You are a covert ops operative, recruited from the paratrooper corps on account of being particularly heroic and being the sole GI who pulled his own weight during a rather ill-fated attack working for the OSS, trying to win the war with surgical strikes. Get in, do your thing, get out safely(there is no all out battle in this). This evidently means using weapons(SMGs, rifles, pistols, a sniper, grenades and a bazooka... that they can also use, and it doesn't always hurt them) from the WWII era, and they appear to be based on real ones, in a pretty standard FPS for the period. The controls are good, and you remember them quickly. You take out foes, find your way through the 24(you save between them) linear, short, and not terribly natural if nice, levels(making up 7 separate missions, and the concepts are more interesting than the executions that leave a bit to be desired... they do keep this from growing stale; however, when you read that you will be scuttling a submarine then escaping it in time, you expect pure awesomeness, and it's just as straightforward as all the rest... it is cool that one has you pretending to be an officer, with you showing papers and using a silencer... still, you can get away with slaughtering everyone), locate stuff(the objectives vary slightly, and are unfortunately never timed) throughout them and... that's kind of it. This doesn't have the impact that the idea of it implies(like the Commandos series does, also getting off the ground around this time). AI has its moments... they take cover and use it, and I've seen them sacrifice themselves on grenades(those tend to be pointless in your hands)... as well as die from the ones their buddies have thrown, or even themselves. And they can't hear you from a little distance. You go up against soldiers, Gestapo and dogs. This does tend to be entertaining, and it manages to not get repetitive, in spite of how obviously it almost should. The loadouts change, so you're not stuck with the same ones for long enough that they can get dull. It is a shooting gallery for much of it, with you just mowing them down, leading to them giving Western-like reactions, such as flying off the ledge they were on, screaming. There's no blood(sometimes you can't tell when they're deceased) or violence, if a little disturbing content in this. The approach is largely realistic, with you and those you fight not being able to take many bullets and keep standing, and yet the tone gets silly at times(don't think that the opening logo is the last you'll see like that), taking you out of the experience(you can give them a projectile to the head, and the helmet will fly off comically, and they'll keep coming!). This has an epic score. It can be challenging and intense, if it is usually pretty easy. The fact that aiming takes longer for you than for them(they can crawl like you... and roll, another thing you can't that they can) makes it harder – there's only one difficulty setting – and you really wish this had a mouse. You use the left analog stick to aim, while holding down R2. There's no center view function, and you don't want to be facing opposition from more than one angle. This doesn't have all functions you'd expect from when it's from, and it isn't revolutionizing, the way Half-Life was(you can use gun emplacements in this, only one kind and not vehicles). The squad-based combat of the others definitely doesn't live up to that, and it came out one year before this. Graphics are OK, if kind of... "blocky". Heads look like they're made from triangular shapes. Again, this is lesser than, for example, Quake III. I don't know, maybe the PSX couldn't handle it, I haven't tried a lot on this console for the genre. Let's be honest, it doesn't lend itself to it. Racing, adventure, action, those fit... and RTS is passable. There is some environment interaction, if it's quite limited. The audio design is good, things sound the way they should, if you can't hear where something is coming from. As far as determining where the enemy is, you do have a hit indicator on the HUD, and it comes in very handy. If you do well enough, you can earn medals, bonus stuff. Other than going back and trying to improve your rating, this does not really have any replayability(it does have level selector, and you can rewatch the cinematics that are all edited from actual footage from the period), and it won't take you in excess of 20 hours to complete. Heck, I coulda done it in one or two sittings, if it weren't that I had to rest my fingers, joints and wrists. Then there's the two(yup, that is how many joysticks(they vibrate when you get wounded or pull the trigger yourself) it takes, after all) player splitscreen MP. It's all Free For All... 16 characters, 2, 5, 10 or 21 minute or unlimited time match, first to 3, 10 or 21 wins, five setups for arsenals and 6 arenas. Near the end, this tries to ramp up how tough it is, and it does so awkwardly, having them teleport in from all angles, putting breakable boxes in your path, etc. And because it spends all the memory of the machine, you end up often not being able to pick up additional ammo! That's the kind of stuff you test for before release, EA. You also, throughout this, constantly get stuck in too small areas. A nice feature is that the alarm can be turned on and off by anyone, and you can let it ring(having started it yourself if you want) to attract them and lay waste to them. All NPCs are targets for you. I recommend this to big fans of this kind of game and enthusiasts of what this is supposed to emulate. 7/10
Review of Medal of Honor
