Medal of Honor: Airborne

So, it's that time again when EA release another instalment of the long-running Medal Of Honor franchise.

Many gamers bemoan the dearth of WWII shooters; they say the genre is milked to exhaustion, and that everyone should just move on. Well, EA obviously don't think so, and I for one am glad. As I have written before, I quite like the genre, and you can guarantee I'll never tire of it. And, despite all the naysayers, people still buy the games. Perhaps what people are tired of is not WWII shooters per se; just really bad WWII shooters. The Medal Of Honor franchise, has, over the years, slowly climbed down from an exalted position to a less vaunted place in the minds of gamers. When we first played Medal Of Honor on the Playstation, we were amazed by what the designers got out of the little grey box. When we first played Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault, we were awestruck by the beach landings and the immersion. It is no understatement to say that these early games were buoyed by renewed interest in the conflict thanks to films such as Saving Private Ryan.

But then, alas, as with so many things in life, gamers' attention wandered slowly way from the war, and onto other things. EA were plucky though; they kept the war machine rolling ever onwards in the hope that the budding Allied troopers would keep coming back. Problem was, well, they just didn't do a very good job of it. From the mediocre Pacific Assault to the lifeless Rising Sun, and then the utterly abysmal European Assault, gamers were presented with fewer and fewer reasons to actually cough up their hard-earned to play another instalment.

When EA announced Airborne, they were up against it. The memories of so many bad games, the preference by so many for the young upstart call Of Duty series and a seeming general opinion amongst the game-buying public that EA just churned out unfinished nonsense meant that the developers were pinned behind a low wall with hella incoming MG42 fire. They had a lot to prove; and a lot of opinion to sway. So how did they do? Let's take a look.

In Airborne, you play Boyd Travers, a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne in mid-1943. The game will see you fight in 5 operations from the closing years of the war, from Sicily to Normandy, Holland to the Reich itself.


Storm the beaches of Normandy...in reverse!

The gameplay itself is standard fare – carry out several objectives in each mission, fend off hordes of Axis troops, try not to get too killed. As in most other Medal Of Honor instalments, you are not tasked with managing or protecting your fellow soldiers. And thankfully, there is none of the health-pack sharing nonsense from European Assault. However, what EA have tried to add to the mix is a new level of open-endedness in this hitherto very linear genre, in the hope of spicing things up. As you are in the Airborne, not surprisingly each mission begins with you parachuting into the map, able to control your parachute and decide from where you want to start your fight. You could drop into a safe zone, where you can be sure of supplies, allies and not being cut down the moment your feet touch the ground. Or, you can drop onto the rooftops for some safe, sniping fun. Alternatively you can be a demented maniac and drop right into the middle of a very angry nest of Axis dudes. EA say this means that you can fight however you want, tackle objectives how you want. Let's go through the game and take it apart, see how it stands up. We'll cover the main topics first.

Firstly, we should look at this open-ended promise. The idea of landing anywhere and doing whatever you like in any order you like sounds great. It certainly would add a new angle to the tired first-person shooter genre. Well, it would, if it was actually as much of a liberation as it sounds. It's not totally incorrect; there is a certain amount of latitude given to the player. In reality, you have a certain freedom to land within certain areas of the map. By timing exactly when you jump from the plane, and by careful control of the parachute, you are able to have a wide number of landing spots. But there is still some restriction, to avoid you landing off the map completely and breaking the game.


At this point, you do not have a lot of options...

Okay, so that's not so bad. You still have a number of options to play how you want, right? Well…again, not quite. Each mission has a set number of objectives, which must all be completed. For the most part, you can approach them in whatever order you choose, although in some missions there are objectives that follow a cutscene, and these are not available till you have completed the ones before them. It would be cool to start Market Garden by landing on the Nijmegen bridge itself (and, no doubt, face certain death), but sadly that part of the map only opens up after a cutscene later on in the level. However, there is still a certain amount of linearity to the objectives. Although you can choose the order, to some degree the actual enemy encounters follow a set pattern, so you can take the same course of action each time, somewhat. Having said that though, what freedom there is still adds a certain variety to the proceedings, and it does give you the chance to switch things around and keep gameplay reasonably fresh. In an interesting twist as a result, each time you die you respawn mid-jump, so that if you died by being overwhelmed or using a bad tactic, you are given the chance to try and approach the problem afresh from a different angle.

