When it comes right down to it you have three “flavors” of war for 20th Century gaming.
Not counting the rare games like Blackhawk Down (the incident in Somalia) there are only 3 major “flavors” of reality based war, that being WWII, Vietnam and Operation : Desert Storm (1990’s version).

After that we have the not so reality based North Korea conflicts… set in the 21st Century as opposed to the Korean War of the 50‘s. Why? Well I think it‘s because even controversy magnet Midway knows better than to try and base a game off of the present conflicts in Iraq & Afghanistan (so it‘s the safe thing to do). Anyway a Iraq War shooter (for example) would not only be insensitive, and a jerk thing for them to do, it’ll also be a stupid thing (on a level that might run the offending company out of business ala Acclaim).
Besides which nobody is really going all out fighting over the video game rights to short lived conflicts in the 20th Century, like Operation Falkland Islands, or Panama : Overthrow Noriega for starters.
But someone will take the time, it seems, for a US Army approved shooter. Yes, as previously mentioned we have the Summer 2005 release of the US Army’s “America’s Army” game on the PS2 & Xbox to look forward to, and yes as I promised when I reviewed “NRA Varmint Hunter” I will review this one.
But I digress, back to war games. So then, barring any bouts of stupidity on gamers parts we have the most war games (mostly 1st person or 3rd person shooters with a smattering of Real Time Strategy games and the occasional weird games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein & any Indiana Jones game) set in the three timelines of WWII, Vietnam & Desert Storm.

This is the first, WWII. And this is THREE, yes, count em’ three reviews of the Medal of Honor series to look forward to! Uh… I know, I know, I should be doing NHL Faceoff 2003 next BUT it’s not like hockey is going anywhere at the moment… so let’s get to WWII!!

This week is Frontline from 2003.
Next is Rising Sun, and a fieldtrip to the Pacific Theater of battle, and a vast improvement in the game mechanics we’ll be seeing here in Frontline in my opinion.
And finally we have June 2005’s newest Medal of Honor release, European Assault, fresh on the market and brand spankin’ new for review.

But first, Frontline. As you may, or may not know, Medal of Honor is one of the major franchises of the WWII genre. That, Call of Duty and the recently released mega game Brothers In Arms, are amongst the most powerful of the WWII games. Medal of Honor, the one we’re talking about, is our topic.
But Medal Of Honor is not only the title of a series of WWII games, it’s also (as you may know) a WWII group… The Congressional Medal of Honor Society to be more precise.
Started in the aftermath of WWII, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society (CMOHS) was formed to uphold the

qualities of the Medal of Honor, and also to provide assistance to indigent recipients.
So whether the Medal of Honor winner became rich, poor, or an insufferable politician that nobody liked, the CMOHS seeks to promote a brotherhood between recipients… no matter how difficult that may sound to you and me. And, yes, if you think Medal of Honor (the game) is closely linked to Medal of Honor (the Society) then you’d be correct. They seem to have played a role in all these games, of which one clear aspect of that involvement is seen in one way… but more on that later.

Because of this close ties between EAGames and the CMOHS you are treated to some really good historical content in this game, which is even more detailed and packed in “Rising Sun“ (next week‘s review).
There’s quite abit of historical footage and info on the events of the game (starting off a D-Day and moving onwards) and the game just has this feel of genuine authenticity here and there which just adds to it’s charm. That makes it one of their hot series that sells like hotcakes… or as X-Play likes to call them, “smack-cakes”… (that’d be hotcakes smothered in smack, which strangely enough did not appear as a breakfast time power-up in NARC)… and that’s a good thing isn’t it.

Yes, I know, it’s a WWII game and by now people are getting sick and tired of WWII games, I.e. X-Play (again), but I think I have a little space in my heart for Medal of Honor. Yes it’s not a complex shooter (for now at any rate), and squad based combat won’t become available until the modern day incarnation of European Assault, but it’s still good for those who aren’t tired yet of reenacting WWII in shooter format.

So where do you start off? You start off at a US GI Joe named Patterson, and you’re going to be hitting the beaches of Normandy for the great D-Day Cookoff! You hit the beach… get on the beach first before you hit it… and as you swim by the dead corpses of your fellow soldiers you’ll run across the sandy beaches helping out allies, shooting at nazi entrenchments, working your way into their “hearts” (and fortifications) and giving them a Predator style organ removal as you subtract Nazis from their beachside fortification “summer holes”. Then after that you’ll be going on a whirlwind tour of Europe, raging throughout Europe fighting Nazis left and right as you go. From Normandy you set out to smash a U-Boat factory in France, then go “Dutch” to save a operative who has information on a new German secret air weapon. And that is just the start of it! Oh, yes, there’s much more.

