Have fond memories of playing this ages ago, but seemed to have enjoyed it back then a lot more too. It's cool how they connect the two games though and the premise itself isn't something seen too often.
By no means a bad game, but I prefer the original over this one. I think it's mainly due to the frustrating difficulty spike on the second half of the game.
By no means a bad game, but I prefer the original over this one. I think it's mainly due to the frustrating difficulty spike on the second half of the game.
I never made it through to the end without using cheats as a kid. Having played through it for Twitch recently, I understand why. This game is brutally hard at times. Enemies can drain your health with one burst of their smg, and you can't effectively dodge because of clunky PS1 collision detection. It's unfortunate, as this game's high points are very high. The catacomb level, Morocco, and the entire Crete section are incredibly atmospheric. Being able to play as a woman French resistance fighter is a nice touch, too, adding a bit of variety to the World War II first-person shooter genre. On top of that, this game has some of the best graphics the PS1 ever had. This could have been a better game than the first one, but its relentless, unfair difficulty and poor collision detection hold it back. This game is worth at least a look, but as far as first-person shooters from 2000 go, you'd be better off playing Perfect Dark, preferably the remake of it they did for the Xbox consoles, though the Nintendo 64 version works just fine, too.
This is the second entry in my quest to play all of the mainline Medal of Honor games.
So, to get a few things out of the way first:
This game would be a 4/5 if it ended after the fifth chapter.
Normal, sane people would use an emulator to avoid the severe performance issues plaguing this game. However, I am not a normal or sane person, so I played this all the way through on original hardware because I hate myself.
That being said, this game had a lot of potential but was dragged down by several nagging issues. I'm not one of those people who plays through the first few levels of a game to wax nostalgic about playing the easy levels as a kid, then gives a game five stars. If you read my Medal of Honor 1999 review, you'd know I'm tough, but fair in my analysis. That game was a fairly flawed, but very good game with some issues dragging it down towards the end. It had a lot of heart and soul poured into it that made it a fun experience, despite being a first person shooter on the PlayStation 1. Its sequel, Medal of Honor: Underground, on paper, should be the better game. It has better graphics, better lighting, a better soundtrack, a more interesting story that has you playing as Manon, a female French resistance soldier who sabotages the Nazi war machine on behalf of the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. The problem is, it's not.
To start, the first five chapters have some fairly low points but as a whole, I would say are better than the first game by a long shot. Especially the missions in Africa. They almost feel like a prototypical version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, a game that released about a year after this one, with their more supernatural and medieval elements.
The guns you are given are inferior to those in the first game. You get no good medium-range rifles like the M1 garand when playing as Manon. You are mostly stuck with submachine guns, pistols, a shotgun, and a sniper rifle. The sniper rifle would be great, were it not for the abysmal draw distance. A rifle without a scope, such as the M1 garand, would be a much better offering. The BAR was an absolute godsend in the final missions of the first game, but you are not given a weapon like that in this game for the more difficult Manon missions. I understand why you aren't given American weapons for reasons of historical authenticity, but still, some of the weapons Jimmy Patterson had in the first game would've been nice. Especially because you are given these missions by the OSS.
The story, just like the one in the first game, is your standard World War II shooter fare. You kill Nazis. Sometimes you do it in castles, sometimes you do it in a labyrinth, and sometimes you do it in the streets of Paris. This one has more interesting set dressing, like supernatural elements, but other than that it's your standard game about the French resistance.
The graphics are great, but the bad lighting returns from the first game. This predates the time when most games had a brightness slider, so if you want to see, then you'll have to turn up the brightness on your TV. The graphics are more varied, but the levels are more complex, so it evens out the complexity of the levels.
The levels themselves start off really fun and engaging, and the game feels a little smoother to play. That is, until the last few levels. The game always has an issue with performance, but there are so many enemies in the final two chapters with Manon that the frame rate drops into the single digits and you could fry bacon on your Playstation. You'd think they'd tone down the difficulty and number of enemies because performance drops like that are a really bad look for developers, but they didn't.