The six (yes, only six) levels themselves are pretty good. Having said that, they are a bit lacking up until the last two, where the challenge ramps up and the game becomes truly interesting. They are the usual assortment of place charges on X/destroy radio at X/activate X, but they are spread around enough to be interesting. I guess there is only so much you can reasonably offer to keep the objectives convincing for the era. Thankfully, there are no "escort the bullet-sponge" or time-limited objectives. Phew!


Choose your landing spot - preferably not next to the sniper in the church tower...

In terms of the enemies, EA has said that because of the "start anywhere" gameplay, they had to abandon the old-fashioned way of scripting enemy locations and behaviours, as you can now approach them from literally any angle. They created the "affordance engine", which essentially avoids traditional behaviour scripting by giving an NPC the intelligence to make its own decisions based on environmental affordances. In theory, if an AI is under fire, it uses the environment around it for protection and tactical advantage – it makes the most of the affordances the environment provides. If a grenade lands near him, he will move to get behind something to give him cover. If you are laying down fire in a doorway, the AI will try to path a different route to be able to get to you that will avoid that doorway (and ideally your allies elsewhere). Again, as with starting anywhere, this is a noble intention, and EA kind of manage to pull it off, but as before, there are still traces of the old-school way of doing things that are to be found. If the affordance engine worked perfectly, combat would truly be unpredictable and awesome. And despite the repetition in the enemy locations, for a big chunk of the time they do seem to exhibit behaviour beyond tighly-scripted actions. Where it fails a little is that the AI seems to only have a limited choice of affordances available; so the ingenuity of an NPC taking a clever path is somewhat dulled when five of his allies take the self-same path. And you take them all out in the same way, as they seem not to notice those before them being cut down. The intelligence of your allies is similar in that in can at times appear both very clever and infuriatingly dumb. Often, your squad mates will just stand right in your line of fire. More amusing is watching two NPC's shooting at each other, three feet apart, and missing like their weapons have the kick-back of a mule.

The design of the enemies is a little old fashioned, in that there are ten levels of "badass" to them, the most feeble being the level one Italian Blackshirts (which is a little ironic) and the hardest being the level ten Storm Elites – nasty fellows in black that wear gas-masks and carry MG42's. A little bit silly perhaps, but then it wouldn't be a Medal Of Honor game without a little diversion from reality here and there. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) the Storm Elites, although for some bizarre reason equipped with some kind of not-particularly-apparent anti-bullet clothing, are easy to take down as long as you can stay out of their line of fire or get some elevation on them and drop a few sniper rounds or a BAR clip into them. You will, however, dread hearing that damn gun on the last level.

However, despite these shortcomings, gameplay can still be great fun. The default control scheme for Xbox 360 is clunky at best; I found that using Default Scheme 2 was a more intuitive and natural way to play. One thing that does work well is the use of leaning and sprinting. You can use ironsights to aim more accurately by pulling holding the left trigger. When you are in this mode, you normally can't move (although you are able to walk slowy if you push the left bumper button in default control scheme 2), but the left stick becomes a lean function. You can lean to the left and right; pulling back on the stick squats you down, and (if you are crouched) pushing up pops your head up from the crouch position. I actually found this incredibly useful. Think of it a little like the cover mode in Gears Of War. Let's say you crouch behind an object, above which your head sticks up just a little. If you go into ironsights mode, you can pull back and get totally behind the cover. Then slowly pushing the stick up means that you can pop your head up, take a few potshots at the Bosche, and then hunker back down again to reload. It's actually quite flexible, and a welcome return from Frontline. It's also incredibly useful when you are using a bolt-action weapon, and you can shelter whilst you load the next round. You can also sprint – with no time limit. If you are crouched when you sprint, you will return to a crouch when you stop – making nipping from cover to cover effortless. It is even awarded an achievement, as it integral to the way you play.

