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Publisher
Aspyr Media | Genre
Action | Release Date
5/26/2004 | Status
Available |
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What makes a first person shooting game? Killer graphics? Check. Surround sound? Check. Twitch gameplay? Check. That sounds about right…wait. Hold the phone…where’s the story? Ah HA! Lately in first person shooters it’s all been about killing the guy down the street or on the other side of the world in online matches, ala Unreal Tournament style. What happened to the days when original storylines swept the gaming nation with their witty dialogue plot twists? Well, those really haven’t come back, and some might argue that a first person game with a killer story hasn’t ever appeared, but Electronic Arts latched onto something that turned the whole “thinking up an original story” idea on its head. EA did something bold and used history.History is full of stories that gamers, such as I, really don’t like hearing about because it reminds them of their dreaded prison-esque days in school falling asleep to lectures and writing papers. “Medal of Honor: Allied Assault” was a well played move by EA, to mix real world history into video games and make it something that people actually want to play despite it’s real world background. “Medal of Honor: Breakthrough”, the second expansion pack, triumphantly enters the arena of first person shooters and answers Electronic Art’s question of, “It’s history. Will it sell?” Hey, if it didn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this. Killer Graphics Expansion packs, most of the time, don’t offer much in the way of graphical improvements, that’s left for sequels, just take “The Sims: I’m the next expansion pack” example. No improvements just more stuff, which is … great! But back to MOH, Breakthrough offers a new hero, U.S Army Sergeant John Baker, brand spankin’ new levels, from Tunisia to Sicily to the heart of Italy, new weapons and vehicles, but more about these later. The graphics have improved, though only by a little, still, they’ve improved. You can see it in the expressions of the faces and the textures of buildings. Things have more of a value and an “animated realism”, the characters look very realistic but they still have a cartoonish animated quality about them. Which is something I have liked about the entire MOH series, the fact that it wasn’t so realistic that you felt as if you were looking into the face of another human as they laid on the ground dead from your sniper shot. You can really tell the difference of graphics as soon as you start playing the game. For example, in the first level you ride into Kasserine Pass on the back of a jeep, while a redish dust blows around the entire area and you actually feel dirty, while you can barely see ten feet in front of you. Good stuff. Another cool graphical point is when your commanding officer gives you the briefing, he has his glasses up and with all of the wind and dust blowing around you it has left a line on his face where his glasses were. EA and Aspyr’s attention to detail shows through and the great thing is you actually notice!Here I am spouting about how well done the graphics are and not a word about any flaws there might be. Ah, there are flaws, small flaws but noticeable. Fortunately, this is just the beta copy, so things can still be fixed. First off I would like to point out that the highest resolution I could get is 1024 x 768, a nice resolution. According to Aspyr's Brad Oliver, 1024 x 768 is not the maximum resolution and the read me on the CD tells you how to get the highest resolution. Second, while actually playing the game, sometimes the ground likes to devour your victims. I’m talking about the landscape, usually on an incline or decline, (which, surprise, most of the landscape is, when you look down and see your latest Nazi death, due to their positioning when they die, some of the landscape covers the body which is a little disconcerting. The legs are gone, but their toes and torso are still viewable…I am honestly not sure of how minor of a problem this is but hopefully it can be fixed. Fortunately there are no half floating bodies, you know, the legs are just hovering in the air while the body is lying on the ground. Also, when you are walking around the ruins of cities in southern Italy the windows used as scenery sometimes, not all of times, show up as diagonal lines, and you can see the brick wall of the building behind it, and as you move the lines move in a rotational pattern. Weird? Yes. A huge problem? No. Fixable? Well, hopefully. One more minor problem before I take my leave from graphics land is that up close the textures and explosions, especially the explosions, don’t look as real as I am sure they could be. From afar they’re pretty good looking but up close the fire and its many flying particles don’t remind you of roasting marshmallows and singing campfire songs. Which is really a shame because I’ve always wanted to sing “Kumbayah” and eat toasty smores with my war buddies while being shot at by snipers and tanks. Can’t we all just get along? Here Hans have a smore.
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