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Medal of Honor: Frontline

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Medal of Honor: Frontline is the first installment of Electronic Arts' popular Medal of Honor series for the Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox, and Nintendo GameCube video game systems. In this game you play the role of Lt. Jimmy Patterson, a pilot of the 101st Airborne Division, who is working for the OSS, as he campaigns his way across Europe to Nazi Germany itself. The main story chronicles Lt. Patterson's attempt to capture a pre-production Horten Ho 229. The Ho IX as it was called was the first application of a flying wing design, combined with a jet engine. Chronologically, it takes place in between the various missions portrayed in the original Medal of Honor. So far it has enjoyed more praise then its two console sequels, and is often considered the game to set the standard for the console WWII First Person Shooter game.

Contents

Missions

1) D-DAY
The first level begins with the ominous crawl:

"And when he gets to Heaven,
To St. Peter he will tell,
One more soldier reporting sir,
I've served my time in hell."

From there, Jimmy Patterson, the hero of the game, is thrown into the midst of the Allied invasion of Normandy. It begins with Jimmy's Higgins Boat being blown from the water, and moves onto the bloodied beachfront of Omaha beach. He must rescue fellow soldiers and supplies, cross a minefield, and perform a little 'constructive rearrangement' of a German held mountainside. From there, the action moves into one of the concrete bunkers overlooking the beach. Jimmy must fight his way through the enemy army and mark the gun deck for Allied bombing before retreating. Outside, the captain tells him that his Division is moving on, but command is assigning him a special mission.

2) Storm In The Port
The "special mission" turns out to be an assault on the German shipyards at Lorient, France. He is airdropped into Saint-Mathieu, where he must sneak onto a U-Boat docked for supplies. First, he must join some fellow paratroopers as they fight among the ruins of the city (including a recreation of the climax of Saving Private Ryan). Once he has ridden the sub into Lorient, Jimmy must then infiltrate the yard and destroy all of the subs docked and under repair, as well as destroy the yard's fuel station. However, along the way, he has an encounter with a German Commander named Sturmgeist, who would prove to be more than a little important before this tale is done....

3) Needle In A Haystack
A distress call comes into the OSS: one of their undercover agents, a man named Gerritt, is urgently requesting extraction, claiming to have important information. Unfortunately, he was captured, and is being held at a German manorhouse. Colonel Hargrove, his superior, orders Jimmy to take advantage of the undergoing Operation Market Garden, and parachute into Holland to extract the informant. The mission begins in the grassy countryside, and Jimmy and his fellow soldier Corporal Barnes must fight their way among the infamous Dutch windmills that adorn the landscape. The scene then shifts to the adjacent town. Jimmy must sabotage the enemy's motorpool and sneak into the local pub, the Golden Lion, where a member of the Dutch resistance will smuggle him into the manorhouse. A furious gunbattle erupts as Jimmy struggles to get Gerritt out alive. Ultimately, he is successful, and Gerritt discloses to the OSS that Germany is working on a revolutionary new type of fighter plane called the HO-IX that could turn the tide of the war.

4) Several Bridges Too Far
Jimmy Patterson is (of course) the only agent Command has deemed skilled enough to put a stop to Sturmgeist's plot. The good news is, the OSS arranges for him to meet an informant who can get him close to Sturmgeist. The bad news is, the informant is in the middle of Arnhem, a city right on the frontlines of Market Garden (as chronicled in the film "A Bridge Too Far", which the level recreates). He must fight his way across the titular Nijmegen Bridge, fight through the relatively calm suburbs of Arnhem, and hook up with a brigade of British paratroopers stuck in the war-torn heart of the city. Through infantry, tanks, and the dreaded Panzerschreck squads, Jimmy makes his way to a local customshouse, and the end of the mission.

5) Rolling Thunder
The story picks up again in Emmerich, a German city near the border, close to Düsseldorf. Since the location of the Ho IX fighter facility is heavily classified, Jimmy has to sneak into the local train station and board Sturmgeist's personal train, and ride it out of the city to the production base. From there, the action shifts to an all out assault on Sturmgeist's private ranks, including his "escort" trains. However, Sturmgeist manages to escape by decoupling the train from the engine, which he then rides out on. The bulk of the train comes to a rest near the industrial town of Friedrichsroda. Jimmy must battle through the trainyards, as the enemy throws an all out blitzkrieg to stop him. He finds the Ho IX production facility located in a disused mine shaft adjacent to the town of Gotha.

6) The Horten's Nest
Jimmy manages to sneak into the production plant via the ventilation system, fighting through bleak concrete corridors and destroying whatever sensitive German construction materials he can get his hands on. He gets the opportunity to ride a mine cart out of the facility, in one of the most thrilling rail shooter sequences seen in an FPS, and onto the runway proper. Through forests, fields, trenches, and bunkers, Jimmy finally gets to his goal: the brand new Ho IX fighter. After a final shootout with Sturmgeist and his bodyguards, Jimmy hops into the Ho IX and rides it out of the facility as Allied bombing reduces the complex to rubble. He then goes on a long deserved vacation, but Colonel Hargrove tells that he'll be calling on him again shortly.

Reaction

Frontline was viewed very well by most of the gaming community, and the critics favored it as well. There was much praise for the atmosphere, and the overall mood of the levels. The only major complaint that was held against Frontline was the enemy AI. Sometimes, the enemy won't see you, even if you're standing right in front of him. The enemies also tends to run into walls.

Allied weapons

German weapons

External links


Medal of Honor series
PC/Mac: ' | ' | ' | ' |
Console: Medal of Honor | ' | ' | ' | ' |
Portable: ' | '

 

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