I’m surprised by how good this still is!

I fancied playing this game for nostalgia purposes as i have fond memories from my childhood, despite never getting very far in it as a kid.

Despite being very dated this game is great! Though simple, the levels feel very well thought out and every gun feels unique making them fun to use.

The gunplay is very different from modern games and took some getting used to (after a couple missions i discovered you can change the controls in options). Its a little janky but definitely a fun change of pace to modern gaming.

Overall i’m really surprised how well this game still holds up today, i look forward to playing the sequel soon!

Esse jogo é maravilhoso eu perdi as contas de quantas vezes eu já zerei ele, zerei até versão de Gameboy dele, e depois que eu fiquei sabendo de toda a participação do Spilberg e as referencias ao filme do resgate do soldado Ryan, o game ficou ainda melhor, além da boa historia, boa jogabilidade, boa dificuldade, boa variação de armas e cenários, alternando entre missões Stealth e missões de trocação sincera de bala, eu gostaria de colocar aqui como maior qualidade do jogo, a trilha sonora, digna realmente de cinema.

While I'm not necessarily a historical geek for WW2 specifically, this was super fun to play. The animations are so detailed that I didn't honestly expect from this title. The main standout point for me were the stealth missions. It's so cool to see the multiple approaches you can go with these missions, just giving you the objective and telling you to figure it out. The missions are linear once you get the general gist of it all, but it is still cool.

I'm a sucker for behind the scenes and extra content, so completing the game and seeing the history behind the levels and little world building elements was pretty cool.

Um dos paizões do gênero de FPS. Um jogo super datado, mas que possui uma qualidade imensa nas suas missões (cutscenes, músicas e storytelling) além de um conjunto de animações ENORME pros efeitos dos tiros que você dá com as suas armas. Pode acreditar que isso foi 100% o que me chamou mais a atenção durante a jogatina porque não só onde você atira no corpo do cara influencia a forma como ele reage MAS TAMBÉM o tipo de arma, então um efeito de tiro de 12 à queima-roupa é totalmente diferente de um tiro de pistola ou metralhadora nas mesmas condições, por exemplo.

Experiência divertida e vale o seu tempo caso goste do gênero!

Die Folgen des D-Days

Medal of Honor ist weit mehr als nur ein Ego-Shooter, es gilt als Begründer eines gesamten Genres. Natürlich gab es auch vorher schon Ego-Shooter mit der Weltkriegsthematik, allerdings hievte Medal of Honor das ganze auf eine andere Ebene. Es ging nun nicht mehr nur darum einfach böse, böse Nazis abzuballern, sondern man wollte kurzerhand historische Ereignisse greifbarer machen. Man wollte den Spieler jetzt auch richtig an die historische Schlachten teilhaben lassen. Danach wollte schlicht jeder Kriegs-Ego-Shooter wie Medal of Honor sein.
Das ganze Spiel basiert auf der Idee von Steven Spielberg, der im Zuge der Recherchen für den Film Der Soldat James Ryan durchaus die Idee hatte, dass diese ganze Thematik auch ein gutes Videospiel abgeben würde. Dabei wollte Spielberg keine einfache plumpe Nacherzählung seines Kassenschlagers, sondern das ganze erlangte Wissen, was man damals für den Film zusammengetragen hat, sollte für was ganz eigenes eingesetzt werden.

Damit wurde der Grundstein für ein Meilenstein gesetzt, der durchaus so historisch akkurat wie selten ein Spiel zuvor aufwartete.
Ein Jahr nach Der Soldat James Ryan erschien nämlich Medal of Honor für die Sony PlayStation.