The enemies have more advanced and more obnoxious AI as well. They take cover, they duck, etc. The ducking is annoying because, even with bullet magnetism turned on, you have to aim like a foot lower than the actual soldier because the crosshair is askew. This is a problem in many situations, and with multiple weapons. The enemies also have this annoying habit of zipping around like meth heads (which, to be fair, is historically accurate) and being impossible to shoot. This is especially bad with the tankier submachine gunners, who will zip right up to you and mag dump right into you without you even noticing what happened. The game is plagued with these submachine gunners in the later chapters. It's even worse knowing that this is from an era where developers didn't respect your time and sanity, so you have to restart the entire mission when you die. These enemies also slow the game down much more than regular enemies, so you end up having to memorize their positions and anticipating them. You can't pick them off from a distance either, because they take cover behind impenetrable walls and don't aggro until you're right in their faces. They also love to corner camp so much that they'd make your average MW2 2009 player call BS. The Panzerschreck enemies also make a return, but they're not as numerous as they were in the first game. They'll still completely ruin your day if you're not careful.
Over the course of this entire game, I had a lot of fun and would highly recommend playing this for the first five chapters. The sixth and seventh chapter have genuinely unfair design that tanks the performance. I'm no stranger to hard games, but the last two chapters make me say that this is a bad game as a whole. It makes me wonder if everyone except a scant few played a different game altogether, because no one on the internet, not even Gmanlives, talks about the horrendous final levels.
There's also Panzerknacker Unleashed, the joke epilogue where you play as previous protagonist Jimmy Patterson. These missions are also horrendously difficult, with the developers continuing to indulge in their SMG fetish. The first level has you don your ATF hat and shoot a bunch of dogs, some of which wield our favorite firearm. You're just given a shotgun and pistol for this one. The second level has you fighting exploding zombies with SMGs and knights. These zombies, like the soldiers in the base game, have insane reflex time and aim. The mission is straight up unfair, like the last one. Luckily you get a BAR, which will carry you through the whole thing. The third has you killing nutcrackers. Enough said.
So, to get a few things out of the way first:
This game would be a 4/5 if it ended after the fifth chapter.
Normal, sane people would use an emulator to avoid the severe performance issues plaguing this game. However, I am not a normal or sane person, so I played this all the way through on original hardware because I hate myself.
That being said, this game had a lot of potential but was dragged down by several nagging issues. I'm not one of those people who plays through the first few levels of a game to wax nostalgic about playing the easy levels as a kid, then gives a game five stars. If you read my Medal of Honor 1999 review, you'd know I'm tough, but fair in my analysis. That game was a fairly flawed, but very good game with some issues dragging it down towards the end. It had a lot of heart and soul poured into it that made it a fun experience, despite being a first person shooter on the PlayStation 1. Its sequel, Medal of Honor: Underground, on paper, should be the better game. It has better graphics, better lighting, a better soundtrack, a more interesting story that has you playing as Manon, a female French resistance soldier who sabotages the Nazi war machine on behalf of the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. The problem is, it's not.
To start, the first five chapters have some fairly low points but as a whole, I would say are better than the first game by a long shot. Especially the missions in Africa. They almost feel like a prototypical version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, a game that released about a year after this one, with their more supernatural and medieval elements.
The guns you are given are inferior to those in the first game. You get no good medium-range rifles like the M1 garand when playing as Manon. You are mostly stuck with submachine guns, pistols, a shotgun, and a sniper rifle. The sniper rifle would be great, were it not for the abysmal draw distance. A rifle without a scope, such as the M1 garand, would be a much better offering. The BAR was an absolute godsend in the final missions of the first game, but you are not given a weapon like that in this game for the more difficult Manon missions. I understand why you aren't given American weapons for reasons of historical authenticity, but still, some of the weapons Jimmy Patterson had in the first game would've been nice. Especially because you are given these missions by the OSS.
The story, just like the one in the first game, is your standard World War II shooter fare. You kill Nazis. Sometimes you do it in castles, sometimes you do it in a labyrinth, and sometimes you do it in the streets of Paris. This one has more interesting set dressing, like supernatural elements, but other than that it's your standard game about the French resistance.
The graphics are great, but the bad lighting returns from the first game. This predates the time when most games had a brightness slider, so if you want to see, then you'll have to turn up the brightness on your TV. The graphics are more varied, but the levels are more complex, so it evens out the complexity of the levels.
The levels themselves start off really fun and engaging, and the game feels a little smoother to play. That is, until the last few levels. The game always has an issue with performance, but there are so many enemies in the final two chapters with Manon that the frame rate drops into the single digits and you could fry bacon on your Playstation. You'd think they'd tone down the difficulty and number of enemies because performance drops like that are a really bad look for developers, but they didn't.
