Medal of Honor: Allied Assault

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
MoH is making its beginning on PSX and it's the first FPS involving WWII to have a such impact on the community. So, EA wanted to expand it to computers. After all, it's THE platform for FPS... at this time (and being a non-console player, I still find that the computer is very well adapted for FPS).

MoH: Allied Assault takes you in WWII in the shoes of Lieutenant Mike Powell, from the US Army, belonging to the OSS office. His first mission sees him in North Africa, trying to save his squad (saving a member nearing death is rewarded by a medal - and it's the only one I couldn't have) and freeing a secret agent from the Nazis' hands. After destroying tanks and cannons, Mike is firing at planes on the airfield, in a jeep, similar to the ride with Moody in Call of Duty: United Offensive.

His second mission is to sabotage a U-Boat in Norway and is your first contact to the disguising gameplay. Find an enemy's uniform, his papers and if you keep your weapon in the holster, you will be not bothered by Germans, only at checkpoints. Eventually, you will have to kill officers if you need papers. But remember to do it quickly or the alert will be given. If you can steal the U-Boat manifest, you'll be rewarded by a Norvegian medal. I was very happy to find it in my medal case.

After that, our dear Powell is sent to France... during Overlord. So, you will have to find a way on the beach to your unit. I assure you that your life will be soon near zero. And if it wasn't sufficient, you'll also be trying to find lost units in villages, calling artillery, etc..

Then, you're still in France, in a special mission, for freeing a secret agent (or a pilot) and leading him in the French resistance, where you'll meet a young woman, reminding me the heroine of MoH: Underground/Resistance on PSX - well, this is really her. Anyway, you'll be in a stealth mission: if you're spotted, kill the enemy before he can give the alert. You can cut it by pressing the action key.

Then, you're sent to Brest in order to find a tank crew and lead them to a enemy tank. Before you can find them, you'll be in a village in ruins, with snipers at every corner. It's a frustrating passage because you can't spot them very well. It's in this mission that the tank ride, as raging as in CoD later, happens.

Finally, you're sent somewhere in a SS "fortress", near the Siegfried line. The village part is the most pleasurable part with the Norwegian and French resistance missions. As in this last one, you have to be careful with the alerts. Anyway, it's the last part that is really frustrating. Well, gaining the medal by limiting the casualties to four isn't easy as many snipers are arriving but I did it. It's after that. Going deeper in the bunker, freeing prisoners and then planting explosives... You don't know it, but you won't have time for breathing because you have to escape the fortress in fire and with Nazis trying to stop you and the fact that you don't recognize your path can make you nervous. And then, it's a pain in a ass to exit the building with SS firing at you when you have a few HP.

As you can see, the gameplay is varied. If the core is to shoot to every enemy you can meet, except when disguised, you will have to plant explosives, steal documents, free prisoners, ride a tank and even disguise yourself as an officer. You can be cured by a medic on the field (very useful during Overlord). Yep, you have objectives you can control by pressing TAB but if you're successful in secret ones, not mentioned in the game, you'll be rewarded by a medal in your medal case in the menu. Save lives, steal documents, lead a a full tank crew alive to their destination, finish the Overlord part (this one isn't even so difficult to find), destroy tanks, try to limit casualties to four and do the sixth mission in the three difficulty modes for having a full medal case.

Usually, you will find a passage about graphics here. Well, for once, it's in the bad part.

Soundtrack is better than graphics. The music is nice and well adapted to the situations, the voice acting is good even if I would have preferred subtitles like in CoD (not only when Germans are speaking) and the sounds are convincing.

About lifetime or/and replay value, there is a multiplayer mode and I suppose that MoH is doing better in it than in the single player campaign. With the three difficulty mode, if you want to go back to Hell, you can. Me, I'll stay at Easy, thank you.

The Bad
Flaws? Yes, this acclaimed game has a lot of flaws.

About difficulty, I only played the game in Easy Mode. You're sure that was the easiest level? No way. The enemy make damage. A lot of it. Medikits are sometime hard to find. Nazis spot you before you can do the same. And even with the indication of the origin of the fire, often, you can't see where is the enemy. The accuracy of your weaponry is disappointing, even with the crosshair well placed, you can miss your shot. You're always wondering if you're gonna live or not with a low HP. I DO not want to imagine what the game is in the hardest mode.

The missions aren't so enjoyable. I mean, only some parts of them were really interesting like the disguising for example. I also loved the second part of Overlord. But you are always wondering what you had to do. Then, you don't know if this silenced weapon will be used or not. Well, you have to be careful but everytime, you're spotted. And adios discretion!

Now, it's time for my famous complaint about the tank ride. I know now where the team behind Call of Duty found their ideas for it. A good part of it were behind MoHAA. If your turret isn't in the same direction as the front of the tank, you'll be trying to position you in the right one, losing seconds and being at the enemy's mercy. Even the jeep ride was easier. Well you weren't driving and it was somewhere very slow but you didn't have to worry about the destination, you had just to concentrate on the Nazis. Well, thanks god, they did the chaingun automatic in CoD.

