Everyone loves a game that tells a good, engaging story. For example there's Halo, The Longest Journey, and a personal favorite of mine, Half-life. These game really put you in the character's role and left you feeling like you just accomplished something...BIG. Medal of Honor: Frontline is another such game that attempts to recreates a time and place for the player to experience and take in. Is it successful? Absolutely. Is it perfect? Far from it. Features 20 levels of gameplay spread across six missions, all based on real World War II events Over 20 authentic WWII weapons, including the Springfield Sniper Rifle, the Panzershrek rocket launcher, and the classic Browning automatic rifle Enemy vehicles including Panzer and Tiger tanks, trucks, motorcycles, and railway scout cars Player-driven motorized rail car, train, and mine cart Stealth-based infiltration missions Over 70 minutes of original orchestral music composed by Michael Giacchino Authentic WWII content Gameplay Medal of Honor: Frontline is one of several Medal of Honor games. Frontline places you in the role of Lt. Jimmy Patterson as you infiltrate the German frontline in hopes of stealing the HO-IX, an experimental German weapon with enough power to potentially change the course of the war. Oh, and in case you're wondering, this is based from real-life events. The game is a first-person shooter, and does little to deviate from the path it lays forth. You essentially go from mission to mission, being briefed either by text or by voice-over, and kill everything you see. While certain missions require you to say, sabotage vehicles, or disarm bombs on a bridge, this amounts to little more than walking up to the object and pressing the A button, which acts as a generic context-sensitive action button. Also, this game is very linear. There is only one way to go, and that is forward. No branching paths or choices to make. Sometimes you have to "figure" out what to do, but this is never really a problem. For example, in one mission your job to meet up with an informant. You are in a room with the informant, but cannot talk to him freely because there are German soldiers standing around. So what do you do? You can walk around the room until you reach an object that causes an action button prompt shows up telling you what to do, or you can press the back button which will essentially tell you what to do. Sure, this keeps things simple and the action moving, but some real decision-making would have been nice. That's what you get for buying a German car. There are also moments where you wish you could be a little stealthier. Even when you try your hardest and kill someone with a silenced pistol in an empty room, enemies that are literally rooms away will be aware of your presence. Even if you walk up to a room very slowly and creep around a wall, the soldiers seem to be aware of you, triggered more by your distance and less by sight and sound. This becomes incredibly obvious when you reach certain levels where there will be enemies directly in front of you with no obstructions, but not realize you are there because you are not close enough to them. Since this game is really just a straightforward action game, this isn't really a big issue, but it is there. Controlling your character through the game is a standard affair. Like most first-person shooters, the left analog stick move your character, while the right one is used for aiming. Right trigger fires, and the left trigger switches aiming modes, assuming the gun supports it. Y is used for jumping and X reloads. The control is relatively smooth and responsive, and you should have little trouble trying to accomplish any of the moves. Also, during the missions you can press start to see an objectives checklist, or press back to receive a hint on where to go or what to do. As mentioned before, these hints will tell you outright what you need to do, and come in handy on a few occasions where the objective is a little vague. Not a problem solving, "how do I do that?" kind of vague, but more of a "which dock is dock 2?" kind of vague. The enemy AI is, as they say in America, not too good. Shooting a soldier will cause others near him to run and hide, but all you have to do is wait and eventually they will come out of their spot, ready for you to take them down. Strangely, there were a couple of occasions where I took out several people in a large room without alerting anyone. One by one they went down without even so much a glance from anyone else in the room. Some really clever AI could have made some of the battles a little more tense, but again, you battle so many soldiers you're almost glad they're not the sharpest pencils in the box. What this boils down to is that battles are intense and challenging because of sheer numbers rather than intelligence. Not necessarily a bad thing, just different. Multi-player New to the Xbox version is a multi-player mode, where up to four people can go at it split-screen. In the options you can change weapon sets, the map you want to play, the time limit, kill counts, whether there is friendly fire, and the music you want to listen to. Unfortunately, the only mode is deathmatch and even that is poorly done. Why? Well, first off, the levels are just pieces of the single-player maps and are not designed for strategic multi-player play. Some levels are too big, while others too small, and sometimes they are either too cramped. The weapons are also a problem. The guns in the game were not made for quick, multi-player gameplay, and as a result cause the action to slow down as you are fighting to constantly reload while avoiding enemy fire. Not too fun. Some original, well-thought-out maps and new weapons would have really helped immensely. Instead, what we're left with is a tacked-on multi-player mode that feels more like running around the story levels, just without as many enemies. Too bad. Graphics Medal of Honor: Frontline originated on the PS2, and it shows. The most apparent aspect of this is the texture quality. Muddy textures run rampant throughout the levels, especially in the environments, though less in the character models. Things look pretty good when viewed from a distance, but get up close and some of the textures look plain awful, especially the water textures. A sheet of blurry blue textures with almost no transparency lets me know its supposed to be water, but does a poor job at