No matter how good you are, you’ll still inevitably catch a bullet or two, forcing you to seek out a way to regain lost health. There are medical satchels in Pacific Assault, but they are spread thin. In order to regain health, you have to call over a corpsman that will give you a shot, apply a bandage, or shake out some coagulating powder, raising you back to full health. The trick is that the corpsman only carries a limited number of treatments in his bag, so you have to use his services sparingly. Additionally, on higher levels of difficulty, severe wounds will bleed out, reducing your health until you stop to apply your own bandage. The corpsman can also do this for you, but he’ll also heal you at the same time, using one of the precious pick-me-ups in the process. It’s up to you to determine if you can battle on a little longer, or if you need to take a second out of the fight to take care of yourself.

If you lose all of your health, you will pass out, making the world go blurry and gray. Death is not inevitable at this point, though. If a corpsman finds you in enough time, he can bring you back to consciousness and full health. If you’re unlucky, you can be found unconscious by an enemy and they will likely end your suffering with a bayonet jab or a pistol shot to the head. If the fighting is too intense and no one can get to your location, you may serenely drift off, watching your vision get darker and darker and hearing memories of old battles echo through your last moments. You are also able to save your team mates if they’ve fallen in battle by picking them up and carrying them to the corpsman for treatment.

If you go above and beyond the call of duty, you will collect souvenirs in the form of Hero Moments. Hero Moment opportunities are spread throughout the missions, but you usually have to go looking for them. Early on, I heeded audio cues alerting me to the predicament of a ship’s captain. I saved him from a fire and was rewarded with his singed hat. In another instance I found a hidden path through the jungle and was able to rescue two marines from enemy captivity. For that I was rewarded with the lock I shot off of their makeshift bamboo cell. Hero Moment awards are stored in your foot locker and can be viewed from the main menu. When you visit them, audio from the moment will play back for you.

Pacific Assault comes in a choice of two retail flavors: the standard edition that ships on CD and the Director’s Edition comes on DVD. For the additional money you plunk down on the Director’s Edition, you’ll get some extras, aside from not having to worry about multiple CDs. The DVD version includes a ticket to enter a Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault sweepstakes, a WWII timeline presentation, a separate listening area for the game’s soundtrack, interviews with soldiers who fought in the Pacific Theatre, a presentation on how propaganda was used on both sides of the conflict, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Pacific Assault, and a special submachine gun in-game that you can’t get elsewhere.