Finally got Medal of Honor: Frontline! I’ll tell all of you guys how it turned out! Omaha Beach, here I come!
Ah, finally finished playing the first stage of Medal of Honor. And what a blast! Since I don’t want to give a in depth walkthrough and destroy the entire plot and experience, I give my first general impressions of the game.
Graphics: Everything from the Omaha beach landings is portrayed vividly. Best of all everything is based on real time graphics! Just watching American soldiers in their mad sprint to secure the beachhead with bullets whizzing by and artillery smashing holes into the ground is a sight to behold. The colors are a little drab causing the backgrounds to blend in a lose detail, but I think that this fits in with the World War II atmosphere perfectly. (Saving Private used the same effect with washed out colors in the same degree)
Score: 8/10
Sound: Hand down, Medal of Honor deserves the sound of the year award! The sound track (fully composed and orchestrated by Micheal Giacchino) in beautifully done and easily rivals the music in any high end Hollywood. Just listen to the music for Operation Market Garden and you’ll see what I mean. The sound effects are done just as well. In Omaha you hear every bullet, airplane, ocean surf, yell, scream, and explosion beautifully rendered. The “ping” noise made when a clip ejects from a M1 is music to my ears. The voice acting from the NPC’s is well-done and the Germans (surprise) actually speak German!
Score: 10/10
Control: Absolute horrible! This is by far the worst default controls I have ever used for a FPS or any game in general. Fortunately, there’s a custom controller where you can manually assign bottoms to different actions, a definite plus. Also if you’re too lazy, there are a number of different configurations to choose from. Still, I much rather use the mouse and keyboard, which MoH does not support.
Score: 6/10
Replay Value: Can’t say yet since I’m still on the first level. But I’m definitely going to play this mission again! Kinda disappointed there was no multiplayer.
Difficulty: Hard! What can I say, the very first level is D-Day! Even on normal I died several times due from strafing runs, artillery blast, and machine gun fire. And the worst part is that you can’t save during missions! Ouch. The good part is that there’s plenty of health packs scattered throughout the level, though getting them often means risking yourself in the line of fire. The enemy is pretty good, dodging behind corners and all, but so far my real enemy is those darn bunkers!
Score: n/a
Story: From what I can tell you’re thrown into the heart of D-Day. The game’s intro and instruction booklet story tell the prologue to the game wonderfully. Though the game is centered on stealing an experimental bomber, time will tell who to unravels.
Score: n/a
Gameplay: Now this is where are the action is! Once you mapped out the controls to your ability, prepare for some serious action. Don’t want to ruin much, but prepare for some white-knuckle action! Medal of Honor isn’t the “let’s kill everybody” sort of game but much more meaningful and objective based. Here you have to provide covering fire for squad mates, rescue trapped engineers, clear trenches, capture mounted machine guns, contact group leaders… and this is on the first level! The little aspects of the game is what makes it great. Though there’s no blood or gore, they’re plenty of heartfelt moments. Watching Higgin’s boats explode with all crews lost, mortar fire sending troops high up into the air, the desperate medic trying to revive fallen comrades, infinite death animations, bodies in the surf… it’s all there.
9/10
Overall: 9/10. So far, the game was well worth it.