The enemies have more advanced and more obnoxious AI as well. They take cover, they duck, etc. The ducking is annoying because, even with bullet magnetism turned on, you have to aim like a foot lower than the actual soldier because the crosshair is askew. This is a problem in many situations, and with multiple weapons. The enemies also have this annoying habit of zipping around like meth heads (which, to be fair, is historically accurate) and being impossible to shoot. This is especially bad with the tankier submachine gunners, who will zip right up to you and mag dump right into you without you even noticing what happened. The game is plagued with these submachine gunners in the later chapters. It's even worse knowing that this is from an era where developers didn't respect your time and sanity, so you have to restart the entire mission when you die. These enemies also slow the game down much more than regular enemies, so you end up having to memorize their positions and anticipating them. You can't pick them off from a distance either, because they take cover behind impenetrable walls and don't aggro until you're right in their faces. They also love to corner camp so much that they'd make your average MW2 2009 player call BS. The Panzerschreck enemies also make a return, but they're not as numerous as they were in the first game. They'll still completely ruin your day if you're not careful.
Over the course of this entire game, I had a lot of fun and would highly recommend playing this for the first five chapters. The sixth and seventh chapter have genuinely unfair design that tanks the performance. I'm no stranger to hard games, but the last two chapters make me say that this is a bad game as a whole. It makes me wonder if everyone except a scant few played a different game altogether, because no one on the internet, not even Gmanlives, talks about the horrendous final levels.
There's also Panzerknacker Unleashed, the joke epilogue where you play as previous protagonist Jimmy Patterson. These missions are also horrendously difficult, with the developers continuing to indulge in their SMG fetish. The first level has you don your ATF hat and shoot a bunch of dogs, some of which wield our favorite firearm. You're just given a shotgun and pistol for this one. The second level has you fighting exploding zombies with SMGs and knights. These zombies, like the soldiers in the base game, have insane reflex time and aim. The mission is straight up unfair, like the last one. Luckily you get a BAR, which will carry you through the whole thing. The third has you killing nutcrackers. Enough said.
Medal of Honor Underground was the first MOH game I ever played. I attempted to replay it in 2019 with the intention of completing it for the first time, but for no particular reason, I stopped playing and never returned to it. Additionally, the game's controls are not particularly user-friendly, so starting over would be necessary to reacquaint myself with them. Therefore, I don't think I'll be revisiting this title, even though I did enjoy playing it and it is a good shooter from the PlayStation 1 era. It was my go-to choice for a multiplayer shooter back in the day.
Manon is my wife, yes sir!!
At last, our tale of the Spielberg Medal of Honor series comes to a conclusion.
Back in 99, the thought of playing as a girl would probably make some men feel a little weird, but now that we have our samus aran's, our Joanna Dark's or our Laura Crofts, I'm very happy to say that our friend Manon here has had quite the adventure.
I won't delve into the gameplay all to much as it plays exactly like the first game, with the inclusion of the autoaim setting that you can turn on, which helps tons when running and gunning. But of course, you can't have a sequel without the hard as fuck final that this game offers as well, infinitely spawning enemies and all. Even the funny joke level was a pretty funny thing to go through, but holy hell why was it so grueling to go through. I don't think I've played a hard joke level in my life.
Not much to say about this game as it was just more of the same game. But sometimes that alright, as it tried some new things like the companionship stuff and even the replacement for the ID where everyone thought was useless, the camera. Taking shots and seeing all of the different poses each character made was pretty amusing.
I'm very glad that I got to see what the Ps1 era of MoH games were like, and I hope my enjoyment doesn't change as I move onto the next generation of consoles.
Back in 99, the thought of playing as a girl would probably make some men feel a little weird, but now that we have our samus aran's, our Joanna Dark's or our Laura Crofts, I'm very happy to say that our friend Manon here has had quite the adventure.
I won't delve into the gameplay all to much as it plays exactly like the first game, with the inclusion of the autoaim setting that you can turn on, which helps tons when running and gunning. But of course, you can't have a sequel without the hard as fuck final that this game offers as well, infinitely spawning enemies and all. Even the funny joke level was a pretty funny thing to go through, but holy hell why was it so grueling to go through. I don't think I've played a hard joke level in my life.
Not much to say about this game as it was just more of the same game. But sometimes that alright, as it tried some new things like the companionship stuff and even the replacement for the ID where everyone thought was useless, the camera. Taking shots and seeing all of the different poses each character made was pretty amusing.
I'm very glad that I got to see what the Ps1 era of MoH games were like, and I hope my enjoyment doesn't change as I move onto the next generation of consoles.
Bello, ma non quanto l'originale, molte cosine non mi hanno fatto impazzire e lo peggiorano dal lato ludico e di idee.
