness of enemy approach patterns, and also features of the
terrain Terrain (), alternatively relief or topographical relief, is the dimension and shape of a given surface of land. In physical geography, terrain is the lay of the land. This is usually expressed in terms of the elevation, slope, and orientati ...
and urban infrastructure that provide a tactical advantage, such as cover, high ground and open doorways. This allows AI characters to take intelligent combat actions based on their surroundings, as opposed to the scripted movements of previous
linear In mathematics, the term ''linear'' is used in two distinct senses for two different properties: * linearity of a '' function'' (or '' mapping''); * linearity of a '' polynomial''. An example of a linear function is the function defined by f(x) ...
FPS games. ''Airborne'' uses two systems to guide the physical and emotional reactions of the AI characters to what is happening around them. "E-cap" (emotion capture) is used to create more human-like emotions on the characters' faces by blending an awareness of their surroundings and other NPCs, for example an AI soldier that started to move forward would jump back for cover if an ally next to him was shot.


Audio

''Medal of Honor: Airborne Original Soundtrack'' was released on July 31, 2007. It features the in-game tracks and musical scores of the game, all of which were composed by the award-winning
Michael Giacchino Michael Giacchino ( , ; born October 10, 1967) is an American film, television, and video game score composer. He has received many accolades for his work, including an Academy Award for ''Up (2009 film), Up'' (2009), an Emmy Award, Emmy for Lo ...
, who also composed scores for some of the previous Medal of Honor games, including the main theme for the whole series.
The first scoring session was held at the Paramount Scoring Stage in Hollywood on April 20, 2006, to score the teaser trailer that would premiere at the
Electronic Entertainment Expo E3 (short for Electronic Entertainment Expo) was an annual Trade fair, trade event for the video game industry organized and presented by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). It was held principally in Los Angeles from 1995 to 2019, wit ...
(E3) in the summer of 2006. A 75-piece orchestra, conducted by Marshall Bowen, performed the music. Eight months later, Giacchino was wrangling a few projects, including Lost and
Ratatouille Ratatouille ( , ; ) is a French Provençal dish of stewed vegetables that originated in Nice and is sometimes referred to as ''ratatouille niçoise'' (). Recipes and cooking times differ widely, but common ingredients include tomato, garlic ...
, and it was decided that instead of trying to blast through the writing process and compose all of the music for 2-days of recording, it would be best to focus on one day of recording, and then record the rest of the music in the spring when the game's development had progressed sufficiently. On December 11, 2006, Giacchino recorded the first round of cues for the game with the
Hollywood Studio Symphony The Hollywood Studio Symphony (sometimes the Hollywood Freelance Studio Symphony) is the credited name of the symphony orchestra behind many major soundtracks, including '' The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'', ''Suc ...
at the Eastwood Scoring Stage at
Warner Bros Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American film studio, filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and th ...
. Four months after that, on March 28, 2007, the final round of music was recorded. The ''Airborne'' soundtrack has been said to be based on the Medal of Honor themes of the past, but "brings a dark uncertainty that communicates the ominous journey of the first US Airborne combat troops".
In addition to the new soundtrack the game also re-uses scores from five of the series' previous games, these being '' Medal of Honor (1999 video game), Medal of Honor'', '' Medal of Honor: Underground'', '' Medal of Honor: Allied Assault'', '' Medal of Honor: Frontline'' and '' Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault''.


Reception

The PC and PlayStation 3 versions received "favorable" reviews, while the Xbox 360 version received "average" reviews, according to video game
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Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
.
GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...
was pretty average on the game, saying, "The single-player campaign doesn't get cooking until the last two levels, but those two levels combined with solid multiplayer make it worth enlisting in ''Airborne''."
IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...
fared a bit better on the game in its review, saying that, "''Airborne'', while not perfect, is definitely the best game in the franchise to come along in quite a while." Press Start Online stated that ''Airborne'' was "a ''Medal of Honor'' game that's not only good, it demonstrates a level of imagination and innovation that's becoming increasingly rare in the genre." Most reviewers praised the music from the games of ''Medal of Honor'', with IGN stating in particular that the title music was said to bring back some classic memories from ''Allied Assault'' and the starting music for Operation Market Garden for Campaign.


References


External links


Official Website
at EA.com * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Medal Of Honor: Airborne 2007 video games Cancelled PlayStation 2 games Cancelled Wii games Cancelled Xbox games Electronic Arts games Airborne Mobile games Multiplayer online games Parachuting video games PlayStation 3 games Unreal Engine 3 games Video games developed in the United States Video games scored by Michael Giacchino Video games set in France Video games set in Germany Video games set in Italy Video games set in Sicily Video games set in the Netherlands Video games set in Tunisia Windows games World War II first-person shooters World War II video games Xbox 360 games Multiplayer and single-player video games