Amazon.co.uk Review
Until now DreamWorks' acclaimed WW2 first-person shooter series
Medal of Honor has been confined to the PSone, but with
MOH Allied Assault the bestselling franchise makes it onto the PC. The first thing you'll notice is that the format is relatively unchanged. The OSS bunker is there in all its glory, as are the Pathe News-eque briefings and the fantastically atmospheric music and ambient sound.
But although the format is cosy and familiar for Medal heads, the move to PC has brought with it some great new features. Firstly although it's not squad-based, in several of the missions you will gain comrades in arms; you can't control them, but the speed of your actions will decide whether they live or die. Secondly the medal system has changed. Whereas the original was pretty formulaic, clear the level with over 75 per cent health and killing all enemies, in Allied Assault there are "secret missions" which you don't have to complete to clear the level but if you perform above and beyond the call of duty, such as rescuing a POW or risking life and limb to acquire a manifest, you are rewarded accordingly.
Graphically it's a bit disappointing. Some of the hedgerows in the boccage level are rather pixelated, but what it lacks in looks it makes up for in atmosphere. The fantastic (Indiana Jones alike) music is back and the sound is literally stunning as bullets, explosions and shrapnel rain about you. But what really raises MOH Allied Assault above Wolfenstein, is the Omaha Beach level. This is possibly the most intense war-gaming experience ever on a PC. Around you people are crying, praying, dieing and you having to run up a beach to the shingle dodging a hail of machine gun bullets. It's insanely difficult to make it, even on easy level, but you will be gripped by the sheer full-on intensity of the experience, so much so that the next time you see Saving Private Ryan you'll nod sadly remembering how you were there. --Kristen Bowditch
Manufacturer's Description
In Medal of Honor Allied Assault from Electronic Arts, players will assume the role of Lt. Mike Powell, member of the famed 1st Ranger Battalion who gets recruited by the OSS and battles through over 20 levels that are based on historical military campaigns of World War II.
Set during the most trying years of the war, 1942-1945, Medal of Honor Allied Assault gives players a sense of the courage it took to survive the landings at Normandy, the assault at Arzew, a rendezvous with the Resistance outside the village of St. Lo, and the push through the heavily defended border of Germany itself to take the bridge at Remagen.
Staying true to all the gameplay features that made Medal of Honor one of the most acclaimed and best-selling games launched in 1999, Medal of Honor Allied Assault will build on the success of that game and add new player weapons, new interactive Allied vehicles such as Sherman tanks and M3 Half Tracks, smarter enemy AI, and the ability to call for artillery strikes.
Medal of Honor Allied Assault is headquartered in Cabinet War Rooms at Whitehall, dispatching players on numerous campaigns, each with specific objectives to meet in terms of infiltration, execution and exfiltration. Missions will be based in the deserts of North Africa, on the bloody shores of France, across the tundra of Norway, and, ultimately, over the Rhine into Nazi Germany. These missions range from silencing the gun batteries at Port Arzew, to sabotaging U-boats at the sub pens of Trondheim, surviving the landing at Omaha Beach, and finally, holding the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen- the only battle where the Germans used their dreaded V2 rockets in a tactical capacity.
