‘MEDAL OF HONOR: AIRBORNE’

‘MEDAL OF HONOR: AIRBORNE’

(Electronic Arts) for PC, Xbox 360

Rating: T; Grade: C

From its earliest days as one of the PlayStation’s few first-person shooters, “Medal of Honor” has been a solid franchise, set always in the battlefields of World War II. The series has had ups (“Frontline”) and downs (“Rising Sun”). “Airborne” is one of the ups — and the best-looking in the series, at that. The sound effects and music are, as always, impeccable. Each of “Airborne’s” campaigns consists of a large map dotted with objectives. From fascist Italy to Nazi Germany, players parachute into battle, aiming for relatively safe green zones (though there’s no guarantee they’ll hit them) and hit the ground running for the nearest objective. As tasks are completed, new ones pop up. Each level has a lot to do before it’s finished, and that’s not counting all the bonus objectives, such as daring parachute drops through windows. The online multiplayer mode is a bit of a throwaway — two variations of last-team-standing combat, and a zone-control mode with three flags that the teams fight over — but the single-player game stands well on its own.

‘WILD ARMS 5’

(Xseed Games) for PlayStation 2

Rating: T; Grade: C

The latest “Wild ARMs” game ditches the futuristic setting of the fourth installment, returning to the Old West-inspired ground of the earlier series. Good move. The beginning is a stock RPG setup — a mysterious amnesiac girl falls to Earth and meets two spunky small-town friends, and they team up for an adventure. They’ll encounter more characters and plot twists along the way. The game provides tools and maneuvers that allow players to conquer obstacles and solve puzzles in numerous dungeons — a system that’s one of the series’ strong points. One holdover from the last game is the hexagon-based battle system. All combatants are randomly placed on a seven-hex board along with the enemies they’ll fight. Attacks and other actions affect all characters and enemies on the same hex space, so it takes some strategy and maneuvering to get the most out of the party’s actions and minimize damage from foes.

‘HEXIC 2’

(Microsoft) for Xbox 360 (Xbox Live download)

Rating: E; Grade: B-

“Hexic” comes free on Xbox 360 hard drives, but the clever puzzler is no throwaway freebie. It’s a tricky game of forethought and skill that falls right into the sweet spot where the best puzzle games flourish. Thankfully, its sequel is worth paying for. “Hexic 2” changes things a lot, adding new pieces that move the game’s hexagonal blocks in new ways. The new Emerald piece swaps the two blocks on either side of it. Starflower pieces still rotate their surrounding six pieces; surrounding a block with Starflowers makes a Ruby. Rubies swap four pieces in a way similar to Emeralds. The crucial Black Pearl blocks are harder to create, requiring a player to surround a single block with Rubies instead of Starflowers. All these special pieces can be detonated, destroying the blocks they would normally move. This shakes up the board a bit — especially in the cutthroat new multiplayer mode.

—Justin Hoeger, Sacramento Bee