Jetzt ganze 25 Jahre später kann es natürlich sein Alter nicht vollkommen verbergen. Die Grafik ist natürlich total veraltet und die Standard-Steuerung ist aus heutiger Zeit schon extrem ungewohnt. Glücklicherweise bietet das Spiel aber auch mehrere vordefinierte Steuerungsprofile zur Auswahl an, wovon eines immerhin der mittlerweile etablierten Steuerung von Ego-Shootern auf Konsole recht nah kommt. Das führt tatsächlich dazu, dass Medal of Honor sich auch heute noch mit nur minimaler Umgewöhnung gut spielen lässt.
Ein paar Steuerungsmacken gibt es aber natürlich trotzdem, beispielsweise gibt es nur eine "Nächste Waffe"-Taste, was dafür sorgt, dass man ständig durch sämtliche Waffen schalten muss, um beispielsweise zwischen Pistole und Scharfschützengewehr zu wechseln. Und da man bis zu fünf unterschiedliche Waffen dabei hat und spätere Level durchaus mal eine schnelle Reaktion benötigen um einfach mal auf die Schnelle zwischen Schrotflinte und Sturmgewehr zu wechseln, ist das schon etwas nervig.
Medal of Honor zeichnet sich auch dadurch aus, dass es auch mit Undercover-Missionen aufwartet. Dort ist man als deutscher Offizier verkleidet und kann auch Missionen ohne wirkliche Feuergefechte schaffen, wenn man sich immer unbemerkt die richtigen Ausweise besorgt, um durch Kontrollen zu kommen. Leider hat man ein bisschen versäumt, diese Mechanik so richtig nützlich ins Spiel einzubinden. Denn um alle Orden zu erhalten, muss man Missionen mit 3 Sternen abschließen. Diese gibt es allerdings nur, wenn man die Mission mit mehr als 75% Lebensenergie sowie mehr als 95% von den Gegnern erledigt hat. Das betrifft auch die Undercover-Missionen, was damit zur Folge hat, dass man sich selbst durch diese Missionen einfach durchballern muss und sich die gesamte Undercover-Möglichkeit als nutzlos heraus stellt.
Ich denke vom Gameplay hätte es mehr Abwechslung gebracht, wenn man eher für die wesentlich schwierigere Undercover-Spielweise belohnt wird.
Für die Orden wird man in späteren Leveln sehr wahrscheinlich ins Backtracking geraten, um sich ein Medikit aus einem früheren Abschnitt zu schnappen, um wieder über die 75% zu kommen. Leider kann es durchaus vorkommen, dass man sich zwischendurch bereits zu weit entfernt hat und das Medikit mittlerweile aus dem Speicher gelöscht wurde und damit verschwunden ist, wenn man wieder dort ist. Fand ich leider auch nicht sehr geil, gerade weil man manchmal tatsächlich auch für die 95% erledigte Gegner zurücklaufen muss, weil ganz sporadisch einfach Gegner an einem vorherigen Punkt im Level erscheinen. Keine Ahnung, wieso das so entwickelt wurde, total gelungen scheint mir das nicht.
Als letztes kann ich sagen, dass ich mich frage, was die Entwickler eigentlich beim letzten Level des Spiels geraucht haben. Das fand ich leider mit Abstand als das schlechteste. In diesem bekommt man es plötzlich mit Dutzenden Gegnern zu tun, die natürlich auch in mehreren Wellen neu auftauchen, sobald man sich etwas entfernt hat. Natürlich muss man diese Gegner auch alle erledigen, für die 95%, ihr wisst schon. Diese Gegner beschießen den Spieler dabei auch mal kurzerhand aus mehreren Richtungen mit Panzerfäusten, wobei schon ein Treffer bereits das Spielende bedeutet. Übrigens, Kontrollpunkte gibt es im Spiel natürlich auch nicht. Stirbt man, heißt es, das ganze Level komplett von vorne zu spielen, es sei denn man spielt mit Savestates.
Dazu gesellt sich in diesem letzten Level auch das Phänomen , dass man nicht einmal mehr die Waffen der erledigten Gegner für Munition aufsammeln kann. Empfand das daher alles als ein schlecht entwickelter Schlusspunkt eines aus meiner Sicht tatsächlich guten Spiels.