recreating it. The character models on the other hand look much better. Their uniforms look good with their war-torn patches and wrinkled looks, and their facial models look more or less human-like. The character animations, while not perfect, are also done well, especially the death animations. Shooting a Nazi at point-blank range with a shotgun, and watching him sprawl across the wall before slowing falling to his knees, then on his face, is fantastic. My one quibble about the animations is that sometimes shooting a soldier in the head will cause them to go through an animation routine used when being shot in the chest. One area where the game has improved from its previous incarnation is the framerate. On the PS2, Medal of Honor: Frontline ran at a pretty consistent 30 fps. On Xbox, it runs at a pretty consistent 60 fps, though it does falter during times of intense action, or when there are a good number of characters in the immediate area. There are also a few areas where the framerate will dip consistently, even though nothing is really happening onscreen. Nothing major, just an observation. What really hurts the visuals are the extremely bad clipping and collision detection problems. Take down an enemy and they just may fall through the wall behind them. Worse yet, they may fall through the floor. While in a submarine, one of the soldiers fell through the floor with only his head and gun sticking out of the walkway causing me to be unable to shoot him, yet allowing him to take endless free shots at my character. There were also a couple of occasions where my character could either walk entirely through another soldier, or be blocked by an invisible wall several feet away from a character when there is clearly an open path. Other strange graphical anomalies were noticed too. There was one instance where I was sniping snipers placed high on a bridge, and their dead corpses would hover in the air in a slouched position, as if hanging over a ledge. It's too bad that Medal of Honor: Frontline couldn't have been reworked to make use of any Xbox-specific effects, or even better textures and models. This could've have been a really visually stunning game. Even with all its graphical flaws, the game is not a terrible looking game, and still works as a whole. If you let yourself get caught up in your mission and the story, the graphics do a good job of recreating the environments and making you feel like you're reliving World War II. I always was the rebellious kid.
Sound This is where Medal of Honor: Frontline really excels. First, the score. Composed by Michael Giacchino and performed by the NorthWest Symphonia, the game's score is outstanding. Ranging from subtle and brooding to vibrant and triumphant, the score does wonders in creating the mood for each of the levels. Take the music in the Yard by Yard level for example. The staccato strings layered on top of the legato melody, along with the tight roll of the snare, almost tell a story of their own. Creating tension and excitement, you can't help but feel like you're part of an epic adventure. There are few games that can surpass the aural quality of Medal of Honor: Frontline, let alone match it. Exceptionally well done. The sound effects are also of a very high caliber and act as icing on the cake. The different guns all sound unique, yet all deadly. From the smooth swip of the silenced pistol to the moving boom of the Gewehr 43, the weapon sounds really make you feel each shot you take. Equally as good are the ambient level sounds and the voice acting. Hearing your fellow soldiers give you instructions or listening as a group of drunk Nazis take part in an old German song is a treat. It sounds very authentic and only sweetens the overall soundtrack even more. The PS2 version supported Dolby Surround, but like most Xbox games, Medal of Honor: Frontline fully supports Dolby Digital 5.1, and the results are amazing. There is excellent separation of the channels, and using audio cues to determine the source of a sound is a breeze. Behind you, to the left, far, or near, everything sounds clear and crisp. The opening Saving Private Ryan beach level is an excellent showcase of the game's directional and spatial sound effects, and will leave you with sweating with a thumping heart. Truly epic. Closing Comments Even with all its faults, Medal of Honor: Frontline is successful at what it attempts to do: recreate a time and tell a good story along the way. Sure, its linear (so was Halo, and even Half-life), but sometimes that is the most effective way to present a story. By forcing the player to follow a predetermined path, developers can set pre-scripted events that can make for a much more dramatic presentation, and that is just what was done here. Like watching a good Hollywood movie, some people like to sit back and escape reality without having to do too much thinking in the process. So, make yourself comfortable, turn off the lights, turn up the speakers, and get ready to be whisked away to 1940's Germany. -- Kaiser Hwang Presentation Fantastic painted menus, tons of great stock footage, and great narration make this game feel like a million bucks. 9.0 Graphics Passable graphics that are quite effective as a whole, but are lacking otherwise. 7.0 Sound Epic score, fierce gun effects, and lots of good voice acting. What more do you want? Dolby Digital 5.1? Oh yeah, that's there too. 9.0 Gameplay Go from A to B, killing everyone that stands in your way. But do it in style. 7.0 Lasting Appeal New (limited) multi-player mode, ranging difficulites, and quite a few cool secrets to open up make your 10-15 hour trip back in time a bit longer. 7.0 OVERALL SCORE (not an average) 7.9
dit spel lijkt me echt mega, had eigenlijk wel een hoger punt verwacht (vind de graphics zeer goed in de filmpjes van medal of honor). maar wacht eerst nog wat reviews af, wil namelijk ook splinter cell en misschien blinx kopen!
Ik heb hem 'even' doorgelezen. Wat een lap text. Viel me trouwens op dat bijna het enige positieve wat er gezegd werd over het geluid was. Ik ken het spel van de computer en als het er net zo uitziet en net zo lekker speelt, dan komt deze in mijn rijtje te staan.
Helaas wel, ik had AA liever op de Xbox gehad zoals eerst werd gezegd, dit ps2-poortje hoef ik niet zozeer...:r
Wij hebbuh hier ook MOHAA en hij is bruut!!!En gaat deze live dan moet ik vast gaan sparen want dan wil ik hem hebben.
