Medal of Honor European Assault

Missions are now played out on large, open maps that you can explore freely.

There are, for example, multiple routes through the dark, labyrinthine quayside at St Nazaire. On your way through you'll see pathways with varying degrees of cover and even hidden passages and alleys.

You begin each mission with a list of objectives to complete but, aside from the opening and closing encounters, you're free to choose in which order you wish to tackle them, and which path you want to take through the new, larger levels.

The freedom this provides is refreshing, but we found that there's a tactical side to it. For instance, you can choose to take on the tougher objectives first, when more of your squad is likely to be alive to help, or you can bide your time, gathering better weapons and getting more familiar with the area.

Then, when you know what's going on, you can start sending in your troops to fight in one area while you take on some other enemies.

So, squad control and freedom of movement are the most obvious additions to European Assault, and very welcome they are too.

But as you navigate your way through the docks, ordering your guys to advance from cover position to cover position among St Nazaire's crates and broken walls, you'll notice that a bunch of smaller changes have been made as well.

Some of these are better than others. For instance the rally mode, which attempts to recreate the sensation of being in the zone during combat, doesn't do it for us.

Much better, though, are the vastly improved melee attacks, which feel more realistic and really give the impression that you're dishing out a good thumping.

Other new abilities - like kicking grenades back at enemy soldiers and the option to crawl, not just crouch, also help to give European Assault a truly rounded more considered feel.

That's pretty much how the game feels as a whole: rounded and considered. EA has clearly taken the volumes of criticism of the series to heart, and has carefully addressed the major problems that many players had with the earlier games.

From what we've seen so far, it seems to have paid off. European Assault is fresher, more open and more intriguing than we thought.

It's looking better than Frontline and Rising Sun already and, while we're still cautious as to how things will come together in the final game, for now our hopes have been raised. This could very well be the best Medal of Honor game yet.

Medal of Honor European Assault is out for Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox in June