Weil was macht Medal of Honor in Wirklichkeit auch heute noch großartig? Es ist nach wie vor die erzeugte Stimmung und Atmosphäre. Sei es Rufende deutsche Stimmen mit Hundebellen in der Stadt, der Hall eines lauten Knalls einer Artillerie in der Umgebung gemeinsam mit einem Lichtblitz am Horizont, Lautsprecherdurchsagen in Gebäuden und so weiter sorgen schon dafür, dass man sich absolut mittendrin fühlt.
Und abseits der erwähnten Abschlussmission sind auch die anderen Missionen durchaus abwechslungsreich und man ist in Gebäuden, U-Booten und sogar Schiffen genauso unterwegs wie in Außenarealen im Sommer in der Normandie oder im Winter in Norwegen. Auch wenn alles Engine-bedingt ausschließlich bei Nacht stattfindet. Aber selbst das muss man nicht einmal negativ sehen, weil das irgendwie mehr das Gefühl gibt, dass man sich irgendwie geheimnisvoll hinter den feindlichen Linien bewegt, gerade weil man in allen Missionen ohnehin alleine agiert.
Das Spiel bietet nur einen Schwierigkeitsgrad und den empfand ich schon als durchaus angenehm. Man bekommt durchaus das Gefühl, dass man es mit feindlichen Soldaten unterschiedlichen Ranges und Erfahrung zu tun bekommt. Manche sehen dich früher als andere und manche treffen dich auch einfach besser. Nicht zu vergessen, dass Gegner sogar vor Granaten in Deckung gehen oder die mutigen unter Ihnen sogar noch zu der hinlaufen, um sie den Spieler zurück vor die Füße zu werfen. Ziemlich genial für 1999.

Gespielt habe ich die Deutsche Version auf einem PlayStation-Emulator, was die technische Schwäche der ursprünglichen PAL-Version negiert, da sie auf 60 FPS laufen konnte. Die deutsche Version hat natürlich den Nachteil, dass sie symbolbedingt zensiert ist. Vorteil ist dagegen, dass auch die Deutschen in den Missionen Deutsch sprechen, was der Atmosphäre sogar zuträglich ist. In der englischsprachigen Version gibt es zwar das allseits bekannte Hakenkreuz und sogar sowas wie den Hitlergruß... dafür aber Deutsche die ausschließlich Englisch sprechen.

Das Spiel wurde vollständig auf Twitch gespielt und steht als unkommentiertes VOD auf YouTube zur Verfügung.

Really excellent presentation all-around. Spielberg's goal with this seems to have been to make a (relatively) realistic, serious-minded FPS game with a cinematic flair, and in that it is certainly a success. The story is grounded but entertaining, the cutscenes, briefings, and menus are all top-notch and quite immersive, and the score is excellent.

Unfortunately, the shooting action and level design simply do not live up to GOLDENEYE, this game's direct and explicit inspiration. The levels are short, linear, and simple with mostly unmissable objectives right on your track. Stealth and long-range combat don't work great. Most of the more impressive gameplay ideas are over too soon. You keep wishing there was more to it!

It's a shame. It's fine and fun to play, but if the actual game lived up to the window dressing, I could see this being a true classic.

[Average Reading Time: 9 minutes]

The first-person shooter genre was rocked by Goldeneye in 1997 and then rocked again by Half-Life in 1998. In 1999, it would be time for EA and Dreamworks Interactive to rock the genre once more with Medal of Honor.

Medal of Honor is a military shooter set during towards the end of World War II. Players take the role of Jimmy Patterson as he completes 7 missions for the OSS, each being broken up into 3-4 action-packed stages. Alongside this is a multiplayer mode that allows you to have shootouts with your friends. I haven't gotten to play much of the multiplayer, so this review will focus on the single-player aspects of this game.

Firstly, let me say that the presentation is immaculate. When you get past the developer logos and loading screen you're put in the War Room, which is your main menu. You'll be checking different areas of the room to check out things like the options and your stats, and while you do this, you'll hear the ambiance of the office activities while watching people walk between rooms. It's very cozy, and you'll quickly find it to be a comforting space. Hang out in the war room long enough without touching the controller, and you'll be treated to some trailers for the game. This was a treat to discover, and it made me wish more games were proud enough of their advertisements to stick them into the game as a way of preserving them.

Soon, you'll find your way to the first mission. Before each mission, you're briefed on what your objective is for the mission as war footage plays on a projector. You're being briefed vocally by Colonel Stanley Hargrove (voiced by William Morgan Sheppard), who proves to be a friendly yet stern superior. Hearing him speak to you about the missions was relaxing and fun, and I was surprised to hear moments where he felt a personal connection so some of your missions. The vocal performance easily enhanced the feeling of going into battle.