Graphics are... ugly. It's very rare that I say that about a 2002 game but having play with the same engine on others games, it's always angular, collision management is frequent and well, I can't say that it was beautiful. Half-Life, a 1998 game, is better in this domain. Even Tomb Raider in 1996 was more impressive that MoH in 2002. I can even say that BlueShift, the weakest link in the HL trilogy, is better than AA. Are you sure that the team had exploited the engine at its maximum? You're really sure that MoHAA is younger than Half-Life? Even Quake III Team Arena seemed more beautiful than MoH.

The Bottom Line
As much as I'm not really trying every existing FPS, I consider myself as a fan and a regular player. So, to the hardcore gamers, play CoD instead of it, if MoH is missing in your game collection, don't buy it. For occasional players, MoH can be a good experience of the WWII, even if CoD is better. If you're a MoH fan, if you don't have AA in your collection, you can try it.

I was disappointed by the game in a famous series. Perhaps that in 2002, it was a very good game but I'm not sure that now, it can bring pleasure. Yes, some parts can. But overall, the game hasn't very well aged. When I'll finish Breakthrough, MoH will be out of my hard drive memory, like CoD: United Offensive or Painkiller Overdose. CoD: UO? I wasn't in my shoes when playing it. Overdose? It was bugging, despite liking it, I couldn't afford to let the game eat my memory. MoH: AA? I didn't like it from A to Z with the exception of L... If you prefer, I didn't like the game except for some parts. But they can't save it from disappearing from my computer. Poor Mike Powell, I'm sure that he deserves a better destiny than this one.

The Good
I initially picked up this game based on my reaction to the famous "Nebelwerfers" demo. I'm not a fan of railroady cinematic games as a general rule, but the demo convinced me that there's merit in a well crafted experience. And make no mistake, Allied Assault, like its scion Call of Duty, is a cinematic run and gun with few pretensions to realism. Okay, it's not quite so silly as Return to Castle Wolfenstein, but it's still very much a game.

And quite a good one, too, if a bit short. Spanning six missions, each split into several "levels", the game will not occupy too much of your time. There are expansion packs, however, as well as the vaunted multiplayer, so if you want more after finishing the game, it's out there. Most missions are of the on-foot variety, but a tank level and a handful of undercover missions break up the gameplay pretty well.

The levels take place across various locales, from the now-famous Omaha Beach landing (Which is quite the spectacle) to snowbound forests, to bombed out towns, and of course, German bases. Most levels are quite well designed, if very linear. Still, while undoubtedly linear, the levels feel a tad more open than the ones in Call of Duty do, allowing you to make detours in a few places to take out snipers ahead of time, and suchlike. And then there are levels like the "frozen forest", which, thanks to good design, almost feel open. Gameplay is standard WW2 shooter fare, giving you both German and American weapons, cunningly rendered to look almost like the real thing. Sniper rifles, pistols, SMGs, grenades, all the expected period weapons. Nary a raygun or suchlike in sight, thank goodness. All weapons have their pros and cons, like recoil, reload time, accuracy, and seem to be quite well balanced. No uberweapons here.

Allied Assault is of course based on the Quake 3 engine, which looks good, but not great. There are benefits, though, like engine stability, solid multiplayer performance, and reasonable system requirements. It's been so long since I could run a game with everything turned up to max, plus 4X AA, and still get a smooth 60 FPS, that I'm probably just being biased.

Sounds and music are some of Allied Assaults' best points, the score by Michael Giacchino is fantastic. There are some pseudo big band tracks in the game that just shine, as you might expect from the guy that scored Pixar's "Ratatouille" and "The Incredibles". Yeah. That guy. Sound effects are equally superior, in fact they make certain levels of the game. German cries, realistic gunshots, snow crunching under your feet and dogs barking in the distance as you traverse a snow-blanketed forest at night... You get the picture.

The game's difficulty depends on what you're expecting, really. People whined incessantly about the "Sniper's Last Stand" mission, I didn't find it to be much harder than the rest of the game, heck, I even got the medal for that mission the first time through without even knowing it. So, overall, pretty easy. On the "Medium" difficulty level at least, which is the setting that I started and finished the game on. Maybe I'm spoiled by games like Operation Flashpoint and even the original DOOM, but compared to those, Allied Assault just isn't hard. Period.

Multiplayer is quite nice, including such favorites as team deathmatch and objective-based modes. Still can't compete with the king of WW2 multiplayer squad based combat, Day of Defeat, in my book though. Still, Allied Assault remains to this day one of the most populated online games, and there are plenty of servers. That should tell you something about the multiplayer.

The Bad
The game's major flaws are its previously noted linearity, and the lack of squad-based missions. Only a handful of levels provide you with a team, the rest of the time it's the classic "one-man army" approach, as you wipe out whole bases full of Nazis with your Thompson and your Honorable American Manliness. Then there are the missions where you run through German bases, which almost play out like old-timey corridor crawlers. Like I said, realism is not a strong point here. The loner missions are still quite fun, though, and stand up very well against mechanically similar shooters. More squad based action and non-linearity would have approached perfection, but would also have made this a completely different kind of game. There are better choices out there if you're looking for that kind of game.

The Bottom Line
Not perfect, but if you like WW2 shooters, love great atmosphere, don't mind more traditional types of gameplay, and need some solid multiplayer fun, certainly give this game a spin. The demos are still readily available, and will give you a good idea of what to expect. Even better, the game and all it's expansion packs can be had for peanuts nowadays.