It was only when I was halfway through writing this latest piece that I realised thanks to the wonders of my dark subconscious for Armistice Day I had picked a game that trivialises war and turns it into entertainment. So with these concerns about taste weighing heavily on my mind I will be looking at Medal of Honor Frontline. Frontline is one of many games in the series focusing on playing at Second World War re-enactments. It utilises a setting based on reclaiming territory following the Normandy Landings and carrying out covert missions in German occupied zones deliberately evoking memories of Saving Private Ryan. The only question is whether it can live up to the high standards set by this epic.
Initially, the game successfully projects an image of war being fun and exhilarating. Playing the Normandy Landing is a hell of a rush and is exactly what it should feel like being so heavily based on Saving Private Ryan. The gunplay is tight and responsive, the weaponry looks the part and the environmental effects are amazing. Charging off the landing boats, dashing up the beach and avoiding heavy artillery fire is brilliant. Should a war really feel so thrilling? A game definitely should and if it is a fictionalised account should it really matter? Ignoring such questions as they are far too important for me to deal with, the game continues but doesn’t really manage to match these early highs. Maybe this should be expected as the Normandy landings has become one of the iconic events in the Second World War so starting there will always lead to a sense of anticlimax. Of course as this is the order that history happened in there isn’t too much the developers could do to avoid this.
The game is built on trying to replicate the historic feel of the era but when the façade comes crashing down you are left with an empty experience. Once you leave the brilliantly realised beaches it’s very easy to get lost amongst the muddy textures of Normandy and the surrounding French countryside. Due to hardware limitations northern France looks very samey and repetitive which is a slightly underwhelming following a show-stopping beginning. More than once I entered a tunnel network trying to progress only to get turned around in the chaos and end up back at the entrance. Returning along these scripted routes is an eerie experience and you get a sense that you really are wiping out all life-forms on your march to the German high command. There appears to be literally no one else within miles of your location. It is almost like a war themed Truman Show where all the action only takes place for the benefit of the player character. This is also due to hardware limitations but it leaves you with an unsettling feeling of being watched or manipulated.
I’m not sure if it is entirely fair that I blame Medal of Honor for shattering my illusions when actually this is mainly down to my rubbish sense of direction and not being that good at the game. Would intrusive prompts telling me where to go really be a better option than allowing me to stumble blindly in circles around war ruined France? Both of these sound really irritating and it would be just as likely to ruin the mood if a prompt popped up telling me where to head next. I guess my only mild objection would be that progression points tend to be through narrow rubble strewn corridors presumably to close up the map and hide the boundaries of the game. Unfortunately as it is set largely in rubble strewn cities these corridors don’t tend to stand out as much as they probably should. Once again hardware limitations seem to be my main complaint and the developers can’t really help this. It feels unfair to be criticising a game for flaws and features that are intrinsic to all games but they just feel more grating in this context. Other developers found better ways of dealing with these issues and parts of the game seem so brilliant it is disappointing that it is hindered in such an avoidable fashion.
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