Loved this game. The castle mission really creeped me out as a kid.
Pretty much my favorite FPS of all time, i'm sure nostalgia partially has to do with it
It has an incredible atmosphere and music, well interwoven with what's happening in the gameplay
You go all around the world doing objectives on well done maps set in areas like Parisian streets, African desert cities, Greek island labyrinths, misty German castles, and i don't even wanna spoil the drug trip that is the bonus campaign
And the protagonist is a woman too... doing all of that on her own... quite a role model and nobody is talking about it.
It has an incredible atmosphere and music, well interwoven with what's happening in the gameplay
You go all around the world doing objectives on well done maps set in areas like Parisian streets, African desert cities, Greek island labyrinths, misty German castles, and i don't even wanna spoil the drug trip that is the bonus campaign
And the protagonist is a woman too... doing all of that on her own... quite a role model and nobody is talking about it.
note this review is purely for the gba version which exists for some reason
Yknow this is genuinely the most comically bad thing ive ever played and probably ever will play. It's ugly! It controls like ass! It barely functions as a game! The ui makes absolutely no fucking sense! Just one horrible design choice after another, like who the fuck thought porting medal of honor of all things to the gba would be a good idea. 1/2 star on the actual enjoyment scale but a 5/5 on the having fun watching an absolute trainwreck scale.
Yknow this is genuinely the most comically bad thing ive ever played and probably ever will play. It's ugly! It controls like ass! It barely functions as a game! The ui makes absolutely no fucking sense! Just one horrible design choice after another, like who the fuck thought porting medal of honor of all things to the gba would be a good idea. 1/2 star on the actual enjoyment scale but a 5/5 on the having fun watching an absolute trainwreck scale.
One of the best fps based on WWII ever made, for me, the first and the best.
Magnificent soundtrack!!
Magnificent soundtrack!!
For me the best MOH that PS1 had. Amazing versus system too. Fair difficulty. Amazing game.
I loved to shoot the informant for some reason
Seguindo toda a proposta do primeiro, porém tudo melhorado, e veículos pra combater.
A huge step up from Medal of Honor 1 in all ways but game play.
I was honestly dreading having to play this as MoH 1 was pretty bland and boring, and towards the second half I really just wanted to get it over with. I've heard this game is simply more of MoH 1 but even longer, and man that kept me away for a long time, but here we are, I decided to play it for some reason, fully completed it, and honestly I love it.
So instead of a British spy type, you play as a french resistance member, but you then get hired very early on by the same department that operated in the last game lol. Notably you play as a female, one of the first female protagonist in an FPS game? Unfortunately this doesn't matter much as there is no character and she's basically just a vessel for the player, similar to the guy you play as in the first game.
Gameplay is near identical to MoH 1. You've got the same guns, maybe some new ones I can't totally recall. Enemies still have absurd accuracy and can sometimes shoot you through walls, all the gameplay pros and cons I listed in MoH 1 still apply here.
The overall story, or the missions, are far FAR more interesting than those in MoH 1. You fight in the streets of Paris, the Catacombs, underneath the Eiffel tower, you go to Africa, you go to Greece, you explore wacky Nazi castles, it's a fucking blast. I absolutely loved the levels and level design though of course they're very linear, due to it being a PS1 game. I only disliked some levels towards the end as they either get kinda bland or absurdly difficult.
Seriously though, this game pushed the PS1 to its absolute limit, and you can unfortunately feel it. Frames tend to drop in heavy action and whenever there's more than 3 characters on your screen, or if you enter a larger area. It really isn't that bad but it's something to note.
This is completely its own thing and doesn't feel like a WW2 game at all. It's got a fantastic aesthetic, great music, and just wonderful vibes all around. It's like they took WW2 James Bond from the last game and sprinkled in a healthy dose of Indiana Jones and some French love.
If you're willing to learn and adapt to the rules of these older janky shooters, this one is a must. I'd go as far as to say this is probably the best FPS game on the PS1. I'd suggest you power through MoH 1 and have an OK time, then play this game and have a blast.
P.S. For modern FPS controls, use control scheme 4.
I was honestly dreading having to play this as MoH 1 was pretty bland and boring, and towards the second half I really just wanted to get it over with. I've heard this game is simply more of MoH 1 but even longer, and man that kept me away for a long time, but here we are, I decided to play it for some reason, fully completed it, and honestly I love it.
