[.ca] Medal of Honor Frontline

Amazon.ca:
Medal of Honor: Frontline returns to its console roots with the first outing on the PS2 for Lt. Jimmy Patterson. This time the setting is June 6, 1944--D-day and beyond--and the game begins with you storming the beachhead at Normandy. Frontline definitely lives up to its name, and from the outset the action is intense. As you rush up the shingle while comrades fall beside you and artillery rings in your ears, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were on the set of Saving Private Ryan. Players of the PC incarnation will recognize this mission from Allied Assault, but here is where the similarities end. Frontline is a new game with new objectives and levels designed perfectly for the console. If you survive D-day, you enter the real meat of the game--Operation Market Garden (Arnhem). From scuttling a U-boat to clearing checkpoints in the town itself, the missions are brilliantly designed. The true playability of the Medal of Honor series is how immersive it is: the narrative, graphics, and sound all combine to create one of the most gripping first-person shooters in any format. The backgrounds are beautifully detailed, but the sound really sets the game apart. The control system is also intuitive, with the option to customize your controller or choose one of the two default options: MOH sharpshooter (two-analog-stick control) or the original controls used in the PS One's Medal of Honor. Only two criticisms can be leveled at the game. First, the artificial intelligence errs on the stupid side, with enemies standing around watching comrades get shot, and although this changes with the difficulty level, it never responds in a particularly human way. Second, you can only save at the end of a mission (always a feature of console conversions), so it's quite frustrating to be unceremoniously dumped right back at the beginning after battling your way through a level. But hey, this is war, after all, and these are small niggles against a genuinely phenomenal game. Sign up now: the Allies need you. --Kristen Bowditch

Amazon.ca Preview:
The Medal of Honor games for the PlayStation are widely considered two of the best games for that system because of their great graphics and intense gameplay. EA is now moving the series to the PlayStation2 with Medal of Honor: Frontline, an all-new action game that stars everyone's favorite soldier, Lieutenant Jimmy Patterson. Set between the third and fourth missions from the first game, Frontline promises to deliver all of the powerful action that made the first two games instant classics. In Frontline, the player-controlled Patterson must use the confusion created by the Operation Market Garden offensive to infiltrate the German frontline and steal the Ho IX flying wing, an experimental Nazi weapon. Needless to say, if the Germans are able to unleash this weapon, it won't be pretty for the Allies. The game unfolds across five missions and 15 levels that will see you destroying a German naval base, rescuing a captured OSS operative, and disarming the undercarriage of Nijmegen Bridge, which was the centerpiece of the film A Bridge Too Far. Along the way you'll be assisted by AI-controlled squad mates and will take care of business with more than 20 weapons, including the Liberator, Panzerschreck, MG42, and B.A.R., and special weapons like a disguise kit, which you'll use to sneak into a Dutch manor house to save the captured OSS operative. Because the game will be published for the powerful PlayStation2, expect some great visual effects. Each of the characters will consist of 2,400 polygons and will feature articulate and wide-ranging motions and perfect lip-synching. And because the game is fully 3-D, it will make full use of the PlayStation2's advanced lighting and architectural capabilities.