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MOHAA: Breakthrough Review October 29, 2003 Jakub Wojnarowicz |
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Summary: Medal of Honor was one of the best singleplayer first-person shooters ever. It started the trend of creating heavily-scripted "experiences" as opposed to games. Not that we're complaining, but it's getting a little long in the tooth.
 Overview | Page:: ( 1 / 5 ) |
Breakage
Medal of Honor already had an expansion in the rather above-average Spearhead. Following the Allied campaign into Ardennes, Spearhead provided a decidedly short look at the Battle of the Bulge. In the tradition of Medal of Honor, there was plenty of scripting and action, and little mindless running around.
So what else to expect from Breakthrough? Besides taking the player into Italy on Operation Husky, there’s very little that’s different. The graphics are a touch better, with generous use of special effects, but the engine is getting old. Quake III Arena was state of the art for its time and the upgrades by EA and 2015 were quite serious, but like an aging beauty queen, it’s easy to start telling where the plastic surgery and makeup have gone too far. It’s impossible to mask the graphical shortcomings, while the price for the improved graphics has gotten quite high – performance hit is disproportionately large for the level of improvement.
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There are several new weapons thrown into the mix but few are worth noting, except the 40-round Moschetto submachine gun. The rest of the guns are simply too similar to what the player had in previous games.
Gameplay problems
A noteworthy and irritating gameplay departure is that you can no longer pick up ammo off dead enemies. You could hear them firing guns. You could see them firing guns. You could get hit by the bullets those guns fired, but damn you if you can find the gun on the enemy once he’s dead. Sure, this makes for more of a challenge by forcing the player to conserve ammo, but it’s a ridiculous game design decision.
Medal of Honor managed to find a nice spot between realism and arcade action for itself, but compared to more recent titles, it feels clumsy. In particular, when compared with games like Enemy Territory, it seems to have made the wrong choices. Medal of Honor chose to be realistic when limiting the player’s speed and jumping ability, while giving him considerable resistance to damage. Enemy Territory allows players to move quick but take little damage.
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Weapons certainly feel more realistic in Medal of Honor, as foes drop like flies after a few rounds, but that only exacerbates the problem of the player being a giant walking target. Stumbling clumsily around an open area, being knocked around by a dozen rifle rounds before finding your shooter hardly feels like an exceptional game. Medal of Honor has clearly been left behind. A simple solution would have been to decrease enemy accuracy, increase damage and increase player speed.
SIDEBAR: This is going to be one hell of a short review.
| Gameplay | Page:: ( 2 / 5 ) |
Good stuff
Movement and imbalanced realism problems aside, Breakthrough still manages a good singleplayer game. With heavy, non-stop scripting that never lets you realize you’re on rails, it definitely feels like an experience. The only thing comparable to the opening movement (yes, like a symphony) at Kasserine is the Omaha Beach battle from the original Allied Assault.
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Indeed, whereas Spearhead started somewhat slow, got very good in the middle and ended on a rather mediocre note, Breakthrough follows the MOHAA tradition of a strong and following up with a mixed bag. Some missions are really great, others feel ridiculously contrived – like dropping mortars (of all things) on multiple waves of tanks. I understand that MOHAA is, deep down inside, still an arcade shooter, but I thought we’d given up on Galaga-style games a long time ago. There are several very frustrating scripted sequences, but nothing that a gamer shouldn’t be able to pass with a few tries.
Fortunately AI’s aim seems to have been toned down a notch as well. Riflemen and snipers aren’t always going to hit you, but they still manage a good 80-90% of shots. The player will also get to work with AI teammates more often, and these aren’t necessarily the “follow me” sequences.
Vehicles have been introduced, but if you’re expecting Battlefield 1942, boy, are you ever in for a disappointment. The tanks are quite clumsy, despite offering the advantage of a 3rd person point of view. Driving one is probably much more akin to the difficulties faced by real tank drivers, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.
Ultimately
The one conclusion that’s impossible to escape is that Medal of Honor is old. The AI is just plain stupid. Enemies will stand right in front of you, firing their bolt-action rifles once every 5 seconds, as you reload your 30-round Sturmgewehr in preparation for a massacre. The multiplayer is clearly past its best-before date. Battlefield 1942 hasn’t aged one bit, while it’s plain to see that MOHAA’s attraction is clearly fading.
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Moreover, the once-great animation looks as clumsy as the movement feels in the game. Enemies and friends alike will do startling, abrupt motions in the middle of combat, almost as if frames of animation are missing. One moment a Wehrmacht officer is running towards you, the next he’s standing stiff as a board, and a fraction of a second after that his pistol is leveled at your head. It’s all very sterile and not dynamic at all.
Sound effects are absolutely fantastic. Guns and explosions have a sharpness, clarity and shameless loudness to them that puts the timid sounds from Max Payne 2 to shame. Speech is recorded fantastically, but I’d swear that the Brit accents are fake.
SIDEBAR: I told you, short review.
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 3 / 5 ) |
Pros
Sound
You know there are problems if we start with sound as the first pro, but in this case, it’s really deserved.
More MOHAA
If you liked MOHAA and want more, this is definitely it. However, after a few years and a previous expansion pack, it’s less an experience than it is clearly just another game.
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Cons
Graphics
They don’t look quite that bad quite yet, but there’s no reason why a Quake III engine game should make a GF4 4200 OTES stutter at just 800x600. The trade-off definitely isn’t worth it.
Gameplay
Elements of MOHAA are clearly in need of re-working. We’re not so thrilled with the lumbering flesh tank movement/damage absorption as we once were. Faster movement and taking less damage are better ideas.
Multiplayer
Time hasn’t been a pleasant mistress to Medal of Honor in this regard. Battlefield 1942 is as unique and revolutionary as ever. MOHAA has… well, legions of fans who bought it for the singleplayer and got online, much like Half-Life fans. The new Liberation mode is fun, but few servers run it.
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SIDEBAR: I wonder of Dan is going to kill me over this review.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 4 / 5 ) |