Weapons are the standard WWII fare, although now you can upgrade them with authentic era modifications as you play.There is the usual assortment of arms: the classic M1 Garand, the lovely Kar 98 (which actually outclasses the Garand in this game), MP40, STG44, and so on. EA have managed to actually include a new weapon in their line-up – the M18 recoilless rifle – effectively an alternative to the tired old Bazooka, although sadly it is not seen all that often in the campaign. Each weapon starts out as a basic model, and as you accrue kills it awards you up to three upgrades. For example, the Thompson gets a front handgrip, for better accuracy, then a Cutts Compensator, to reduce recoil, and finally a 50-round drum magazine for…well, more rounds. In a good move, these upgrades are permanent, so once you have fully upgraded a weapon it will remain that way when you replay levels, forever, unless you start the campaign over again completely. Many people have lamented the accuracy of the weapons in this game – saying that sometimes a bona-fide killshot has no effect – and to a certain extent this is most true at the start, where your weapons have no upgrades. As you upgrade, generally most get better to a certain degree, although there still remain some issues with hit-detection. It is most noticeable when sniping across a long distance; sometimes the shot seems to have no effect at all on an enemy until you shift you position slightly closer to the enemy. This could be explained as the range of the weapon, but then I find myself standing on the church roof in Nijmegen totally unable to hit an enemy in a house across the street, when from the same place I can hit a Panzerschreck-wielding goon on the bridge, halfway across town. It's frustrating, but not the end of the world.


This nice fellow is obviously keen to direct you to the h'ors d'oeuvres tray...

One really neat touch with the weapons is the scoping. When you hold the right trigger, you are looking down the scope. At first, your scope moves all over the damn place, so to steady your aim you must hold your breath. Now, unlike Call of Duty where you basically have an on-off switch, in Airborne there is almost a little mini-game feel to it. You have to gently squeeze the trigger, and as you do, two markers in the scope move together, the more you squeeze, the closer they get until they are locked and your aim is steady. You then pull the trigger all the way and BANG! And the Jerry is gone. Thankfully, the designers stopped short of putting windage and gravity in there too!

For the audio, EA have managed a bang-up, top-notch job, and it is here that they start to recoup kudos points. Ambient environmental audio is encompassing and in surround sound sets the atmosphere just fine. EA have made a much greater effort with this game than in previous incarnations, recording multiple sounds for each effect. The sound of a panzer rolling ominously by is no longer a thin, repeated loop. Now it is a number of sounds meshed together, with an appropriate bassy boom and considerable gravitas. As a tank shifts across the terrain, you hear appropriate heavy thumps and clunks as it drops over obstacles, and all you are left thinking is "this thing is very, very heavy." Weapon audio is great, and each weapon has its own distinctive report, easily distinguished across a busy battlefield. Distant weapons fire is appropriately muted (although the distant Thompson sounds rather pathetic, much like a typewriter – I kept looking on the screen to see if objective text was scrolling across or something), and most interesting of all is the change you notice when you duck behind over or when you scope a weapon – the sound becomes muted - with cover because there is something between you and the weapon; with the scope because all your attention is on your target. This game also has the most satisfying sound I have ever come across when you score a headshot through a helmet. Combat dialog is not too bad, although sadly like other Medal Of Honor games there is just not enough. Voice acting is well done, and it is amusing to see the same talent voicing the Axis troops as in the other games of the franchise, and even the Call Of Duty games. They must get around! But, in these days of games like Halo 2 sporting over 15,000 lines of dialog, it is a bit disappointing to hear the higher-level enemies in the later levels simply saying "Da! Die Amerikaner!" over and over. More attention is paid to the chatter of your allies, but it is still thin.

However, it must be said that of all the audio, the biggest disappointment by far is the soundtrack. Despite a very good theme, not only does Michael Giacchino appear to have phoned much of the action music in – it is not as thematic or as textured as his earlier Medal Of Honor work; there is very little you can hum along to – a big chunk of the in-game music is actually recycled from previous games. In the Market Garden level, for example, you will here several parts of "Kleveburg", "Emmerich Station" and even "Manor House Rally", all from Frontline. Call me anal, but I really don't think that is acceptable. A new game should have a new soundtrack. Re-using established themes is one thing – and I applaud the fact that the same themes are used throughout the games in the franchise – but using the same recordings is just lame. Shame really, as the soundtracks for this franchise were usually always outstanding. I would rate European Assault as one of my most-played favourites.

