Yet another World War II flavored first-person shooter, EA's Medal of Honor European Assault does little to stand out in a crowd. If it did, it'd be shot at.

The setting and situation has that obvious air of authenticity, though it's a mostly fictionalized telling of a lone American jack-of-all-soldiers running special missions against the Nazi war machine--and not always in the European theater, oddly enough.

New to the Medal series is an attempt at non-linear, wide-open, free-roaming gameplay and the subsequent ability to accomplish or ignore numerous ancillary objectives using a few different methodologies (such as full frontal assault, sending a squad of soldiers/human shields out in front, or tippy toe, back-door stealth). Though the game feels much more "alive" because of it and enemies show occasionally remarkable artificial intelligence (offset by occasional artificial brainlessness), game graphics seem taxed to the max, running smooth enough but looking fairly dated or bland at best, which somewhat detracts from the aforementioned "aliveness" of it all.

Still, European Assault does manage to maintain the augustness of the long running series; a gritty sense of the war-torn, hypothetically terrifying sound effects, engaging voice work and a memorably moving score. But, for all it's worth, the game is hard, playing on the duck-and-cover rule of engagement rather than the run-and-gun. A deft control scheme easily allows for such squatting, hiding and peeking about--and for good measure they trough in some Max Payne-ish slow-mo bullet-time berserking, just incase you've had enough of the cowering for cover.

Unfortunately, overall difficulty is not so much "war is hell" hard as it is "make more enemies appear while more ammo doesn't" hard, which is cheap.

[TIP: Though it's nice to send your squad out in front to take the hits and flush out the enemy in Medal of Honor: European Assault, keeping them alive to the end of each mission will net you a Medkit for each survivor. Also, finding/completing every optional (and mandatory) objective in each mission will earn you a free Revive.]