So instead of a British spy type, you play as a french resistance member, but you then get hired very early on by the same department that operated in the last game lol. Notably you play as a female, one of the first female protagonist in an FPS game? Unfortunately this doesn't matter much as there is no character and she's basically just a vessel for the player, similar to the guy you play as in the first game.
Gameplay is near identical to MoH 1. You've got the same guns, maybe some new ones I can't totally recall. Enemies still have absurd accuracy and can sometimes shoot you through walls, all the gameplay pros and cons I listed in MoH 1 still apply here.
The overall story, or the missions, are far FAR more interesting than those in MoH 1. You fight in the streets of Paris, the Catacombs, underneath the Eiffel tower, you go to Africa, you go to Greece, you explore wacky Nazi castles, it's a fucking blast. I absolutely loved the levels and level design though of course they're very linear, due to it being a PS1 game. I only disliked some levels towards the end as they either get kinda bland or absurdly difficult.
Seriously though, this game pushed the PS1 to its absolute limit, and you can unfortunately feel it. Frames tend to drop in heavy action and whenever there's more than 3 characters on your screen, or if you enter a larger area. It really isn't that bad but it's something to note.
This is completely its own thing and doesn't feel like a WW2 game at all. It's got a fantastic aesthetic, great music, and just wonderful vibes all around. It's like they took WW2 James Bond from the last game and sprinkled in a healthy dose of Indiana Jones and some French love.
If you're willing to learn and adapt to the rules of these older janky shooters, this one is a must. I'd go as far as to say this is probably the best FPS game on the PS1. I'd suggest you power through MoH 1 and have an OK time, then play this game and have a blast.
P.S. For modern FPS controls, use control scheme 4.
First of all, whoever came up with the idea to play as a member of French resistance - I hope they got paid well. We don't get nearly enough WW2 games about partisans, let alone other underrepresented sides of war (still waiting for a game that covers Japanese-occupied China).
As for the actual game, I'm not gonna say much, since this is almost the same game as Medal of Honor, and I've already reviewed that. One major improvement is fast aim. I think it wasn't there in the original, though I might be mistaken, but I think I would've noticed. This feature basically adds the constant crosshair to your screen, so you don't have to stop moving to aim. Basically makes this a proper modern FPS. I would crown this the best FPS on PS1.
I haven't gotten too far in this game, but the actual missions did feel a bit less fun to me. There was an escort mission early on. Then there was one where I was apparently captured by walking into an area I was apparently not allowed to walk into. This was really weird and frustrating (because, as I pointed out in my original MoH review, there are no checkpoints and missions are long af). Also I thought the performance was a little worse, but not significantly so.
Though in general I liked this game more than the oiringal MoH, I figured I'd rate it the same. First of all because it came out after MoH, so it feels less impressive. Secondly, it came out in 2000, the same year we got Soldier of Fortune, Counter-Strike, Delta Force 3 and DEUS FUCKING EX. Compared to any of those games, Medal of Honor: Underground feels several years behind.
As for the actual game, I'm not gonna say much, since this is almost the same game as Medal of Honor, and I've already reviewed that. One major improvement is fast aim. I think it wasn't there in the original, though I might be mistaken, but I think I would've noticed. This feature basically adds the constant crosshair to your screen, so you don't have to stop moving to aim. Basically makes this a proper modern FPS. I would crown this the best FPS on PS1.
I haven't gotten too far in this game, but the actual missions did feel a bit less fun to me. There was an escort mission early on. Then there was one where I was apparently captured by walking into an area I was apparently not allowed to walk into. This was really weird and frustrating (because, as I pointed out in my original MoH review, there are no checkpoints and missions are long af). Also I thought the performance was a little worse, but not significantly so.
Though in general I liked this game more than the oiringal MoH, I figured I'd rate it the same. First of all because it came out after MoH, so it feels less impressive. Secondly, it came out in 2000, the same year we got Soldier of Fortune, Counter-Strike, Delta Force 3 and DEUS FUCKING EX. Compared to any of those games, Medal of Honor: Underground feels several years behind.
The final mission is one of the most out of left field and satisfying veers into fantasy in any game I've played. ALL HAIL THE PANZERKNACKER!
ok im playing,shooting some shit and then i switched to a molotov and i wonder why my fingers looked weird (i was like 5 years old at that time) then years later i found out that you play as a girl in this game ,shocking right!
nononono, I'm not going to talk 'bout the gba version here, playstation one is banger, I mean I have nostalgia when looking at the gba version since it was the first version I've played but lol, after playing the station version everything changed
Literally my first video game and for that it gets four stars alone.