Balls of steel, my friend. Let's talk about cojones. How about jumping out of an airplane? Over enemy territory? At night? With nothing but the equipment you can carry on your back? No supply lines. No armor. Hell, you might land miles away from where you're supposed to be, and you're expected to just (no pun intended) "wing it." Now that takes guts. As I play through the opening minutes of the Medal of Honor: Airborne demo, as I leap out of a burning plane into flak-torn searchlight-swept skies, I can't help but marvel... Guys actually did this. Of course, air-drops also make for one hell of a new game mechanic. Start living like a hero and download the demo:


One of the things that really impressed us here at FilePlanet was the replayability of the demo. A quick rampage through the streets to take out the AA guns is just the beginning. You'll have a different experience, especially during the opening two minutes, depending on how you assault the level. Make sure you squeeze that sucker dry and get the most from the demo as you wait for the full game. We're here to help with some secrets and tips...


The first thing you'll discover is that there's three ways to land: on your knees, struggling to get up. Or on your feet, like the badass you are. (The third way to land is on someone's face. Bam! More on that later.)

By default, the spacebar (jump) key "flares" your chute, helping you decelerate. Practice with the timing on this one -- if you flare your chute just prior to landing, you'll have a "flared" landing, and you'll have your weapon out and at the ready quicker.

Even trickier is the "greased" landing. Here, you want to come at the ground at an angle, so that you literally hit the ground running. This takes a lot more practice. Feel free to keep restarting the mission to get it right.


Now that you've mastered that, let's go for some serious style points. Let's make that landing count! In Airborne, once you develop some skills maneuvering your chute, you can actually land on an enemy soldier. These guys will never see it coming. Here's how it's done: aim for an unsuspecting soldier's head, and just as you're about to land on him, hit the melee attack button. WHAM! Boot to the head from 2000 feet! It's not just an instant-kill, it's seriously stylin'.



The green smoke you'll see from the air marks the "safe zones," where you can land without immediate enemy contact. (You can also return here later for unlimited supplies). That's the conservative approach, and if you land there, you can work your way from objective to objective as you would in most shooters. But the beauty of Airborne is that you can ignore the drop zones entirely.

Aside from landing on the unsuspecting heads of enemy soldiers, you can also aim for any handy roof. The levels in Airborne are very vertical, and you can take advantage to rain death from above. The only thing you don't want to do is land right on your objectives -- these are heavily guarded and you'll get pounded before you can even draw your weapon.


Scattered throughout the map are "skill drops." You can discover these on foot as you wander through the level. Remember them! Landing on the skill drops doesn't just give you style points -- these locations usually have some strategic advantage enabling you to get the jump on the enemy. Okay, pun intended that time.



After mastering your landing, you'll want to work on your combat technique. It's possible to play Airborne completely run-and-gun, but none of the weapons have any accuracy when you're firing from the hip. You'll want to learn the essentials: crouching, leaning, sprinting, and iron sights. Feel free to tweak your key setting until you feel comfortable with it. (Unfortunately, at this time, there's no 'toggle iron sights' key, so you'll have to hold your mouse button down to stare through the sights.)

The levels in Airborne feature a lot of cover. The enemy AI will take advantage of it, so you should, too! Hit your crouch key to toggle on your crouch, and then hold down your iron-sights button to bring your weapon up to your shoulder and stare down the barrel. While using your sights you can lean in either direction but you can't move. It's a little different than other games, so it will take some getting used to. When you're crouched and using the sights, you can pop up from behind cover or lean around obstacles to carefully aim your shots.

The 'sprint' key makes you a hard target to hit. You'll get a great motion blur effect as you dart from cover to cover. Practice this: crouching, standing, dashing to more cover, crouching again, and bringing up your sights. If you can do this quickly you'll never give the enemy a chance to hit you. As I said, you may want to reconfigure your keys until you're comfortable with this.



There's plenty to do if you want to play and replay the demo. Try hitting all of the skill drops. Practice sticking the landing. Work on powering up your weapons: As you make accurate kills with each weapon, you can earn 'awards' for that weapon, such as bigger clips or faster reloading. You can see your weapon experience in the lower right corner of the screen -- each weapon fills up with blue as you earn experience for it.


Remember that the demo only contains about 2/3 of the Adanti level. In the final game you'll actually have a little more freedom with where you drop and you'll have even more missions to complete after you take out the AA guns. The full game hits shelves this September. Meanwhile, enjoy the demo, available right here on FilePlanet!

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