Download PC Game Men of Valor

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Men of Valor

Men of Valor is a first-person shooter set in theVietnam War. And it’s good!
Review Score: 7.9 | Release Date: Oct 29, 2004

Now the inevitable bad news:Men of Valoris solidly good without quite crossing over into great. It’s an odd combination of high polish and rough edges. Take, for instance, the visuals. Theenvironmentslook great: From jungles tobeachesto both intact and destroyed urban areas, the levels are packed with detailedtextures, ambient life, and believably clutteredlandscapes. There’s also some really nice effects work, such as explosions accompanied by a disorienting motion blur and a cool shimmering corona effect that surrounds open flames. But then there are the character animations, which look like somebody forgot to finish them. Characters have a tendency to pop from one pose to another without any kind of intermediate transition. They also often appear to glide across the ground without moving their legs, and some of the animations are just bizarre–a few of your squad members appear to be experiencing seizures when they’re just supposed to bebreathinghard.

Men of Valorwas developed by 2015, the team responsible forMedal of HonorAllied Assault. That game helped pioneer the heavily scripted, shooting-gallery style of gameplay that has become a staple of the shooter genre, and Men of Valor doesn’t stray too far from the formula. Along with the “advance from point A to point B” levels, there are some defensive missions and some on-rails events in both boats and choppers. Typical of the genre, the game is half shooter, half acting exercise, in which you have to hit a series of marks as you advance through impressive but highly choreographed mayhem. Unfortunately, the scripting that drives everything forward is sometimes screwy and brittle. For instance, one particular level takes place in a maze of VC tunnels and ends with a cutscene. If you’re not standing in the right place when the scene starts, you’ll be killed by an explosion that occurs as the scene ends. What’s worse is that until you finally, accidentally stand in the right place, it’s not entirely clear what’s killing you, which means you may have to replay the level from scratch a few times.

That stinks, but for the most partMen of Valordoes agood jobof subtly nudging you through the chaos. Between the punchysound effects, your screaming comrades, and the mixture of friendly and enemy troops both near to you and engaged in half-glimpsed activities on the periphery of your vision, the game really nails the living battlefieldatmosphereit strives to create. When it’s firing on all cylinders, which is–unscientifically–more than half the time, it’s as good as the genre gets. The enemy artificial intelligence may not be spectacular, but the density, confusion, and frantic pace of many of the firefights guarantee that you’ll be worried less about why that VC didn’t utilize proper cover and more about keeping your head behind that rock so it doesn’t get blown off.

Men of Valoris a challenging game, and it’s made tougher by an occasionally aggravating save system. The game saves your progress permanently between levels, and some levels include one or two “soft” restart spots that last only until you quit the game. Generally speaking, these save spots are well placed, and the lack of a save-anywhere systemaddssome noticeable tension to the proceedings. In more than a few cases, however, the length between checkpoints can be infuriating. Late in the game, there’s a tough battle that’s preceded by a couple of minutes of pointless walking and two uninterruptible cutscenes. You may find yourself navigating this uneventful preliminary section over and over again, only to die within 20 seconds of the battle starting.