Medal of Honour Frontline, more realistic than real life! (Medal of Honor: Frontline (PS2))

Member Name: andy343

Product:	Medal of Honor: Frontline (PS2)
Date:	19/12/02 (415 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast paced, very fast paced, very realistic ww2 atmosphere, it sounds great and there's never a dull moment

Disadvantages: Could be slightly too fast paced, No storyline to speak of, The levels are a bit repetitive

The waves splash over the front of the boat as you prepare to disembark. The beach is only a hundred metres off now. You can see the mist hanging ominously over the German positions. You look up, planes circle overhead, they are a distant comfort. You hear the familiar boom of shells from your ships behind you. The shells are inaccurate and ineffective but they provide a false reassurance that someone's looking out for you. Your shaking with fear and anxiety, your rifle is tightly clenched in your hands. Suddenly the landing craft stops dead and the doors open. A split second after they open the soldiers are met with machine gun fire. You hear the rat a tat tat and you see tracer fire zipping over your head. Blood splashes onto your face as the men infront of you are ripped apart by the German guns, you are like lambs to the slaughter. You think to yourself, how did i end up in this godforsaken hellhole.

Remind you of anything?
Yes, its the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, the popular and rather gruesome second world war film. Its also the opening mission for Medal of Honour Frontline, the fourth game in the famous series of ww2 games. It definitely lives up to its expectations, sure its not original, the war game thing has been done before and its an exact copy of Saving Private Ryan but it doesn't matter because its an absolutely brilliant game. It truly is more realistic than real life, its definitely unbeatable in that category but what about the others?

Gameplay

The gameplay is fast paced and never ceased to surprise me. From the beach landing where you have to fire hopelessly at the concrete bunkers in a futile attempt to cover your comrade's to the city streets where you have to fight for your life urban style. You definitely won't have time to stop off at marks and spencer to pick up those jim jams for little Timmy! The enemy never stop coming at you, lucky you've got plenty of weapons to fend off your
foe's. There are a variety of weapons starting from your basic rifle and pistol and ending with bazooka's, sniper rifle's and, of course, the machine guns. At one point in the game you get to go up a tower and slaughter Germans with a vengence from above with a mounted machine gun. You can destroy, tanks, trucks and even submarines during the course of the game. You are a young special forces soldier sent in with the troops to cause mayhem, chaos and confusion behind enemy lines and that’s just what you do. There's never a dull moment in your mission however some of the missions are a bit repetitive in that you often find yourself doing the same sort of thing. However that is soon forgotten when you start pumping lead!! The intense realism of ww2 conflict tremendously effect the gameplay. When you shoot a German clouds of dust come out of their bodies (this is to replace the blood, because their is none). Their is an incredible variation in reactions to bullets and it is quite satisfying to watch a Nazi trooper limp around a bit before he keels over and dies(this is not realistic as in real life i hardly think a professional soldier would die of a gunshot wound to the foot!!).
The gameplay is both fast and entertaining in the strongest sense of the word. You'll never have time to stop and think.

A.I.

I think A.I. is a very important factor in a game, many people overlook this when buying and end up with a game in which the enemy prefer to shoot each other rather than you.
Fortunately this is not the case with Medal of Honour!!
The A.I. is very cutting edge and it creates a challenging opposition rather than a load of zombies. When you throw a grenade, they throw it back. when you fire at them they duck, squirm, run and even beg for mercy in extreme cases. For much of the game your fighting alongside allied soldiers, i was particularly impressed with their A.I., it feels good to know your not trusting your lif
e to a load of eggheads!
Very impressive!!

Sound

This game sounds great. The sound effects, the zip of a bullet as it flies over your head, the bang of an explosion, the metallic ring of a bullet ricochet off a bit of metal and the voiceovers as well were all of a high standard. The occasional bit of music playing softly in the background also goes down a treat. I was constantly surprised byt he range of sounds created in this game, they've been put together with precision. Even the sound of alarm bells impressed me, now that must say a lot! Medal of Honour Frontline has an incredible atmosphere to it and the sound contributes to that considerably.

Storyline

You are a lone special forces operative sent deep behind the German lines to create absolute chaos during the allied invasion of France. That’s...er pretty much it i'm afraid. If, like me, you're heavily into storyline's then don't expect much from this game. Its much more concentrated on action, realism and atmosphere.

Graphics

Last but most definitely not least.
I can imagine this being quite a challenge for the developers. There are three main aspects of graphics. The characters, the attention to detail and the environments. A well balanced combination of these three things create the perfect graphics. However they also had to consider the way a battlefield looks. They did this very well by creating a murky yet detailed and an interesting yet not very colourful environment. This makes the perfect setting for Frontline. The characters are well done and the detail is very...well...warlike.
Good graphics all round!

The Summary

Well, this game is perfect for the action fanatic. If you do however like your storylines then it might be best to look somewhere else. This is a no brain shooter with a vengence. My only criticism as that the levels are a bit repetitive.
So get out there and kick some German
behind otherwise you'll be missing out on an unmissable game!!

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