Come on everybody! Sing! “Mr. Bluebird’s on my shoulder…” I can’t hear you!!!

While Knight Rider was on hold due to my PC being used for making money (blog spamming), I decided to crack open Medal of Honor: Frontline and see what the fuss was about.

First of all, this game totally ripped off that first scene from Saving Private Ryan where everybody was getting off the boats and trying to make it up the beach. They even had those giant metal jacks and the bunkers with machine guns in them. Couldn’t they think of a more original insertion point?

It’s hard to give this game a fair review since it came out two years ago, but then again many older games like Halo and Deus Ex still stand up with today’s FPS so I don’t think I should cut Frontline any slack.

Some quick impressions: The graphics are really ugly. The sound is great especially in surround. The AI is pathetic and consists of partially hiding behind things or simply standing in the middle of a field and shooting. I’ll never understand why the Germans can’t keep their elbows in when they’re hiding behind a wall. Don’t they know that’s their weak spot? Two shots to the elbow and they’re dead!

An interesting feature of MOH:Frontline is the ability to shoot your fellow soldiers’ helmets off. This was pretty entertaining during D-Day when my commander was barking orders at me. Pow! There goes your helmet, baldy! It didn’t even faze him…

Another fun time was when two American soldiers decided to stand in a doorway and not move; effectively blocking me into a building. I had to resort to beating them with the butt of my rifle until they were out of the way.

My favorite part though was the cook on the U-Boat who threw knives at me. Although, he just stood there looking at me until I shot him in the belly. I guess his eyes weren’t so good. Maybe that’s why he threw such big knives; law of averages and such.

Per Chris’s request, I plan on researching this whole war simulation idea and finding out what people who were actually there think of it. I can’t say there’s much humanity so far in MOH:Frontline. It’s mostly just you being a badass by yourself. Come to think of it, I can’t think of any war game that has enough character development to make you really mourn the loss of your comrades. Then again, I’ve never played Extreme Paintbrawl III so there’s still hope.