Together Retro: Call Of Duty & Medal Of Honor

[Ack]

That's a shame on stopping with Medal of Honor, Exhum. While MoH: Pacific Assault was...ok at best I'd say, MoH: Airborne was actually a really cool take on WWII FPS design. Each mission starts as a large open area with general objectives for you to secure, and you would drop in to the level via parachute. If you could see it in the general area, you could land on it, though not always with the best results. It's a shame it was so short at only six levels. Totally worth trying out in my opinion.

[Exhuminator]

I've got Pacific Assault on Xbox, never booted it up yet though.

I'll add Airborne to my 360 wants list. Jumping outta planes sounds fun.

[ExedExes]

That's a shame on stopping with Medal of Honor, Exhum. While MoH: Pacific Assault was...ok at best I'd say, MoH: Airborne was actually a really cool take on WWII FPS design. Each mission starts as a large open area with general objectives for you to secure, and you would drop in to the level via parachute. If you could see it in the general area, you could land on it, though not always with the best results. It's a shame it was so short at only six levels. Totally worth trying out in my opinion.

I played these games in the past couple of years, Airborne was a lot more fun than I thought. There's RPG-style upgradeable weapons in that game that lets you decide how you want to improve them (more ammo per clip, better accuracy w/scopes, etc)

It's too bad that Pacific Assault (and Rising Sun) were a bit disappointing. No game I've played so far was a good Pacific Theater experience. I'm hoping World At War is. Although the Pearl Harbor level and the level where you stop the Japanese and the Germans meeting in Rising Sun were highlights for me.

On the PC, the best way to experience the MOH games is to look for the 10th Anniversary Collection; you get MOHAA and the expansion packs, Pacific Assault, Airborne, and a MOH soundtrack CD.

[TSTR]

Damn, time for this already? Got the OG CoD and MoH to plow through.

[ElkinFencer10]

The best Medal of Honor game IMO was Allied Assault. I think that one was PC only.

[ExedExes]

Initial thoughts:

CoD WaW: I played through the first two missions, and I finally found a game that does the Pacific Theater right. A totally immersive experience with the familiar CoD interface. The weapons now have bayonets so you can even stab up close. The best feature of all is the ability to throw back grenades, which ends up getting you killed a lot less. It looked so good on my computer I had to get some screenshots. I also picked up a new Sound Blaster card that I had just put in prior to playing and it sounds a LOT better than the old integrated audio.

(2nd pic has some language, this is an M-rated game after all)

MoH Infiltrator: It's not *exactly* an FPS, but it does capture the MoH spirit. The missions are exactly the same and even though it's a different perspective, everything is there, and it looks and sounds good. There are some Operation Wolf-style shooting sequences in certain parts, so that would qualify for a sort of first-person experience. I'm liking this one a lot too.

[Exhuminator]

I remembered another Call of Duty I have beaten:



Believe it or not, it was actually pretty good and a fully functional FPS on DS. It also had really great local multiplayer. n-Space made a bunch more CoD DS games after this, to varying degrees of success:

[ExedExes]

If you have MoH Rising Sun on Gamecube *and* MoH Infiltrator on GBA, you can link them up with your GBA-GC transfer cable that's probably gathering dust somewhere and get a level map for Rising Sun! I revisited the "Singapore Sling" level because that was my favorite mission, and this was the beginning. You can press L and R on the GBA to show specific level features but I had it on all objects.

[Ack]

After beating Thief Gold, I started playing Call of Duty 2. There are ten mission sets, each of which breaks down into a few sub-missions during the course of play. The first three are Soviet forces retaking Stalingrad, the second set focuses on British forces in North Africa facing off against the Afrika Korps before moving into France, and the final section focuses on American forces during D-Day and the push to Germany that followed.

All of the Call of Duty hallmarks are now in place: regenerating health, railroaded levels, cinematic level design, some dude named Price, etc. I have discovered I favor the Thompson and MP40 for weapons of choice. As nice as the PPSh-41 was in the first game, it feels even less accurate now. I generally loathe the rifles because the iron sights feel off. Whenever I use them, I feel like I'm ticking over as opposed to smoothly moving, even with a maxed out mouse sensitivity.

Oh, and I miss actually having to select grenades or the binoculars like a weapon, because now I can no longer beat enemies to death with them. Gotta get me some sweet binoc kills, yo.

[Cronozilla]

The best Medal of Honor game IMO was Allied Assault. I think that one was PC only.

It was (and is) PC only (as are the very excellent expansions, Spearhead and Breakthrough).

A lot of the ideas that were going to be in MOHAA, were rejected by EA. A lot of the people at the developer, 2115, were so annoyed with this they left to make their own studio (Infinity Ward) and put all their ideas into an "unproven" game called Call of Duty.

For me, the best Medal of Honor games are Spearhead and Underground. Call of Duty, 1 and 2. They fixed some of the mechanics of the era with Modern Warfare (hey look a grenade button! Run!?) but ultimately, I don't think any of the games beyond Call of Duty 2 embody what made those first two games fantastic.