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20100718.144024
website is now in archive mode. visit blog.subnova.com for information.
20080730.144615
i added amazon context links... just because i can... if they're not too obtrusive... i'll leave them
20080114.231544
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20080109.022443
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Medal of Honour: Frontline This fantastic war-time shooter is a faithful port of its popular PC counterpart. The game takes you behind enemy (Nazi) lines as Lt. Jimmy Patterson. You'll have to fight, run and creep your way through six missions and 20 levels, ranging from U-Boats to Holland.
 
In Flanders Fields
The very first level of MOH is the landing at Omaha beach, and it is, quite frankly, fantastic. You start off in one of the landing boats with your squad mates, ducking down to stay out of the way of the streams of bullets coming at you from the shore. Shells go off around you, rocking the boat, covering you with water and destroying other boats in front of your very eyes.
Once on land, you quickly get to grips with the controls. You have to, quite frankly, because otherwise you'll be dead. Which would be bad. Strangely, if you miss your first checkpoint (rendezvousing with your captain behind a damaged boat), you can wander round the beach pretty untouched for ever. If you want to proceed though, you need to go and find the captain, who quickly gives you some instructions.
At the end of the first level, I was truly exhausted and exhilarated. Regrettably, the rest of the game is not on the same fantastic level. After his bravery at Omaha, Jimmy Patterson is given a string of special ops missions to carry out, centered around real World War II events. These are all very nicely done. One mission has you sneaking through a war-struck French town to hide away in a crate that will be loaded onto a U-Boat, which you go on to sabotage, escape from and finally take out the whole dock yard.
The levels are beautifully designed, and often make you feel a part of the War, but the countryside areas of levels are really quite poorly done. Flat trees and bushes, far too large open grassy areas, and peasants that make you want to shoot them. The buildings and streets of towns are very nicely done, and the positioning of Nazi snipers makes finding the local car pool a real chore.
 
Achtung!
While the levels are mostly great, the enemy are not. They have no apparent AI other than "duck behind this box which really will hide me. Even though they can see my head. Or just shoot through the box." Still, there can be a few difficult moments. This is normally if there are a group of entrenched Nazis up ahead, its foggy, and you're out of sniper ammo. Things can get really hairy, and you start making really good use of the lean and duck controls, which are very nicely implemented indeed.
The weaponry is classic stuff. Pistols and rifles are your standard fare, and you'll soon get grenades and a sniper rifle to help you through the harder missions. The sniper rifle is excellent, although I do find that it turns rather too slowly: you can just keep up with a moving target, but if you are slightly behind them there is no chance of catching them. The grenades are lovely, and unlike Halo's Covenant, the Nazi's haven't learned how to dive out of the way. Which makes for big boomness if you get lucky.
There are no end of level bosses as such. Generally at the climax of a level you'll run into some serious resistance, which makes getting out nice and hard. One down side of this is that if you die you return all the way to the start of the level, which can mean 15 minutes of replaying the same bit over again. And again, if you die. In one particularly annoying level, I played for about 25 minutes and then right at the end there was a jumping problem that I misjudged by about a foot and died, meaning I had to start from the beginning.
 
Conclusion
Medal of Honour: Frontline is a great game, which doesn't live up to its first level. If the rest of the game had been like the first level (which would have been hard, believe me) then it would be an unquestionable 10/10 for playability. As it is, some of the levels are good, and some are just annoying. In one level you are teamed up with two other soldiers, which means it is almost physically impossible to reach the "kill 95% of hostiles" requirement for a gold star for that level.
I have to say I haven't yet tried the multiplayer experience but it looks acceptable. Nothing on the level of Halo, but a jolly good laugh at least. There is some replayability instilled - I really want to get all Gold Stars and as many medals as possible!
| Graphics | 8.0/10 | | Sound | 9.0/10 | | Story | 7.5/10 | | Playability | 8.0/10 | | Replay Value | 6.0/10 | | Fun Factor | 8.0/10 | | Overall | 7.8/10 |
Please note all images in this article are Copyright © XBox.com |
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