If you’ve played previous Medal of Honor games you should have no problem picking this up, however if you haven’t played it before you might be a little daunted by the tasks ahead of you. In fact you might want to give your first spin on this game in Easy mode since I found

Normal mode to be rather difficult -- and at least a once over in Easy mode will give you a chance to get the hang of what you need to do, and how to do it. But even in Easy mode you might get into a jam so make sure to check your progress from time to time (by pressing the Start button) or make sure you get hints from HQ (by pressing the Select button).

Basically all you have to do in this game is lots of shooting, in order to take out a lot of Nazis… don’t worry about friendly fire fatalities though, that won’t bother you in the slightest… but not from a glitch or error!
Like I said above the Medal of Honor Society wants to have their fingers in this game, and that seemingly includes certain aspects of the gameplay like, for instance, the topic of “friendly fire”!

Apparently the CMOHS doesn’t think too highly of “friendly fire” incidents and they have discouraged EA Games from having it in their games, which is nice and all EXCEPT in this game… where the AI Allies at times seems hellbent on making me shoot them.
Best example of this is the start of the mission in Dutch territory to free a captured spy.
You parachute into enemy territory and have to make your way through the Dutch countryside to this small town, and along the way you need to help this demolitions expert destroy Nazi tanks. Well you should be allowed to go forward, purge each area of Nazis, then watch as your man goes to work right? Wrong.
First off they keep trying to move forward fast, rushing right into gunfire when you’d rather take it slow and steady, then they occasionally have a bad habit of trying to step in front of you while you’re trying to use your sniper rifle to take out distant enemies… yeah, a few more steps to the left and I could have removed the head of my demolitions escort (guide)! Then again I guess not since there’s the friendly fire rule in place which won’t let me kill friends… that’s good since I sometimes get carried away with the firing.

Let’s break this down now.

Medal of Honor Breakdown 1944
What’s Hot?
Hmmm… I know X-Play is happier with Brothers in Arms as their favorite WWII shooter, but I have a place in my heart for the Medal of Honor series. I don’t know but I seem to like this series for all it’s quirks and it’s evolving gameplay (it evolves in steps when you play Rising Sun, as you’ll see in next week’s review) and it’s interesting historical footage and history lessons on the actual battles.

I haven’t seen MOH’s chief rival, the Call To Duty series, but if it’s like this game (strong in shooting and historical content) I think I’ll get used to playing both. Anyway Medal of Honor has more games out now than Call to Duty with Frontline, Rising Sun (next week), European Assault (2 weeks) and finally Pacific Assault (out on PC) so I’m focused

on that abit more.

There’s another game… another WWII game coming in June… but I’ll see if I can get it or not.

What’s Not?
Hmmm… the lacking ability to carry medical supplies for emergencies is a daunting thing, meaning you’ll have to backtrack when injured to take advantage of medical supplies you couldn’t pick up before to keep your health up. I don’t know about you but I wish I had some room to carry these life giving supplies rather than use them from hand to mouth (immediate use for healing instead of saving some when in full health).

Another is the fact that you have to play through the entire mission level before you can save the game, which is yet another thing that is “fixed” in Rising Sun… hmm… lots seems to be better in Rising Sun than it’s European counterpart Frontline.

Moments to Remember?
At times the title’s quirky sensibility comes into play.
For instance meet your Dutch contact in a bar filled with Germans ready to party like it’s 1944!
Tip the guy at the piano and start up a German drinking song (or something), while you take your shot at the beer toss to distract German officers. And that’s AFTER you take a disturbing ride through the village with another contact who can’t stop talking between stops so you can kill more Germans blocking your path.
Then go over to a manor house to free someone with info (your whole point of being there in the first place) while fighting your way through a house of soldiers, rampant wait help, a knife throwing chef and the occasional drunken Nazi… don’t shoot, they’ll just fall down and won’t get up.
That’s just a few of the quirks of the game. There’s more but I’ll save that for you to discover.

What to Ignore?
Hmmm…. I think I can ignore the lack of friendly fire causalities since I’ve been known to be a little… uhh… heavy on the firing trigger at times. Though I would have liked to have had the choice between friendly fire and no friendly fire damage if I had a choice.

Overall?
I don’t know about you but I think I can definitely dig WWII shooters.
Yeah, I know, it’s something that drives the people at X-Play crazy and I often say I’m in total agreement with them… well people and disgruntled fans also drives them crazy and I think of those as challenges so I guess we’re not in complete agreement after all (myself and X-Play).
If you have to get a WWII shooter make it this series and possibly Brothers in Arms… I don’t know about Call to Duty though, I have to see more of the game. Oh, well.

Next Week
Next time out we roll over to the vast blue oceans of the Pacific, and the war against Japan.
Rising Sun, whose gameplay seems to be vast improvements over the old system, sports more options, more incentives to play and more gameplay overall. A good choice as you’ll soon see.
So hang tight, next week’s review is Medal of Honor : Rising Sun. See you next week!