Finally, onto the visuals. This game uses the Unreal engine, and it shows. Animations are for the most part very well done, and death animations are totally unscripted. However, unlike most games that ride on the Havok engine bus for their physics, in Airborne a body retains momentum and interia when it falls. So, if you shoot a dude whilst he is running, he will collapse mid-run and carry on forward, collapsing realistically. Shoot someone climbing over a wall, and you'll see what I mean. It avoids going from live state to death state with a jarring movement (I'm looking at you, Halo 2) and adds to the weight and realism of the NPC's. Sometimes a standing enemy will fly backwards when shot, sometimes they will just go limp and collapse. There are some clunky transitions, and sometimes an enemy will fly backwards a little too far from a pistol shot, but overall a lot of effort has gone into the realism. The change in the depth-of-focus when sprinting is also very pleasing.

And the graphics? Well, some people hate them, some think they are good. My own opinion is that, some feeble textures here and there aside, the graphics are actually pretty good. Not the best ever, but good. Overall, yes, there are some poor low-resolution textures in there. But then you have to consider that on some of the maps, the graphics engine is rendering half a town. And with all that, I have yet to see any noticeable level-of-detail cheats. Character models are pretty good, and environmental lighting on them is impressive. Notable as excellent is the scope effect – rather than just blurring the edges, the designers have created very convincing true optical blurring, where focus is lost around the edges of the scope, and the colours shift subtly to the red. It is an awesome effect, and one I hope we see again. However, it has to be said that your character model is a little basic, and sometimes does not change with the ambient lighting – on the last level, in the sewers, you are in a room lit by red lights, yet your weapon does not appear affected. But then you pick up on the little details: the amount of debris in Nijmegen; the subtle texture on uniforms. I was amazed to see real-time reflections on the eyes of a dead enemy. To make sure, I zoomed the sniper rifle in and walked around him, and the reflections really did move around too. That's a ridiculous amount of detail that no one will probably ever notice. It is also pleasing to see that the characters do not appear to have that "slightly greasy" look that characters in games such as Call Of Duty3 had, as if everyone was wearing rain-slicked gabardine. There are some texture clipping issues here and there – most noticeably again in Nijmegen, where wall textures appear to flicker through scopes, and where you will see mysterious semi-transparent walls in the middle of nowhere. But nothing that will make you throw your controller down in disgust.

So, overall, is it worth you spending your money on? The campaign is very short – you'll probably breeze through on normal difficulty in six to eight hours. Hit detection can sometimes be a pain. And the designers have not really made good their promise of true start-anywhere, open-ended gameplay. There is nothing really fantastically innovative about the game. However, the limited freedom you do get within the game means you are able to some degree to try different approaches, or try different weapon combinations. If you are an achievement whore (who isn't?) you'll probably play through all the difficulty settings to get the points, and there are challenges to be had. It is clear that, although they may not have fully succeeded, the designers knew what the Medal Of Honor franchise had started to become – a by-word for half-finished, rushed games – and worked hard to better that. And although not perfect, their hard work shows.

Basically, if you want every game you buy to be cutting edge, and be chock full of things that are innovative and never-before-seen, then this may be a rental for you, at least to test the waters. But don't panic, this is no Hour Of Victory shambles. There is solid fun to be had, and if, like me you are a creature of habit and comforts and simply like battling the Nazi war machine, and played Frontline over and over between Halo sessions back in the day, then you will want to pick this game up for sure.

It is clear, with a little more attention to hit-detection, visuals and audio, and with a fully fleshed-out affordance AI system, this game could have been outstanding, and could have put the WWII shooter back on the front pages. As it stands, it is a good game, with much to commend, but with just enough to take the shine away and leave the future of the genre hanging delicately in the balance.

Suck it up, Airborne, you still have work to do.

This review ws written in Spetember 2007; the update below was written in July 2008:

So, recently I have had what could be called a drought of new games. In an attempt to fend off boredom I started to re-visit some older games for shits and giggles. And doing so made me want to re-visit a review of Medal Of Honor: Airborne I did last year.

One of the games I played was Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault, and after playing that for the last couple of weeks I happened to return to Airborne today, and realised that my earlier review may have been a little harsh.

The original review - presented above  - was not really that harsh, I suppose. But it was critical of a number of things that, now I have had time to get used to them, are not that bad.

