Medal of Honor: Frontline Review

World War II is nigh! There are many WW II driven games out there, and Medal Of Honor: Frontline is indeed one of them. You take control of American soldier Jimmy Patterson as you help the Allied forces storm the beaches of Normandy, sabotage German U-Boats and eventually go after one of their very commanders! The funny thing about Frontline is that you are virtually all alone in this game. Only on very few missions do you actually receive support from fellow Allied soldiers. This game could almost be considered the Metal Gear Solid of WW II games because of how much of the game you have to do by yourself. You will rely a good amount on stealth tactics, as well as those run-and-gun maneuvers that allow you to have the guns blazing as you take to the streets of Europe! It is your duty to single-handedly help put a stop to the German occupation in the country, as you do what you’re commanded to do in order to sabotage their plans. Do you have what it takes to take on a whole war almost all by yourself, or will you cower in fear in knowing your death awaits you around every corner?

One of the greatest strengths of Frontline is indeed the very beginning of the game, but unfortunately what is experienced during such isn’t really distributed about the rest of the game. More on that later. Anyway, your first mission is your being a member of a small battalion on route in a WW II designed soldier boat getting ready to storm the beaches of Normandy! EA LA did an incredible job reenacting just what may have been that glorious day for the Allied forces. You see soldier boats all around you as well as the Axis occupation on the very beach, launching everything they have at you in an attempt to thwart your objectives! You will see mortar shells landing in the water around you, taking out various boats that are making their pursuit. You will be knocked out of yours, be a bit stunned underwater and witness all those bullets flying towards you and your fellow soldiers. You will eventually come to and regroup with your battalion’s commander. It is then your mission to help the soldiers already on the beach that are stuck because they are being fired upon by various gun turrets in the distance.

This did an INCREDIBLE job setting the tone for the beginning of this game, as the whole mission is very nerve wracking and adrenaline rushing, but like stated before, after this mission ends, that pretty much ends.

There are three different difficulty levels to choose from when first starting this game, and they obviously range from easy to hard. The frustrating thing about Frontline is it seems if you don’t choose the easy difficulty, you will have an extremely hard time staying alive. The enemy AI seems to be a little bit TOO good with their accuracy on the normal and hard settings, as you seem to find yourself getting hit a heck of a lot more than you really should be.

But nevertheless, Frontline functions as a traditional FPS. If you’ve played games like 007: Nightfire or the Timesplitter games, you will have no problems getting a hold of the controls on this game. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be good at aiming and such, but the main gameplay mechanics of moving and firing are common here. So after the first mission you should be just fine with the controls, if not after the first 15 minutes or so.

When it comes to graphics, this isn’t a department in which Frontline really shines. No, the game doesn’t suck with the graphical appeal, but EA LA could’ve made this experience much more authentic with the whole “WW II feel” if they had made everything a bit more polished.

A very nice thing about Frontline is every mission will take you to a very diverse amount of locations. Whether it be the beaches of Normandy at the beginning or the streets of various cities to the rural areas of Europe, you will see a good changing of scenery between missions. Now sure the diversity is all good and dandy, but where the problem lies is how everything was actually designed and elaborated upon. It almost seems like EA LA did just enough when developing the graphics for this game just so they could be passable.

When it comes to all the character models, environments and vehicles, they just seem too simplistically designed. Really the only things in the game that look very good are the weapons, but you see the same ones in just about every mission, so it didn’t really matter much. When it comes to player models, there is just WAY too much repetition. Except when it comes to the game’s few encountered village and city people, you won’t see much difference in the looks of your few allies or enemies. Except in skin color maybe, everyone looks virtually the same. That is saddening too, since it makes missions feel awful repetitive. Any person you encounter in uniform, they are bound to all look the same to you. Sure there are the few exceptions when see people that aren’t wearing uniforms, but it doesn’t make up for it much.

The environments you experience aren’t quite as repetitious, but they aren’t much better. It is very nice though that EA LA takes you to multiple different locations to keep the experience fresh, so at least you have that. But in reality, when it comes to the buildings and scenery, everything looks sort of bland. Sure you will see the war-torn Europe when going through the game, but it shouldn’t have looked as dull as it does. Some of the missions actually do look very cool, especially with Normandy and the impressive looking beach and water. Some other natural aspects like trees and grass can also look pretty decent for the most part, but it can be disappointing to see some parts of the game that look like they could’ve easily been on the Nintendo 64. But just keep in mind that not EVERYTHING looks underdeveloped. There are a good number of missions in the game, and some of them do indeed look very good. But for the most part, you probably won’t be quite that impressed.

The special effects and animation are rather cheesy too, but the funny thing is they can be rather entertaining to watch at times. Fire looks fairly realistic, and that is a definite plus considering this is a war-driven game. But everything else really just looks corny. Grenade explosions are just pitiful, as they neither look nor sound like actual grenades. Heck, even a stick of dynamite in real life could be considered more impressive than that. Then you have the fluidity of your movement as well as your enemies. Frontline seems to have taken a step back with what it’s like to actually run with a gun in a FPS. It doesn’t really seem clunky at all, but rather just a bit too restrictive. It almost feels like you might be running through the sand all the time because of how slow your movement can seem. But on the other hand, enemies move very well and take cover when they feel the need to. But that doesn’t seem to be very fair when it seems like you can’t do the same. The best special effects however, are definitely the firing of your weapons. It appears that EA LA put heavy emphasis on not only the authentic looks of your WW II-based weapons, but also on how they fire. Whether it’s your useful sniper rifle, your Thompson, shotgun or standard rifle, everything fires with impressive realism. There was something about hearing the shooting of the sniper rifle that just put a smile on your face every time that you did. It’s a good thing too, because you’ll find yourself using that weapon an awful good bit in the game’s missions.