Before going into each stage of a mission, you are handed a note from Manon, a liaison from the French Resistance. She gives you an overview of each stage, letting you know things like what kinds of weapons the enemy are carrying, what your objectives are, and hints about secrets. It was always enjoyable reading her letters, hearing about her experiences as she fed you information about the Nazi's plans.

She's basically the equivalent of a radio buddy in a 7th gen game except her letters only pop up between stages, which is really funny when you do something like sneak onto a U-Boat minutes before it departs. How did she get the letter to you after you got on? How did she even know you successfully made it in the first place, considering how tight the timing was? Is she just anticipating you clearing all the objectives flawlessly and is writing letters in advance? Does Jimmy just receive all her letters in bulk before each mission? These are all questions we may never get answers to. I'll just pretend Manon is some French deity who has the mystical ability to keep Jimmy informed at all times and leave it at that.

With your briefings over, it's finally time to begin the game proper. The first thing you'll notice is how dark the game is, visually speaking. At least for me, I needed to crank my TV's brightness setting up in order to see most things. It's at its worst when you're doing outdoor missions at night.

That aside, you'll begin to move and aim and oh man they did it! They almost nailed what would become the standard control scheme for all future first-person shooters! Okay, let me get more specific. Medal of Honor has a number of control presets for the player to choose from. Of them all, I found that Controller Setting 4 came the closest to what would become standard in late 7th gen. The only thing that really upset me about this setting is how the Square and Triangle buttons go unused while R1 does two separate things! They could've easily put reload on Square and it would've felt fine, but what we have here is truly ahead of its time, so despite the shortcomings of this playstyle, I am impressed.

And so you're on your way through your first mission. Thankfully, if you forgot what your objectives were in your letter from Manon, you can pause the game at any time to check what objectives you have, as well as your kill count for that stage (which is important for something I'll get into later). Unlike in games like Goldeneye, you can't fail objectives, so that's one less thing to worry about as you play. Objectives are all required to complete, as well, as the game will refuse to allow you to leave a stage until you finish that checklist.

Most stages will have you going through guns blazing, shooting Nazis left and right while hunting for objectives. Some other stages take a different approach, having you infiltrate Nazi bases in disguise, blending in to tamper with tech and assassinate key officials. To blend in, you have a set of papers documenting your rank in your disguise. By taking out higher ranking Nazis, you can steal their papers and gain access to more areas, which can be a rewarding process that's quite engaging.

At least, it is when it works and the game doesn't pull pranks. There are some enemies that will approach you asking for your documentation, and in the early stealth stages you'll show them the papers and they'll leave you alone. In the later stealth stages, you'll begin to be faced with less trusting Nazis who will see through your disguise and attack you. Perhaps the weirdest part of this is as you try to show them your papers over and over, they'll repeat lines like "Show me your papers!" and "What is your name?" over and over in different pitches. I'm sure that the different pitches exist to make the Nazis all sound distinct, but hearing them come out of one Nazi was just bizarre.

The other prank that can get played on you here occurs when silently taking down some enemies. Most Nazis walking around can be easily neutralized with a headshot from your silenced pistol, which will prevent any other Nazis from being alerted to your presence. Nazis that guard doors that require you to have specific papers pose a unique threat. If you try to silently dispatch them, two Nazi soldiers will spawn in (usually behind you) and they will them quickly drain your life bar. Not the greatest feeling when this happens!

While I thought the stealth missions were an interesting idea, I had the most fun going through the regular action stages. Any stage can have you equipped with up to three guns and one throwable explosive. You get weapons like pistols, SMG's, shotguns and, later in the campaign, a bazooka! The weapon variety isn't very large at all, but what is here is serviceable for your adventure. All of the weapons reload very quickly, as well, leaving little to no downtime during heated shootouts.

My one complaint here is that if you want to use a specific weapon, you need to keep hitting the "Switch Weapon" button until you land on it. This also includes items like grenades, which don't have a unique button for them and are treated as another weapon. Because of this, I barely used grenades, which is a shame because watching Nazis interact with them is highly interesting. Some will lie flat on them to guard their friends from an explosion. Some will kick them away or throw them back. Others will just run from them. You'll also face dog enemies that will pick them up in their mouths and charge at you with them, which can be terrifying!