I was amazed by a number of things in my return journey to Allied Assault. The first thing that shocked me was that I thought it was much older - I looked on the back of the CD-Rom box and realized it was released in 2002/2003. The last time I had played it was after release, and because of all the things I have done since then, I thought in my head that it was much older than that. Secondly, my memories of the visuals were not forgiving - I remembered really crappy graphics. But I was amazed to see that with all the settings at max, the game actually stands up pretty well - aside from character faces and muddy textures here and there. And the fact that everyone is doing some strange shit with their arms all the time, of course. But then I remembered - last time I played it, I had a PC that couldn’t cope with anything more than the lowest graphics settings. D’oh!

Looking again at Allied Assault I found myself intrigued by the death animations of the NPC’s. Some were quite gruesome, and although a little speedy, they were all really good. Some of the muzzle flash lighting effects were very nice, and overall it looked great for what it was. I was pleasantly surprised.

Of course, there were many things about it that, by today’s standards just sucked - all the animations were heavily scripted, there was no iron-sights option - a feature that today is lamentable if excluded - and some bloody awful sounds. The in-box M1 Garand sound was like some big, booming cannon, and made me want to avoid that weapon at all times (I resolved this by screwing around with some of the excellent user-created mods out there that add better sound effects, blood, better explosions and better textures. Oddly, people are still creating and adding .pak files and mods for the game even today. One source of note is Medal Of Honor Files, which covers all Medal Of Honor Games. I would recommend the High Definition (Fixed) Pack and the MoHAA New Light Pack, both of which spruce up the whole game in a single mod).

I began to remember why this game caused such a stir when it was released - not just for the Saving Private Ryan-esque Omaha beach landing level. And then I began to think about other Medal Of Honor games, and started looking for other stuff to play. I am a firm believer that videogame Nazis are without expection the absolute best ultimate bad guys to fight in an FPS. I never tire of World War 2 shooters, and had the urge to spill more Wehrmacht blood. I thought that I could slum it a bit and get Vanguard for my old PS2 - that wouldn’t make too much of a dent in already tight finances. But then I read the reviews and realised, hmmm, maybe not. But that started me thinking - after Allied Assault and Frontline, pretty much every Medal Of Honor game that followed sucked absolute ass.

The reason for that is unknown, but many assume (probably correctly) that as this is an EA franchise, it was simply a case of the machine churning out sequel after sequel of a popular franchise. The mindset seemed to be one of “Hey, MOH:AA and MOH:F sold really well, let’s make a whole fuckton more!“. The result, it seems, was that small teams of developers were pushed to crank out more with limited timescales. The subsequent sequels all had that feel that they all should have had an extra year in development. That they had some good aspects, but seemed to falter on the really obvious things that no developer should ever screw up on, if they know what they are doing. As an example, look at two specifics: European Assault and Rising Sun.

The former had awful visuals that were so unlike anything in earlier instalments - almost cartoony and PS1 like and didn’t even begin to reach the level of graphical clarity that Xbox owners had, by that point, come to expect - that the immersion was ruined. A backward step from Frontline. Add to that the fact that they desperately tried to copy the Call Of Duty, allies by your side style of gameplay (and did badly), had the whole “sharing health” nonsense and, most infuriatingly, made dropped weapons unspawn after a short time - which meant that I got to a certain point in the game and gave up - the game was okay, I guess, but was not fun to play. The only good thing about the game was the soundtrack.

As for Rising Sun? Well, do I even need to explain the pile of ass, monkey shit-fight that that game was? It had pretty much nothing in common with any other Medal Of Honor game aside from the tip font, and was utterly, utterly unplayable thanks to a useless movement and aiming system. I like shooting the enemy whilst moving through invisible treacle, NOT. And the cross-hair was the size of France…bwuh? If you haven’t played it, then go find it now in a bargain bin - probably about £5 - and try it. I would urge this, in fact for both these games. Strange? Not really. I urge this because it’s only when you have played truly, truly awful games that you realise how easy it is to screw a game up, and how valuable and nice even average games are in comparison.

Oh, and add Judge Dredd: Dredd Vs. Death to that list. Play (or as near to “play as you can with this game) that. You will be a new gamer afterwards.

Anyway, where the fuck was I going with this? Oh yeah. So, after reminding myself where the franchise had come from, and where it had ended up, I decided to go and takle a fresh look at Medal Of Honor: Airborne. I realised that I had judged the game only in the context of its peers, and not its own family.

