Medal of Honor Heroes brings old favourites to PSP

Far be it for us to blow our own bugles, but as we first noticed a few weeks ago, Medal of Honor is coming to PSP.

EA has now caught up with an official announcement and a working title – Medal of Honor Heroes – and it's revealed a few details too.

The first portable version of the series (which sparked the ongoing WWII first-person shooter fetish way back in 1999), Medal of Honor Heroes will boast three distinct single-player campaigns as well as a 32-player multiplayer mode.

It's the latter that sounds particularly juicy, of course. As well as the generous 32-player support, up to eight players will be able to take each other on locally in the Quickplay mode, for fast, skirmish-based play. There'll be six different multiplayer modes in all and 15 different maps to romp across, and you'll be able to customize your own mission scenarios too.

As for those single-player campaigns, like any good war epic the cast is a familiar one for fans, as old characters – aka heroes – from the previous games are wheeled out of the veteran's home for the PSP version.

Lieutenant Jimmy Patterson (from the original Medal of Honor, and the sequel Frontline) gets a new romp in Holland as part of Operation Market Garden, while as Sergeant John Baker (from Medal of Honor Allied Assault Breakthrough) you'll head south to sabotage German defences in Italy. Finally, play as Lieutenant William Holt (Medal of Honor European Assault) and you'll return to the Battle of the Bulge.

The nostalgia doesn't end there either; on the way through those campaigns you'll unlock over 20 classic characters to deploy in multiplayer games, too.

As ever, EA claims the Medal of Honor development team has a good chinwag with veterans and other experts to ensure the ideals of the US Congressional Medal of Honor are upheld in an 'authentic' game.

Naturally they aren't the sort of experts who say stoically, "We don't talk about the war." But since previous Medal of Honor games have involved shooting the hell out of everything whilst riding more than a few loose bullets yourself, make of that authentic claim what you will.

Friday afternoon cynicism aside, it all sounds very promising and the game has a great pedigree on the home consoles. As ever, the proof will be in the playing. When we inspect the troops, our chief concern will be how the game copes with control. Previous PSP shooters have found the PSP's set-up somewhat inadequate; for some upcoming titles like Killzone: Liberation, we've seen the developers switching to third-person perspective on Sony's handheld for that very reason.

We'll see. Medal of Honor Heroes is due to have shaped up and shipped out by the end of 2006, but we hope to bring you some detailed reconnaissance well before then.