Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Medal of Honor: Frontline

Written by Adam Woolcott on June 05, 2002

Full Review: One part history lesson, one part Nazi killing zone.

The Medal of Honor series came out of nowhere back in 1999 on the original PlayStation console. The WWII-themed game featuring a heaping helping of Nazi German soldiers to eradicate, along with creative and fun missions made the game a must own for action and first-person shooter fans. It's sequel, Medal of Honor Underground, was just as critically acclaimed and cemented the MOH series as one of Electronic Arts' biggest non-sports franchise.

So it's no surprise that when Medal of Honor Frontline was announced for the PlayStation 2 a year or so ago, the game was hotly anticipated. Now that the game is finally here, the question has loomed Ц is this just a pretty rehash of the PS Medal of Honor games, or is it something that hasn't been seen before?

Thankfully, Frontline isn't too similar to its predecessors, mixing in some of WWII's most famous operations with plenty of action against those kooky Germans. It has issues, that's for sure Ц but those issues can be overlooked a bit because the game is just is a blast (literally and figuratively) to play.

Frontline is a pure single-player story-based game Ц the PS2 version lacks multiplayer options, apparently to emphasize the story mode as the main feature. The Xbox version recently announced possibly will feature some sort of multiplayer, however. You have the option of playing at 3 different difficulties, with easy being the defaultЕnot sure why, but I guess Dreamworks had their reasons.

MOH Frontline wastes no time taking you out of the frying pan and into the fire Ц the very first mission puts you at D-Day, in the midst of a major battle for the Omaha Beach area. As Lt. Jimmy Patterson (from the original MOH), you have to accomplish several tasks while dodging German fire from all kinds of directions Ц be it rescuing pinned down soldiers, breaking through enemy lines to disable their machine guns and radios, all this has to be done while being attacked heavily by the Nazis. All the while, there's an entire war taking place behind you, with seemingly a million events happening while you're completing your objectives. If you didn't have to run like hell to avoid being shot at, taking time to just simply watch the events around you is something that has rarely been seen.

Needless to say, MOH Frontline is all about atmosphere. When a chance comes to catch a breather in some of the more wild scenes, watching the things around you take place is fascinating and really puts your mind into the thought of what exactly went through the minds of many people who really fought in WWII. There's also a sense of urgency at all times Ц this is no time to lollygag and take it slow Ц in the heated battles things happen fast and you have to think strategy even faster, or you'll die the fastest of all.

Frontline features 6 main missions, each containing more than one level leading up to the completion of that mission. For instance, the 2nd mission involves getting onboard a German U-Sub and placing explosives in particular spots, and then escaping the sub before it blows to bits. However, just to get to the docks, you've gotta fight through a crumbling town (the one in the MOH demo that was in the recent Official PlayStation Magazine) full of Germans and accomplish certain tasks along the way, including climbing a tower to a manned machine gun and wipe out all the German troops who have the Allies cornered. Then as you start the next mission, you see the results of your handiwork after a few minutes, as the U-Sub explodes and sinks into the water.

Each mission involves at least one major event from World War 2 Ц the afore mentioned D-Day, Operation Market Garden, to Nijmegen Bridge, where you can be Kyle Reese from the Terminator and change the future by making sure the Nazi's can't destroy the bridge (as seen in the movie A Bridge Too Far, which was one of the Allies biggest defeats in WWII) by disabling the explosives set. Medal of Honor games are typically made in conjunction with the Medal of Honor Society for realism value, and did so with Frontline also, so the idea of actually changing history in a game that's supposed to be realistic is weird, but I guess it's that fancy creative license thingy hard at work.

Other missions have you riding in the back of a truck, blasting Nazi's that get in your way Ц the hopping out of the truck to neutralize cars so they can't follow you, as well as wiping out any troops that get in your way. At the end of the level you have to get a disguise to dress like a German solider, sneak into a bar loaded with drunken Nazi's, and find an informant to get you into a building to free an Allied solider. It's all very cool, and most missions are unique and don't carry similarities.

One could complain that the levels are extremely linear, but outside of Deus Ex, how many aren't? Even Halo is a 99% linear game, and that doesn't stop the game from being one of the best games of the last few years, if not ever.

At the completion of each level, you're awarded a star based upon your performance Ц gold, silver, and bronze. Get a gold star for each level within a mission and you receive a medal. I'm not sure what getting all golds gives you, but it's possible there's a big reward for accomplishing the tough task, which involves eliminating nearly all the enemies and keeping your health level high. If this is the case, MOH's replay value certainly gets higher Ц not that it won't be high now, given how fun it is to complete the various tasks.

