Medal of Honor: Frontline Review

But again, there are also problems with the death and destruction of various things. All too often when you kill your enemies, it almost seems like the game is trying to “think” for a few seconds if the enemy is supposed to die or not, because they take FOREVER to fall down! This can indeed be frustrating when you’re low on ammo and don’t think you’ve gotten your kill and end up wasting bullets thinking you didn’t kill the guy. Other noticeable things are the shooting out of windows and killing enemies on staircases. In regards to windows, it’s rather humorous to shoot out a window in an attempt to go through it, and then continuing your fire has you see the repetitive breaking of glass that shouldn’t be there. With enemies on staircases, especially in one mission that takes you through out a residential neighborhood, you can actually see them fall UPSTAIRS when you kill them rather then the “traditional” downstairs. While they are bugs in the game, they are indeed fun to laugh at!

Now I know it seems like I did nothing but bash the graphics in this game, but it was necessary. They certainly aren’t bad at all, just disappointing. They won’t ruin the experience of the game whatsoever, as stated before, some missions look very good, while most just look decent. The detail just suffered quite a bit in the design of everything, which makes most of the game appear repetitive in these aspects. It is indeed an authentic WW II experience, just not detailed enough.

Frontline definitely shines the most in the music and sounds department. In terms of the music, EA LA actually had a multiple award winning composer create the scores for this game. Whoever he was, he did an absolutely fantastic job in creating the game’s music. Along with the weapons featured in the game, the music also does a great job of making Frontline an authentic WW II experience.

The scores composed for Frontline could easily be considered some of the best ever done for a game, and it’s a good thing they were in there or else the game may have downright sucked. If you think of music being played during movies that depict WW II reenactments or even music played during “soldier marches,” you will have a good idea of what is heard in Frontline. Probably the best themes are the ones you might hear during movies when you are watching certain scenes of watching a lot of people die and the main characters are watching in horror. Or the themes that are played when there are those “last few soldiers” left that will give it everything they have in order to achieve victory for their side, and sometimes they are insanely able to do so! There are a few fast-paced and upbeat themes, but those are mainly used in certain missions in which your objectives are truly critical to the Allied cause of Frontline, especially for suspense purposes. They’re basically there to tell you, “Hey, you better keep yourself alive, your country depend on it!”

So for those of you out there that are WW II enthusiasts and would like to try out a game that has some of the best war-driven music ever created, Frontline is a great choice. It’s more than obvious that EA LA targeted those people with this music since what you hear can indeed be heard on tv or movies. But even with that probable reason, it’s great they worked so hard on getting someone with the talent they did for this game in regards to the music. It really helps to bring the authentic WW II experience to life. Even if some of the themes are repeated in some missions, which they are, it doesn’t take away the quality of it. Heck they could’ve had only three themes in Frontline, but if they were all of that quality, it still would’ve made the experience what it is.

Frontline also features a good bit of voice acting. You yourself will never say a word, but some of your Allied commanders/friends and various enemies or village people will indeed speak during certain missions. The voices were actually done pretty well, as they all sound authentic in dialect and tone. When you storm the beaches of Normandy at the beginning, your commander and fellow comrades will be shouting at you so you can hear them over all the mortar blasts and gun turrets. When you get into the meat of the game, you will hear the Axis forces shouting various orders and such to each other in German, and the dialogue was very well-done, even though you’ll most likely not be able to understand them. There are also a few missions in which you’ll hear various chatter among city or village inhabitants, and even though they too speak in a foreign tongue, it sounds just like it might’ve back in that era.

As for how the sound effects come off with your weapons and various other features of the game, they aren’t exactly impressive, and are probably the worst part of this aspect of the game. Most of your weapons do sound pretty authentic, especially the sniper rifle, Thompson and standard rifle. But some others like your Colt pistol, rocket launcher and grenades just sound downright pathetic. All those weapons just don’t sound like they have any power behind them, which is discouraging because it can almost give you a puzzled look on your face when feeling like a wimp using them! Now other aspects like gun turrets, trucks and airplane bombers actually sound incredibly realistic. Gun turrets are especially impressive as you can almost hear the “ammo belt” being strung through the contraption, which is very cool. Planes and trucks are sound good, just as if you would hear their engines and such in real life.

So despite the few shortcomings with the weapons, the music and sounds really do a great job of bringing the atmosphere of Frontline to life. WW II is the name of this game, and the music and sounds do a great job of taking that name and using it!

EA LA could’ve easily done better in the gameplay department to make this really feel like a great shooting game, but the controls just don’t feel right enough to make you feel that way. The core mechanics are most definitely there. You have the nice utilization of the analog and C-Sticks, but how it actually feels to use them can really make you feel gipped.

There are two controller schemes, and it’s probably best to go with the Sharpshooter mechanics since they emulate the controls of other FPS’s the best. You have your standard movement with the two sticks, the zooming of L and the firing with R. However, the problem with that is the feeling of how you move just doesn’t seem to be natural. Like stated before, the controls aren’t clunky at all, they just don’t allow you to feel like you might playing other FPS games. Your movement is awfully slow and that affects not only your navigation but your aiming as well! Really it almost feels like you’re stuck in a mode between walking and jogging, because it doesn’t come even close to feeling like you’re actually “running”. It affects your aiming too, both with or without a scope. When you aim using either of the methods, it almost feels like you’re pulling a 100 pound weight just to get it to MOVE to where you want it. That can indeed be annoying when you’re using the sniper rifle especially, because it can almost put you at a disadvantage when enemies you see happen to see you first. Unless you’re lucky enough to have the zoom go pinpoint on your enemy just as you’re doing it, it can be a hassle to move it to where you need it to be.

Also like stated before, it can be a real pain to determine whether or not you actually achieve a kill when gunning down an enemy soldier at times. Really the only weapon that allows you to be sure of that for the most part is the sniper rifle. When you nail someone with that, they either fall down a lot more quickly or just get completely knocked back because of the impact force of the bullet. But when it comes to using your Thompson, Colt pistol, shotgun, standard rifle or anything else for that matter, Frontline doesn’t allow you to easily tell whether you’ve killed your enemies or not. All too often when you hit them with those weapons, they will just make a slight “twist” in their body, and almost at a maximum wait of five seconds, you will see what happens to them next! To make things even worse sometimes, just when you think an enemy is going to fall to the ground, they manage to get right back up and start firing at you again! This can be annoying when you’re fighting a large group of enemy soldiers and you turn your back on people you thought you killed but didn’t.