Medal of Honor: Airborne

Just as on PlayStation 3, Medal of Honor: Airborne launched on Xbox 360 in the fall of 2007 alongside the PC version. The game set itself apart from previous entries in the series by having players begin every mission with a parachute jump over the battlefield, choosing their own landing spot and, with it, their entire route through the level, which fundamentally changed the linear structure the series had been known for up to that point.

The Xbox 360 version was technically practically identical to the PS3 release — the same Unreal Engine 3, comparable resolution and framerate, and completely identical campaign and weapon content. The difference lay mainly in the online side: multiplayer ran through Xbox Live instead of the PlayStation Network, which for many players at the time meant a more stable and more widely used network infrastructure, one they were already used to from Microsoft in other titles of the generation. The controls used the standard Xbox 360 gamepad layout, and the game also supported achievements tied to the player's Xbox Live profile, while the PS3 version had no official trophies yet at that point, since Sony didn't introduce them into the system until a year later.

Because this was proper parallel development for both consoles by the same studio, EA Los Angeles, rather than a port commissioned afterward from an external team, there was no sense of a rushed job — EA aimed to keep both versions as equal as possible, both technically and in content. Reviews confirmed as much: the differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 releases were minimal and concerned mainly the online infrastructure and achievements, not the gameplay itself, difficulty, or the content of individual campaign missions. Thanks to its larger Xbox Live player base, the Xbox 360 version also generally offered somewhat fuller servers for team multiplayer modes at the time, though this balance shifted over time and by region. The campaign, with its parachute jumps, selectable objective order, and gradual weapon upgrade system, remained identical between the two consoles, so choosing a platform cost the player no part of the story or game content — only a particular online community and the ranks tied to it.

Why play it: Thanks to parallel development by EA Los Angeles, the Xbox 360 version offers practically the same experience as the PS3 version, plus somewhat fuller multiplayer servers thanks to a larger Xbox Live player base.