Doesn't quite live up to its hype...
Written: Mar 08 '02 (Updated Mar 08 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Tons of scripted events, realistic sounds, memorable single player experience
Cons: Path is always linear, enemy AI is not consistent
The Bottom Line: The next big FPS? no. An excellent single player experience? yes.
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| luckythong's Full Review: Medal of Honor: Allied Assault For Windows |
The Medal of Honor franchise started off as a console game released on the Playstation in 1999. A year later, Medal of Honor: Underground came out, attempting to copy the original hit, but not succeeding. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (MOH:AA), is the third installment in the series, and a PC-only release.
First Impressions
Taken straight from the EA website:
Set during the most trying years of the war, 1942-1945, Medal of Honor Allied Assault™ gives players a sense of the courage it took to survive the landings at Normandy, the assault at Arzew, a rendezvous with the Resistance outside the village of St. Lo, and the push through the heavily defended border of Germany itself to take the bridge at Remagen.
A historically-based game, the environments are impressive. Using the Quake3 engine, the developers faithfully recreated German encampments, navy bases, and beaches. Shooting barrels will cause them to leak, some lights can be shot out, and explosions cause dirt to jump out of the ground.
Character modeling is good, though the lips on expressionless-characters don't move when they speak. Player animations are very fluid, but deaths are overly dramatic. That's not too much of a bad thing though; it makes me laugh while I play the game.
In order to achieve a Teen rating, EA chose not to include blood and flying limbs. A definate minus, I found it quite unsatisfying whenever i got headshots or fired a rocket at just the right spot. It's as if you weren't killing anyone, but rather... putting them to sleep.
A pretty cool feature: the game automatically detects what kind of graphics your system is capable of rendering and adjusts the quality of the graphics according.
Every game nowadays has nice graphics... whoop de doo
True, but the sound effects are certainly one of a kind. Real guns were used to record the sound effects for this game, and gamers with decent sound systems are in for a treat. The voice acting is not terrible, and the Germans actually speak German in this game.
In the Omaha Beach mission (the one I found most memorable), the only music in the background were the screams of your comrades, the explosions from the mortars, and machine gun bullets whizzing past your head. The lack of a musical piece for that level was a wise decision and added to the overall enjoyment of the level.
Everywhere else, including the menu screens, the soundtrack is perfect. Sounding like it came straight out of a World War II movie, the various tracks create the setting really well. The music and sound are definately one of this game's stronger points.
Gameplay
If you've ever played Quake III, Half-life/Counterstrike, or Unreal, then you should already know what a FPS should play like. You run around and kill people. The formula for MOH:AA is relatively unchanged; you run around, kill people, and set bombs and steal documents along the way.
Unlike Half-life/Counterstrike, your character switches weapons extremely slow and jumping is absolutely useless. You can walk around most obstacles, there is a delay before each jump, and your character's vertical leap is not impressive at all (makes me wonder what kind of basic training these soldiers go through...)
It's an objective-based FPS. Each mission is chopped up into smaller "levels" and each level has several objectives. One objective might be to steal some documents or set a bomb on a tank. In the corner of your screen is an "objective compass", with a dot showing you where to go, and two arrows which get closer to the dot, the closer you are to the location where your objective should be completed.
The variety of the missions is a welcome addition. Not every level is a typical FPS shooter level. In one, you're driving a tank. In another, you're scurrying across the beach, trying not to die. It's a fun mix.
The entire world of MOH:AA is event-driven, and because of that, is extremely linear. The path you are allowed to take in each level is restricted. NPCs join you and die at very specific times. Even if you kill every German soldier around, an NPC will still die from mysterious causes. Seriously.
So if you beat the game once, no surprises the second time around. Which kinda kills the replay value a bit. But the game is worth about 10 good hours of playing. This is a pretty difficult game, by the way.
Enemy AI
Supposedly one of the things critics acclaim about this game, I found the AI somewhat unintelligent. Although the enemies are capable of ducking for cover, running away from grenades, and throwing grenades of their own, I saw no real leaps in the advancement of enemy AI. Half-life, in my opinion, has better AI, and that game came out 4 years ago.
If i hid behind a door or a corner of a long hall, I could always count on the enemy soldiers coming towards me, one-by-one, where I could just pick them off like flies. I once took out a squad of about 11 soldiers by hiding behind a corner... and in the process, not losing 1 health. The squad-based behavior that's supposed to be in this game doesn't cut it at all.
In fact, the enemy AI isn't what makes this game so difficult. Enemies that can shoot blindly around corners and hit you in the head each time and snipers that are frustratingly accurate and quick are a couple of things that make your mission hard. I guess they had to make up for the less-than-perfect AI somehow...
Multiplayer
Multiplayer is laggy and free-for-all deathmatch is a joke. The only reason to play MOH:AA multiplayer is for the cool teamplay mode, where you can kill Nazis with friends. Other than that, every other FPS offers a better multiplayer experience.
Counterstrike, Quake III, and other multiplayer giants should have no fear of MOH:AA taking away any of their player-base.
Final words
Don't get me wrong... MOH:AA is still a good game. It's just not the game that everyone hypes it up to be. Consider it a 10-hour interactive movie.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
luckythong
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Member: Elliot Thong
Location: Jersey City, NJ USA
Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 1 member
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