And you know? The game rocks. It has some issues, sure. But when in the context of its older brothers (or sisters…would games be masculine or feminine?) it is a very welcome return to the Allied Assault and Frontline part of the family, with modern looks and nice gameplay additions. I realised that perhaps I had underplayed some of the good points and overemphasized some of the bad. I felt bad.

I popped Frontline in the console for a refresher, and then went to Airborne. And looking at the difference, you reliase that Airborne is a very good-looking game. Not the best ever, sure, but the quality is high, especially for an EA Franchise, evil corporation mantle and all. From the reflecting puddles in the cobbles of the first level to the lighting from weapons fire, to the reflections in eyes on the NPC’s. It’s a vast leap from the older games. And, I would say, better than some of it’s contemporaries. Better than Call Of Duty 3, by far. I think the only way to appreciate the visuals is to take time in a quiet lull to actually look. I looked over a broken courtyard from my sniper spot in a tower, a half-track raised up in the air, mansion house in front, and was taken by the lighting. Great.

I praised the audio in the original review, and I still do (though I still hate the Thompson firing a distance away sound, but as it is a recording of a Thompson firing a distance away from the microphone, what can you do?). I would say that this and Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 have the only decent-sounding and convincing MG42’sof any WWII games (and BIA’s was a little too bassy).

The death animations - that maintain their forward momentum - still amaze me. And I am surprised that no one else does this.

The bad bullet hit detection is not as bad as I remember - non-lethal headshots are still annoying - but you get used to it. And the AI of the NPC’s can be forgiven. Many modern games still use the old tried-and true methods of spawn and defend. The affordance engine, although still nascent and not perfected, is a leap above some other, lauded games. Certainly, it is much better than Call Of Duty 4. 

And it should not be ignored that the game does have aspects that other current games are sorely lacking - such as the iron-sights lean feature. As I originally reviewed, this ability is fantastic, and I still love it and still find myself disappointed when a newer game does not have this feature. After all, in a firefight you don’t really want to strafe out from cover, fire, and strafe back. Similarly, when you are hunkered down behind cover you don’t really want to have to fumble for the crouch button to stand up into the line of fire and pop off a few shots, take a few hits, and then crouch back down again. I really, really hope that future MOH games retain this feature - it is one thing that sets this game out from the rest, and if we are lucky other developers will realise that. It certainly gives more fun to gamers in a firefight that not having it at all, or having the Rainbow Six-style change to third person (which is great, but not as sneaky or as much fun).

So I feel compelled to acknowledge the effort that went into the game. The attention to detail and mechanic-tweaking that the developers carried out. For, better than anyone else, they knew exactly how far down the toilet the franchise had gone, and just exactly how bad the earlier games had become. They knew all the shortfalls and all the cut corners. They knew that in all likelihood a game along the same lines of quality wold possibly have killed the franchise stone dead. And most importantly, that they had a responsibility to resurrect gamers’ waning interest in the WWII era.

So I feel that the original review was maybe a little harsh. It’s not the best game ever, sure, but to be honest, I don’t know that any of those that are lauded as such have as much playability as Airborne. Once you have played Gears, it’s done with. Trade it in, stick it in a cupboard, whatever. Once you have realised that COD4 is fun but old-school in its linearity and static AI, you get bored. Once you have repeated the same thing over and over in other COD titles, you get bored. I never replayed Prey, and I got bored halfway through Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. And Half Life 2 and consequent updates felt more like a mandatory assignment (and are, I would say, the least interesing to play of all of these).

I have found that when I am bored for something to play - in terms of 360 games - I usually find myself assaulting the Flaktürm again or raiding the industrial complex. And bear this in mind: I am a tried and true Halo player. I am not a big multiplayer fan (unless it involves LAN and friends and beer and pizza). I like to sit alone, immersed in the game world. But even I find that nowadays Halo 2 and 3 just don’t compel me to go back and play them. Haven’t played 2 in over 2 years, haven’t gone back to 3 since early this year. Although the freedoms in Airborne may be slightly limited, and not as unlimited as they were hyped, they are still greater than in most other titles. So I find myself, when bored, looking at my 360 game collection, huffing and puffing and thinking “Nah. Nah. Mmmmm…nah.”

And then I put Airborne in the tray. And Nazis begin to panic.