contrary to the selling point of this death knell for medal of honor, "parachuting onto an open map" is largely an illusion. your potential range of movement from the game's in-air spawn point limits your choices, there is no true starting wherever you want. further, there is clearly an intended order of operations for each level and you're dissuaded from straying from it. if you think you're cheeky parachuting onto a roof to get a noscope montage, think again. enemies have impossible precision no matter their distance from you, they are doom hitscanners on steroids and strict enforcers of no fun allowed. player aiming (and overall accuracy of the weapons) is so profoundly unreliable you are constantly fighting against it and left unsure why your shots aren't hitting. it's generally better to spray and pray than attempt to line up shots. i would feel relatively confident declaring airborne's gunplay as the worst in history. the ironsights/stance switching system is a kool implementation. the campaign's only a few levels long and they cheap out on the big set pieces because they're too concerned with giving you a false sense of freedom. there are invisible zones in the game where as soon as you pass them your squad actually begins doing things, encouraging you to just speedrun the whole thing. visual fidelity holds up but it is hard to believe this is unreal engine 3 with its ugly flat lighting that causes entire levels to bleed together into a canvas of haphazard strokes of grey and brown