Medal of Honor: Frontline
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| Medal of Honor: Frontline | |
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| Developer(s) | EA Games (PS2, GC) 2015, Inc. (Xbox) |
| Publisher(s) | EA Games |
| Platform(s) | GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox |
| Release date | NA May 28, 2002 (PS2) NA Nov 10, 2002 (Xbox, GC) |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Teen (T) |
| Media | DVD,2x GameCube optical disc |
Medal of Honor: Frontline is the 4th installment of Electronic Arts' popular Medal of Honor series. The character controlled in the game is that of Lt. Jimmy Patterson, a pilot of the 101st Airborne Division, who is working for the OSS, as he campaigns his way across Europe into Nazi Germany itself, during the World War II. It was released in North America for the Playstation 2 on May 28, 2002 and for the Xbox and Gamecube consoles on November 10, 2002. It was later designed for the Nintendo Wii.
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[edit] Gameplay
Frontline is a first person shooter, and the fourth in the Medal of Honor series. Like its predecessors, the player takes on a first person view and fights as an American soldier in World War II. There are six missions in Frontline, each breaking down into several smaller levels. Briefings take place at the start of each mission, which help advance the plot and introduce new characters. The smaller missions take place in a linear path, with the player fighting through towns and countryside, killing enemies, and completing objectives. Objectives are explained to the character in a smaller briefing before each level, which prepares that player for that particular mission.
The PlayStation 2 version does not feature any sort of multiplayer. The GameCube port introduced minor improvements to the single player campaign and includes a four-player split-screen deathmatch mode. The Xbox version incorporates online multiplayer matches.
[edit] Story
[edit] Characters and Setting
The main story chronicles Lt. Jimmy Patterson's attempt to capture a prototype of the 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 between the third and fourth missions in the original Medal of Honor. Baron Rudolph Ulbricht Von Strumgeist is the commander of the facility in charge of the facility designing the HO IX, and several other informants and soldiers are involved with various missions. Gerrit is an undercover agent in need of extraction, and Jiggs is an inside contact in Arnhem, one of the towns in the game.
[edit] Plot
The story begins with the player taking up the role as Jimmy Patterson in a Higgins Boat heading towards Omaha beach in Operation Overlord on D-Day. Upon arrival on the beach, the boat is destroyed, killing everyone who was onboard except Patterson and the Captain of the squad. After reaching the beach, the player encounters the Captain, who instructs him to complete several tasks including rescuing fellow soldiers, crossing a minefield, and assaulting the front infantry positions to reach the Atlantic Wall in front of the them.
Just before Jimmy and his fellow soldiers breach the barbed-wire, the Captain commands Patterson to sprint to the Belgium Gate and retrieve an engineer. You must also provide coverfire so the engineer can make it back to the Captain alive. After the player fulfills his task, the engineer sticks a Bangalor torpedo into the sand directly under the barbwire. The barbwire explodes, leaving a wide path. The Captain instructs every soldier to go over the path. By then, bullets are flying past Jimmy and only a few soldiers make it to the bottom of the bunker. Luckily, Jimmy is one of them. Then the Captain sends Jimmy to get past a minefield in the middle of the two massive bunkers. Jimmy must then bolt past the minefield and overrun a German held position. Then, the Captain sends the player alone into the massive German bunker complex dug deep into the beach. Inside, the player fights through the enemies and heads to the top of the bunker, level by level. After killing many Geman soldiers who were hiding in many of the stairwells and offices, Jimmy reaches the lookout balcony and drops a smoke grenade to signal Allied ships where to aim their shells.
In late August, the player is assigned to an assault on the German shipyards at Lorient, France. Jimmy is airdropped into Saint-Mathieu, where he must sneak onto a U-Boat docked for supplies. As he moves through the city, he comes across some fellow paratroopers of the 101st Airborne as they fight among the ruins of the city. Once he has made it across the town, he then infiltrates a docked U-boat and rides the submarine all the way to Lorient. Upon his arrival at Lorient, Jimmy then infiltrates the yard, destroying all of the submarines docked and under repair, as well as destroying the yard's fuel station. Along the way, the player has a first encounter with Sturmgeist.
Later, a distress call comes into the OSS - Gerrit is urgently requesting extraction, claiming to have important information. Unfortunately, he was captured and is being held at a luxurious German manorhouse. Colonel Hargrove, his superior, orders Jimmy to take advantage of the undergoing Operation Market Garden and parachute into the Netherlands to extract the informant. The mission begins in the grassy countryside, where Jimmy and fellow soldier Corporal Barnes must fight their way among Dutch windmills that adorn the landscape. They find a soldier who got separated from his squad, Private 1st Class Jerry Langteau. The scene then shifts to the adjacent town. Jimmy must sabotage the enemy's motorpool and sneak into the local pub, the Golden Lion, which is filled with drunken Nazis. A member of the Dutch resistance is waiting for him there and plans to smuggle him into the manorhouse. Jimmy is given a German uniform in order to sneak into the house, but his cover is blown by an entrance guard. A furious gunbattle erupts as Jimmy struggles to get Gerrit out alive. Ultimately he is successful and Gerrit 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 in battle.
In mid September 1944, Jimmy is ordered to put a stop to Sturmgeist's plot. The good news is that the OSS arranges for him to meet an informant who can get him close to Sturmgeist. The bad news is that the informant is in the middle of Arnhem - a city right on the frontlines of Market Garden. He must fight his way across the titular Nijmegen Bridge while disarming the bombs planted underneath it. He then arrives and fights through the relatively calm suburbs of Arnhem and hooks up with a group of British paratroopers, led by Master Sergeant Kelso (there is no rank of Master Sergeant in the British Army, Kelso would be a Warrant Officer Class 2), stuck in the war-torn heart of the city. Through tanks, infantry and the dreaded Panzerschreck squads, Jimmy makes his way to a local customshouse to meet his informant.
The story picks up again in late September 1944, in Emmerich, a German city near the border, close to Düsseldorf. The informant he rendezvoused with in Arnhem is able to get him close to Sturmgeist's personal armored train, which should take him directly to the Ho IX production base. 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, riding it out of the city and into the production base. Jimmy once again dons the uniform of a German officer and approaches the train station, only to have his cover blown by the uniforms' half naked previous owner. With his cover gone, Jimmy is forced to fight his way through the train station in the midst of an Allied bombing raid and board Sturmgeist's train. 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 Friedrichroda. Jimmy must battle through the trainyards until he finally finds the Ho IX production facility located in a disused mine shaft adjacent to the town of Gotha.
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 find. He gets the opportunity to ride a mine cart out of the facility. Through forests, fields, trenches and bunkers, Jimmy finally gets to his goal: the brand new Ho IX fighter. After a final shootout with Rudolf Von Sturmgeist and his bodyguards, (in which Sturmgeist is killed) 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 informs him that he'll be calling on him again soon.
[edit] Reception
Frontline was the best received of the sixth-generation Medal of Honors, with the PS2 version achieving an 87% average on GameRankings[1], and 88% average on Metacritic[2].
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Official site
- Medal of Honor: Frontline at the Internet Movie Database
- Medal of Honor: Frontline at MobyGames
- Planet Medal of Honor
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