Medal of Honor: Allied Assault

The Good
This was a complete game. It combined all the stealth and strategy of any great war game into a package that featured aspects of a war movie and the slight adjustment of realism to enable one man missions. 2015 offered a very rewarding and satisfying game here, one that takes you around the world on a multitude of missions.

The Bad
Perhaps the story could have been a little deeper, just to add to the already great gameplay.

The Bottom Line
Enjoyable. Although I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't played MoH:AA, the Omaha Beach level remains to me one of the most breathtaking, mind-blowing levels I've ever seen. That level alone is worth buying the game for, as it captures the horror and chaos of war perfectly.

The Good

I was a big fan of the 'Medal Of Honor' series on the Sony Playstation. This game is a very worthy first edition for the PC. Many things will be familiar to players of the Playstation games. The great sound and music from those games is all equally effective at setting a mood in 'Allied Assault'. Unlike 'Return to Castle Wolfenstein', the Germans actually speak German here, adding greatly to the games sense of authenticity.

The games three difficulty levels really add a lot of replay value. While the game is relatively simple on the 'easy' difficulty setting, ramping it up to 'hard' can make for a real challenge. Enemies will do a lot more damage, and you'll find that you can't take more than a few bullets. This makes for a much more realistic experience than you would have on lower settings.

'Allied Assault' will likely be remembered best for its tense Omaha Beach mission. Much like the opening scene of 'Saving Private Ryan', this mission really puts you on Omaha Beach on D-Day, with bullets whizzing by, shells exploding in the sand all around you, and your commander screaming orders at you and your team. It's truly an accomplishment in immersive game design, due in large part to the excellent sound.

Like the Playstation 'Medal of Honor' games, there are many unique missions to break up the monotony of a shooter. There are the undercover missions that have you sneaking around disguised as a Nazi officer. There are also a few different vehicles that you find yourself riding around in, either at the controls, or at the gun. In the case of the King Tiger tank, you're the one in charge. The tank on tank battles can be especially interesting.

**The Bad**

The AI in this game leaves a little to be desired. While the Nazis don't charge you like frenzied berzerkers, they don't always behave realistically either. There is one sad scene in particular where Nazi soldiers walk out one after the next from behind hedges, right into your blazing machine gun fire. At other times in the game however, especially the Snipertown level, the enemy AI seems to be pretty clever, and it can be truly difficult to see where shots are coming from.

As for your squad (when you have one) they can be a help and a burden. In levels when their death in not a failure condition, their extra firepower can really come in handy. When your sqaudmates survival is necessary however, they will sometimes stand in the middle of the street and be shot by the same sniper two, three, or four times, without moving out of the way or seeking cover. A system for issuing general commands to your squad would have been very helpful.

The games multiplayer component really offers nothing new, and is a hassle to get into. Rather than have an in-game system for locating servers, the game requires that you have GameSpy Arcade installed and use that the find servers playing the game. Then when you find a server you must boot back into 'Allied Assault', wait through load screens, then start the game. If you're lucky. Server full? Quit 'Allied Assault', open Gamespy Arcade, look for a new server, log in, launch 'Allied Assault', wait through three load screens... you get the idea. Once you do start a multiplayer game it isn't all that much fun after the team play breakthroughs of 'Return to Castle Wolfenstein'.

The games system requirements are pretty steep, and it's recommendations are even steeper. I have a 750mhz Athlon with 384 MB of RAM. The game runs well with low texture detail and color depth, but starts to lose some frame rate at higher detail settings, though to be fair, it is still quite playable (and quite pretty).

**The Bottom Line**

'Allied Assault' is a good, well paced, action packed WWII game for the PC. It's not a realistic first person combat simulation by any means, but it is a very fun and challenging action game. There are a lot of in game scripted events, a la 'Half-Life', which are all carried off to great effect. The games developers have done a great job of creating an immersive WWII environment, and using cinematic music and sound effects to bind everything together. Anyone who enjoys a good Half-Life style first person shooter would almost certainly have fun with this game.

The Good
Of course it's all about THAT level. The level that the developers' must have wanted to include since the first game but obviously didn't have have the power to do it justice. It's the selling point of the game and they had to build the player up to be ready for it.

As a result we start with a few levels in various parts of the occupied world as we get used to the controls. Again we take the role of a Special Forces trooper, this time with the upgraded Quake 3 engine, which means the addition of some friendly squad mates to 'help' you out. This is no squad shooter though as they're quickly taken down, leaving you in the classic one-man army situation. There are more tactics and other characters than in previous instalment though and you often have to team up with someone to complete a level.

Having fought through Northern Africa and behind the enemy lines in Norway you're finally treated to the game's golden moment; the D-Day landings. It seems a bit puzzling that as a top Special Forces trooper who's previously been sent on highly classified mission you're suddenly put in a landing craft alongside the normal G.I.'s, but then it's all about the experience.

What an experience it is, a true recreation of Saving Private Ryan. Standing in a landing craft, you're helpless as you enter the battle with explosions all around, it's terrifying. The door opens and suddenly you're off, running like mad for the sparse cover whilst the bullets tear apart those around you. Like the previous Medal of Honor games there's no blood which is just as well.

Surviving the landing the rest of the game follows the Allies march towards Germany in a series of mini-campaigns. Whilst it's all quite exciting nothing quite matches the landings, though another level plucked straight from Saving Private Ryan comes close. In it you have to pick your way through a ruined French town taking out snipers, followed by stopping a tank from a church bell tower.

Once again the developers' have a done a masterful job of creating excitement and an atmosphere, much as with the first game but on a bigger scale. The graphics look gorgeous in muted tones and the sounds are amazing. Events are scripted to keep you on your toes as you follow the clear and obvious path. Obviously there's not much story but then it's a war and you're a soldier and you don't question orders.

The Bad
The game is truly an experience; like I mentioned it requires no critical thought and can be a happy shooting gallery. Clearly designed for mass appeal you can't even kill your squad mates if you try, so no chance of accidental guilt.

I don't want to spoil the experience for first time players; suffice to say don't play it a second time as it will spoil that all important first impression.

Finally my last real gripe is the last level. It felt as if the developers decided to turn up the difficulty and punish the player for coming so far. Suddenly you have a timed sprint followed by an almost impossible cross-fire for no real realism or drama – a total let-down.

The Bottom Line
This is a great and hopefully terrifying taste of cinematic warfare. The series finally achieved it's goal of recreating sections of Saving Private Ryan and bringing them home.