The Sights and Sounds of War

Medal of Honor Frontline has come to the Xbox, and it has never been better. EA Games’ intense first-person shooter is set during WWII, and offers a wide selection of historically accurate weapons, environments, and missions along with a few new extra features that exist only on Xbox.

Medal of Honor Frontline presents a dark, gritty, and extremely realistic battle scenario based on the Allied Invasion of Normandy on D-Day. Players assume the role of Lt. Jimmy Patterson as he and his squad storm the beaches of Normandy. If he survives the initial landing, Patterson and his unit must locate a top-secret experimental Nazi war plane and keep the Germans from using it against Allied forces. The game takes players on a linear progression of military missions, from the all-out firefight on the beach to the quiet infiltration of a tavern packed with Nazis, where a local resistance fighter will pass on crucial information.

The enemy, out in force.

On the Xbox, Medal of Honor Frontline has more polished graphics, and the frame rate has been bumped up to a impressive 60 frames per second. The Xbox version also includes a customizable Multiplayer Death-match mode that lets up to four players shoot it out in some of the game’s mission-specific locations.

The biggest difference on the Xbox, however, is the sound quality. With true Dolby Digital 5.1, Michael Giacchino’s grand soundtrack rings as clearly as if the NorthWest Symphonia is sitting right in front of you. The effect of this marvelous score should not be overlooked: In a game as tense as this, a merely decent soundtrack would take away from the mood and distract you from the game world. Thankfully, the score is perfectly tailored to the action, fleshing it out and giving it even more emotional punch. Wide-open battles are accompanied by powerful drums and driving melodies; stealth objectives come with edgy, icy silence punctuated by haunting, malevolent bass lines and sharp, stinging strings. There’s over a full hour of soundtrack music, and all of it works to immerse you even more firmly in the bloody business at hand.

Scratch one Panzer crewman.

The score is just one aspect of Medal of Honor Frontline’s excellent aural experience. Each pistol, rifle, bazooka, and grenade not only sounds authentic (because EA Games recorded actual WWII-era guns firing), but are distinct enough that you can tell what is being fired off screen just by the sound. Often, you’ll need the Dolby separation and clarity to identify and locate specific mission objectives. For example, in the very first level you are ordered to rescue four soldiers who have been pinned down by Nazi machine gun fire. Heavy and small arms fire echoes across the shore, planes scream overhead, and powerful bombs explode, scattering smoke, sand, and shrapnel across the beach. But you just need to concentrate and listen (as well as look) to find the men you’re supposed to save.

You couldn’t have picked a worse place to land.

All of these realistic elements of Medal of Honor Frontline work together to give the game its greatest strength: A sense of total immersion. While it is impossible to portray the true horrors of war, Medal of Honor Frontlinehas done a magnificent job of using sound, graphics, and gameplay to evoke real and powerful emotional responses from the gamer. The chaos of the battlefield and the historical details all work to make you care about your fellow soldiers and the larger battle, instead of simply staying alive long enough and killing enough enemies to finish the level. Your objectives are clearly laid out, and if you fail to achieve them, you and your buddies will be killed (and they will curse you as they die--or at least your commanding officer will). This may sound like standard first-person-shooter fare, but by transplanting the player so completely into the sights, sounds, and experiences of D-Day,Medal of Honor Frontline packs much more of a punch than your average run-and-gun adventure. If you’re a student of history, or if you just want to lose yourself in a movingly bleak, blood-and-guts action scenario, Medal of Honor Frontline is waiting to test your mettle.

By J.N. Cobb