At your disposal are many authentic WWII-era weapons, from German sniper rifles, MP-40 machine guns, and the superbadass Panzer-whatever German rocket launcher. The weapons involved cater greatly to the style of fighting that was happening back in the 1940's Ц since all the weapons were manual reloads, and slow at that (there's the realism thing rearing its head), you can't really just stand there and reload while you get shotЕinstead you'll have to take cover and reload, then duck back out. Of course, there's nothing like a reload duel with a German Ц fastest to reload gets the kill! Of course, there's both Allied and German grenades to use too Ц both come in extreme handy if you're heavily outnumbered (not that you're outnumbered through most of the game, or anything).

Unfortunately, actually setting up your weapon can be an annoyance. The aiming is quite awkward to get a grip on Ц after the mighty Halo's pretty much perfect aiming controls, Frontline's is quite slow and not very accurate, plus you can't adjust the sensitivity at all. By the time you get a shot set up, you've been fired upon more than once. Perhaps a little bit of an automatic aim would have helped, though it is one of those things that gets more tolerable the more you use it. Usually you can just do a buckshot and it'll hit somewhere around who you're aiming for. Or you could just do a melee attack, knock the guy on his ass and pop a shot into his head Ц makes it easier when the guy is unconscious or really in pain, no?

The rest of the controls work well and are very similar to most FPS games on the PS2. It's well customizable (minus that crosshair aiming), and you can use both the one-stick control mode (using the left analog stick), or the dual-stick mode that's pretty much the norm nowadays. Also, you're able to change the inverted pitch on (a necessity for me, it made the MOH demo unplayable because I couldn't change the controls and I pretty much suck ass playing an FPS without the inverted pitch). So if you can't find a control scheme that fits youЕyou probably should find a new hobby.

However, there is one teeny problem that drives me up a wall Ц the lack of any kind of saving at all unless you complete a level. I usually don't mind because the levels are broken up into small bits, but Frontline has some levels that take up to 30 minutes or more to complete, yet no way to save. And on some levels, they're so freaking hard (Arnhem Knights for example Ц amazing level to play, but hard as hell to complete) that you won't want to do them again, so when you die, the game sits on the shelf for a while. Perhaps if you could save each time you complete an objective things would be easier, but this really can get frustrating on the later levels that become loaded with enemies and dangerous traps. I understand that Dreamworks is making this as real as possible, thus you only get one shot, but ya know, it is a video game, so letting us save here and there might be a wise little idea.

Somehow, the game still keeps me coming back for more Ц the levels are usually such a blast that even after I get annoyed because of being unable to save, I go back to it after playing another game for a while. The game certainly must be good if the flaws that exist are able to be put aside to just enjoy the game, and Frontline sure is an enjoyable game.

When it comes to the graphics, Frontline has some of the best of the PS2. The frame rate usually goes at 60 frames a second, but in areas of intense action it does chug to less than 30. Thankfully these moments are rare, giving a fairly steady frame rate throughout the game.

The atmosphere plays a big part of the visual presentation; all the things happening around you, from Nazi's giving some of the local residents some crap for whatever reason (while you set your sniper rifle up to end the life of the asshole, of course), to the mini-wars that take place around you while you're going about your business (D-Day, Arnhem Knights). The detail of the levels is nice also, giving you a lot to look at when you have time to actually do it. The only complaint is the game does look a little drab with colors; though the time period is so different, it probably was the way it really looked there anyway.

The soldiers around you are animated well, though they use only a few character models for them. The same guy giving you orders during the D-Day mission looks like the same guy who you meet and fight alongside with in other missions Ц and somewhere he gains a British accent, then loses it. The Nazi's consist of a handful of models, but they too are pretty repetitive. Not that you'd expect a million faces for each of the millions of German soldiers that you come across and put out to pasture. However, the best point is the lip synching is pretty much perfect, making it seem like the soldiers are really talking to you instead of being dubbed.

The audio is, of course, great. The voices are done really well and don't come across as b-movie quality, and there's even a lot of German phrases in there also. Other things like the sounds of guns or grenades going off are nicely done, and even get louder and quieter as you move away from the territory, dynamically. The gunshots are all different and authentic too.

The soundtrack to the game is not easy to hear amongst the fighting, but if you were lucky enough to get ahold of the Frontline soundtrack, you could hear the amazing score for the game. It's pretty much movie-like and mixes in well with the situation at hand. It's a shame that the music is so drowned out by the great sounds of war Ц it's not a bad tradeoff, but it would be even better if it were better balanced.