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The tempo is very high, your team works great together, until the ambush. It sounds like a crossfire hurricane as the speakers pump out sound that makes the CD cover move around my table. That was when I knew; this was going to be fun.
During the game you’re as I previously stated sent out to do various missions. I must say that you don’t really establish a relationship with the main character or his leaders, like in Return To Castle Wolfenstein, since there are no fancy movies in between missions, which for me was like a reward for completing a mission. A lot of the missions however are like a reward of their own, while some of them seem a lot like something you’ve seen before some are really outstanding and really do keep you excited. However, it annoyed me that you will indeed use quick save / load A LOT, which can make the game frustrating. Imagine the luck involved in moving from one of the boats in Normandy to the beach where you can take cover, WITHOUT having the ability to save. You might be thinking of Saving Private Ryan now (if you’ve seen the movie), because I sure am.
The Graphics:
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault doesn’t have the weapons effects (like the beloved flamethrower) of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, but the character animation looks more real, which is especially a plus in levels where you get to interact with your team members.
Since this is a game that resembles Saving Private Ryan there’s one thing I really did expect to see loads of, old-fashioned blood and gore. However, to be able to sell this game to younger customers they needed to loose something that’s almost default in any first person shooter these days, being the red goo. I do feel that only a small to a moderate amount of blood would make the adrenaline rush of playing the game even better. Using the riot-shotgun on a nasty ol’ nazi can be a great way of getting out your aggression, especially if it really looks like you’re giving him a world of pain. A solution to the problem could have been to have an option as to whether or not blood / gibs should be included, and perhaps having a password lock on that specific option.
The sounds / music:
The evening when I began playing the game a friend of mine said: (in Norwegian) “this is actually some really cool sound effects!” Actually, I can’t agree more. Even though some of the levels look a lot like something you’ve plowed through earlier there are some of the remaining levels that are really unique, not just in terms of design, mission objectives etc, but also very well made sound effects. Mainly there’s the sounds of the weapons, which is above average, the voices of friends and foes, which is just as good as any other similar game, and finally miscellaneous sound effects like walking / running, trees, doors, alarms etc. The effects are better than any other first person shooter of this kind that I can think of, and can in some ways be used as a reference. The music on the other hand is also good. Not great because there isn’t really a lot of variety in it, often with kind of silent music during sneaking around with your silenced pistol, and the same kind of silent music when you whip out the shotgun and start filling nazis full of led. I say they should’ve added more music of as good quality as what’s already there, and let it change dynamically according to the situation you’re in.
The gameplay:
Like in pretty much any other first person shooter you move the regular way, meaning by default using W, A, S and D, the number keys for the weapons along with ctrl for crouching. I was hoping that I would be able to strafe-jump (a technique most commonly used in Quake 3 to move faster by holding either of the strafe keys and pressing the jump button in certain intervals) in Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, but since the tempo is by far not the same and that it’s designed for you to sneak around while removing “obstacles” and not to bounce around at light-speed spamming with the plasmagun (reference to Quake 3 again). All in all the gameplay works generally very well for this kind of a first person shooter, even though there does not exist a sniper on this planet that can hold a rifle as firmly and without shaking it a millimeter as Mr. Good Guy.
Multiplayer:
Let’s see, there are four fairly self-explanatory modes to play: Free for all, Team match, Round based match and Objective based match. There’s a total of 7 difference maps to play on. They’re all of well variation; they mostly look great and have interesting points you need to control to get the advantage in a game. However, even though this is okay and all there’s nothing “more” than that, no “cream on the cake”. I would’ve liked to see bot support, some innovative modes that aren’t in other games and some cool class (allies versus axis you know) specific weapons, something as equivalently cool as Return To Castle Wolfenstein’s flamethrower.
Conclusion:
Another month, another first person shooter it seems. Luckily Medal of Honor: Allied Assault is a very solid game with some very good features. It has pretty good graphics, excellent sound effects and plays well. The game is more historically accurate and is probably a more interesting pastime than Return To Castle Wolfenstein if you find monsters and blood not as cool as “the real thing”.
Score: 8 of 10.
