Medal of Honor: Frontline Review

I was just thinking to myself that what I always really wanted to do was storm the beaches at Normandy with the Allied Expeditionary Force. Well, not really, but I may have at one point! Well actually, I never did, but I am sure someone somewhere did! Anyway, I had some high expectations of Medal of Honor: Frontline. I thought that it would be a stunning example of the console based First Person Shooter and would be a revolutionary turn for the genre. Well, I was right. It was stunning, extraordinary and it was revolutionary. But I have one major problem with this game, which I am sure if I tell you now it would be much too contrary for this point in the review, so I'll come back to it. However, I am getting ahead of myself.

No way he can miss from THAT distance!

Landing on beaches during WWII wasn't at all pleasant.

You play Lieutenant James 'Jimmy' Patterson, a member of the battalions sent to take Omaha Beach during D-Day. Your first mission takes place there. Rather then going into detail about the things you will be doing during the course of this game I will just add that many of the missions you will go on reflect accurately the history of the missions at the time. Our man Patterson is a bit of a lone wolf hero but that is to be expected from an FPS game. Your end goal will be to steal the Nazi's new war machine the HO-IX flying wing (real life thing too!) and win the war. Many of the combat situations you find yourself in during this game require spatial thinking. Many enemies will try to take out Lt. Patterson from above and below, try to keep an idea of where you are and where you have been. This will be made easier by the game's interface, which contains a compass, so when your Captain says to find someone on the West side of the beach, simply refer to the compass and move accordingly. There are two controller modes at your disposal, I preferred the more advanced 'Sharpshooter' Mode, where your left analog stick controlled the aim and the right the movement. This allows you to aim, strafe, and back up and shoot at the same time. These abilities will be of great help in your tactical movements, and make Lt. Patterson go where you want him to go.

Stunning in realism and stunning in perfection of the graphical engine, I was shocked at the depths and ranges. Being able to see 360 is part and parcel of most FPS games, so that in and of itself was wonderful, but to be able to capture the look and feel of the surroundings of France during the Allied Invasion was a stroke of mastery. The designers obviously studied all of the photographic evidence to create a lifelike and realistic representation of the time and era. In that, I was impressed. But one thing you notice is that France at that time and era was dark, drear, and ugly, really ugly. You will notice that many of your missions take place in rain, mud and fog. And I understand that it was an effort in realism to make it this way and some gamers will be stunned in a good way, I know I was. Before I go off on too much of a tangent I will add that the technical aspects of the graphics were intense, the poly counts were very high, many of your surroundings are interactive, footprints can appear in mud, snow and when you tread through water. Your fellow soldiers do have facial expressions and lip movements when you speak to them. The Nazi soldiers are so realistic that there are differentiations in individual soldier's uniforms. Some of your fascist targets will wear hats and helmets of various types, or even none of the above. It is even possible to interact with those variations. For example, you can shoot the helmet off one of your foes. In addition, you can tell what type of solider you have just shot to death by the uniform, the SS soldiers, the officers and such all look different and wear different uniforms. This is also the case with your own comrades. Your own guys act individually so they should look individual as well. And they do, some have moustaches, glasses, etc. The landscapes are also unique and contain many interactive features. You can look around and see all the wonders of bombed out and war torn France. Some of the more interesting features about the landscapes were that they only showed styles of buildings found during that era, nothing made of metal (other then towers) are found in town stages. Most of the buildings were shown as being built with the historically accurate mortar and wood. I realize that very few would care about this, but then I am a stickler for detail that way. The refresh rate was great and no noticeable lag or skipping occurred. Then that was a given, it is the PS2 after all.

Snipe that sub, boy!

Snipe that plane, too!

When I heard that they decided to hire a military advisor I knew that the AI would have a special tweak that would make it so much more 'I' and so much less 'A.' When I found out that EA went all out and hired the best military advisor in the business, Captain Dale Dye, I was even more psyched. Captain Dye, one of the most sought after military advisors in the entertainment industry, did his job very well. I was constantly being pinned down by the Germans and forced to snipe my way out of situations. The enemy AI was also well versed in infiltration tactics, and many times I found myself taken down by foes who had been alerted to my presence by a misplaced Achtung. They then swarmed on my location like ants at a picnic. In short, you can't play this game like a sneaker. Getting within 30 paces of any enemy soldier will alert him to your presence. The only recourse you have is to learn to be a crack shot with the analog pad. This is not as easy as it sounds and will take some practice. Even though there are portions of the game that resemble the gameplay of a sneaker, you can never forget that this is an FPS and shooting first and asking questions later is usually the best way to go. Also never forget the value of running away. The game also has support personnel on many levels and luring the Axis scum into an Allied held area may be a good bet at times. The game also has the benefit of using authentic WWII weapons, which of course we expected, but actually getting the opportunity to use these weapons is hella sweet. Any gun buff will be happy that the real deal weapons were right on target in Medal of Honor. One of the featured weapons the game has to offer is the M1 Garand. For any of you that are not trigger happy gun lovers, the M1 Garand is a single action repeater, and though crude by today's standards, the Garand remains a collector's item even today. At the time however, it was the basic infantry rifle for all American troops. As expected, the bolt action, the reloading and the clip size are dead on accurate. That of course is a huge problem with the seven round capacity of the Garand. Soon after though you receive one of the coolest guns in history, the Thompson Submachine Gun, or the Tommy Gun. And while the Tommy Gun is hella cool as well, it also has a rather limited clip of twenty. But for the time it was the best bet you could get, until later in the game. (Short tangent: If the game was going for a REAL authentic feel, Lt. Patterson would have been issued the Thompson as a sidearm before the action began, as it was a weapon issued only to officers, being issued the Garand would have been a slap in the face of his commission. Many soldiers at the time came home with Thompson's gathered from the bodies of dead Allied officers and Luger 9mm pistols collected from dead enemies.) Another cool addition was the ability to pick up German guns such as the MP20, the quintessential German machinegun and the awesome Steit Grenade, also known as the infamous 'Potato Masher, ' the bane of the Allied Mechanized Infantry. The vehicle scenes were also cool and the ability to mount tanks, jeeps and motorcycles was a real plus!

Now there were some low points that were common to many FPS games, such as enemies being hard to locate, things being hard to see and mission objectives being unclear. It will be the last one though that will be the most irksome during Frontline, but if you keep on muddling, you'll eventually get it. A good rule of thumb, if you can't go any further and your goal has not been achieved, turn around and go back, doors, portals, holes and passages can easily be missed if everything is gray and dark.

Last but not least, my one major objection, remember that, I talked about it earlier. My one major objection was, despite the cool weapons, graphics, and sounds, the game was not any fun to play. Let me explain why. My grandfather, as well as many of our grandfathers or great-grandfathers actually fought during this war. And while very realistic I found my major objection was that these images conjured up too much sorrow, real sorrow for those to whom this war and these surroundings and weapons were everyday life. And the motto of the game, "You don't play, you volunteer" is highly misleading, many of the young Americans who fought and died during WWII were not volunteers, they were conscripted (drafted) into military service. In short, making a realistic FPS based on WWII is highly tasteless and somewhat degrading to soldiers who fought during the war. This is a personal problem and while I highly doubt many of you will share my viewpoint on this please remember, I am not ranting about this in any way. I had family who fought in WWII and I find this game to not honor their memory in an adequate way. I was however moved by the addition of the famous war poem which the game opens with. If for this reason alone I found the game less enjoyable you may see my comments above most of which were positive about the game and choose to play it. The game itself was quite well constructed and if you have no moralistic dilemmas as I did, you will find it quite enjoyable.