This isn't where the Nazi animations stop, either. There's a surprising number of animations for them in regard to their reactions to your shots. Their helmets can fly off their heads if you aim at their head, protecting them from a headshot. They might bounce around in pain if you shoot their leg. A powerful shot may knock them on their butt, causing them to take a few moments to get themselves together before standing and shooting at you once more. Of course, a well-aimed shotgun blast or an explosion will send them flying, which is endlessly satisfying to watch.

Of course, Nazis tend to shoot back at you as you shoot at them. In the top-left corner of your screen you have a compass that houses your health bar, which can be refilled with medical packs scattered through stages. This compass also houses another feature: it will flash red in the direction of enemy fire that is making contact with you. Getting hit from the front? The top flashes red. The back? The bottom flashes. The left or right? I don't think I need to answer that. It's a very handy feature that seems to be taken straight from Half-Life, showing just how influential that game was after it came out.

As you get deeper into the game Nazis get more and more aggressive, using more powerful weapons to take you down. One weapon they will use is the Panzerschreck, which is an anti-tank rocket launcher. The splash damage on the rockets these things fire can do a good job draining your health, and direct contact with a rocket will kill you instantly. I guess now's as good of a time as any to mention that if you die, you have to re-do the entire stage, which can be pretty annoying if a stage is longer or if you're doing good only to get a back full of rocket that you couldn't see coming. I used save-states to give myself checkpoints throughout stages to mitigate this issue, but real hardware players will face some difficulty here due to this.

When you clear a stage, you'll be taken to a screen showing how you did during a stage, detailing things such as your favorite weapon for the stage as well as your accuracy. Here, you'll also be awarded stars. You'll get one for just beating the stage, two for killing most of the Nazis in a stage, and three for clearing the stage with 75% or more health. That order is strictly implemented, by the way. Beat a stage without killing most of the Nazis but had over 75% health? You're only getting one star. So, what do stars do? Well, by getting all 3 stars on every stage of a mission, you'll not only be awarded a shiny medal, but you will also be given a "secret code". These are basically cheat menu options, doing things like adding power-ups to multiplayer, quadrupling your weapon fire speed, and turning all non-interactable environment textures into wireframes. They're mostly goofy stuff, which is a cute and welcome addition to this game to incentivize high-level play.

Also on this menu they detail which body parts you shot the most, which is an interesting statistic to see. You're also given a "Gunnery Evaluation" based on which parts you hit the most. You'll get called a "Winger" for hitting mostly arms, for example. Two that stood out to me the most were one for getting mostly headshots, which was "Discount Barber", and another for getting mostly groin shots, charmingly called "Homewrecker".

I would also like to bring up the music. The score done for this game is very well-done, making you feel like you're in an intense war movie! The soundtrack was composed by Michael Giacchino, who would go on to compose the score for numerous Disney movies such as Up and The Incredibles. Needless to say, he did an excellent job here, and I'll definitely be keeping my eye out for his name in future works!

Overall, I loved my time with Medal of Honor. The game truly felt ahead of its time in a number of ways and was an absolute joy from beginning to end. I highly recommend any lover of military FPS games to give this game a shot! This is a game that definitely deserves to be as well-remembered as games like Half-Life and Goldeneye!

We REALLY need to let Steven Spielberg make more games he's really good at this.

Minha franquia de FPS favorita, é impressionante considerando o fato de que um jogo com mais de 20 anos consegue ser expressivo.
Apesar das limitações, como 90% dos cenários consistirem em corredores e o campo de visão ser extremamente curto, além do jogador frequentemente ficar preso na geometria do nível, ainda assim o jogo compensa com missões criativas que proporcionam a sensação de ser um exército de uma pessoa só. A trilha sonora fantástica adiciona uma atmosfera tensa a cada esquina.
É uma ótima escolha para quem procura um FPS clássico de consoles. No entanto, sugiro que jogue com a mente aberta, pois algumas limitações de hardware e convenções modernas de FPS (como utilizar o analógico direito para mirar) ainda não haviam sido inventadas.