Welcome to the 64th issue of the GBAtemp Recommends Revival Project! This project is a weekly feature where we share our favourite games and applications with you. The titles we recommend may be "old school" games, a piece of Homebrew, a ROM hack, sleeper hits, an application, etc, but one thing's for certain, we think they are fantastic and deserve your attention!
Medal of Honour
The first game and one of the best in the long (and now screwed up) series, it's also the game that sold me the original PlayStation when I first saw gameplay footage and for consoles it totally killed the single player mode in GoldenEye 64...though the multiplayer in that game was so much better.
The whole concept was apparently taken to EA from none other than Steven Spielberg fresh after making his huge WWII movie, Saving Private Ryan. The developers was so intent in making an authentic WWII FPS game that they even bought in US Marine Captain Dale Dale who served as the game's military advisor, he also helped with Speilberg's own Saving Private Ryan movie. Not only that but he put some of the games staff through some combat training so that they can understand implementing certain aspects of WWII into the game
You play the role of the fictional Lieutenant Jimmy Patterson, who was recruited to the OSS. The OSS (Office of Strategic Services) were the US version of the Secret Intelligence Service and during wartime they took part in espionage behind enemy lines. The game takes place near the end of World War II and the player is tasked to complete objectives, such as destroying enemy positions, gathering information on the enemy, going undercover and of course kill enemy German forces in the process. Unlike many WWII games that followed afterwards, you were an alone solider and not once did you have to join a team at any point. Ok it was unlikely that the OSS ever sent one man to infiltrate a German base but then game designers have to take some liberties to make a game more entertaining and back then having a AI controlled buddy sucked even more than it does today.
The gameplay extremely well and the controls in this game were very influential with the controls we have today, controlling this game is pretty good, aiming is never a problem with twin sticks and I can always get a precise shot in. The buttons are very well placed and I never press a wrong button.
The enemies had some pretty good AI back in the day, it was very rare to see an enemy run away from you in a game, sacrifice themselves, let alone pick up a hand grenade to throw it back to you! MoH really felt like you weren't shooting the usual grunt enemy. Sometimes the enemies hid behind obstacles and only came out to shoot when you reloaded your weapon and sometimes when you throw an grenade in a room full of Nazi soldiers one brave soldier would just lay onto the grenade and end his life just to save his fellow comrades. I think its safe to say that the enemy reactions and AI pretty much excelled any FPS back then, even on the PC with games like Half-Life.
Multiplayer however was pretty meh, it is clear that it was just tacked on. The maps just don't fit a multiplayer style battle at all for me and also players don't move fast enough for a good old fashion game of cat and mouse.
Graphically like most PSX games the enemy models looks sort of blah now, dogs seem to have triangular legs but back then it was pretty good for a PSX game. However the animations were really good. The backgrounds are well detailed though and really help the WWII theme come through..
Sound-wise it was amazing, the music & background sounds just created some great atmosphere. The score also helps sets the tension within the game, you really couldn't fault it at all and really was verging on masterpiece at times. The music was composed by Michael Giacchino who have scored such films as The Incredibles, Ratatouille and the next Star Trek film. In video games he did EA's Black, Call of Duty and Call of Duty: Finest Hour. The sound effects in the game are spot on and very very clear as are the German voice work. If you ever get to play this game, make sure its with a good 5 speaker surround sound system so you can here the explosions boom and echo all over the place. All in all I feel without the authentic sound and atmosphere this game maybe wouldn't have been as good, that is how good the sound is.
Overall this is a must have for fans of the genre and it really makes me want a return to this style of game for the series. Speaking of the series it went on through many sequels and ultimately it ended up inspiring the Call of Duty series which now makes more cash than most pieces of entertainment, in fact original deliverables Infinity Ward actually did the 3rd game in the series Allied Assault until Activision headhuntered the staff for their own rip off. The majority of MoH games were actually really good (AA for me is the best) and the developers of the first game did continue with the majority of the games like Underground, Frontline, Rising Sun, Eurpean Assault, Pacific Assault, Airborne all of which were pretty good though they did get a bit stale with each edition. They also did MoH: Heroes 2 for PSP & Wii and both versions are the best FPS games on those consoles, however the devs did do the "OK" reboot simply named Medal of Honor and the pretty poor Warfighter which probably will kill the series dead.
Speaking of MoH games, did you know that there was an excellent one for the GBA? No, not the piss poor port of Underground but Medal of Honor: Infiltrator. A fantastic top down shooter that retains many key elements of the series. We recommended it way back in 2009, go play it!
Genre: First Person War Shooter
Release Year: 1999 (PSX) 2009 (PSN)
Developer: DreamWorks Interactive aka EA Los Angeles aka Danger Close Games
Published by:Electronic Arts
Released For: PlayStation / PSN
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