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What do you get when you take a smooth frame rate with slightly tweaked graphics, destructive new surprises such as weapons and vehicles, a few more levels, more of the same customizable controls, and more of the same killer real world history application (unlike most FPS’s)? Why Medal of Honor: Breakthrough, of course. While assigned to the European Theatre of Operations in ’43-’44, Sgt. John Baker foils more plans of those cRaZy “wanting to dominate the world” Germans through Tunisia, Sicily, and Italy. An entertaining expansion pack to say the least, but like Spearhead, and honestly most current FPS’s the game companies steal our soul and money with, can be completed in a day if you so chose to. EA continues to work with the Congressional Medal of Honor Society and Capt. Dale Dye, who worked with Hollywood on Saving Private Ryan, Platoon, and Band of Brothers, to ensure that the MOH games are historically accurate, which is no small feat. Now, let’s get on to the meat and taters of the game.Pizza Three Nights In A Row Isn’t All Bad… You know, some weeks you just feel like having the same thing to eat for days in a row. After a while it might get old, but in the beginning it’s fresh and new, just with more toppings. That’s the same way it is with all expansion packs. Think of the base game, in this case Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, as the pizza dough, sauce, and the cheese (well you can’t have a pizza without a good portion of cheese, now can you?). Let’s say MOH: Spearhead is a topping on a pizza that’s easy to consume; easy to digest that most everyone will eat… with let’s say MORE CHEESE (for those that are lactose intolerant just pick a topping you enjoy eating). Then take a pizza topping that you don’t really like but you’ll eat it anyway, just for something to eat, like Italian sausage. Now, I’m not saying that Breakthrough is a game you probably won’t want to play if you liked Allied Assault, what I’m saying is that Breakthrough is a bit more difficult on the whole “gameplay” aspect. For instance, in Spearhead enemies, once dispatched, dropped their weapons for Baker to pick up and utilize. Unfortunately, that’s not the case in this new offering. Maybe one out of every twenty soldiers would drop their weapons, but most of the time you found yourself scouring the area for more ammo or a stabilized gun with unlimited ammo, like those on the backs of the jeeps. Not because you were running low, but because you had simply run dry. There were many times that I would be facing a couple Nazis only to find myself out of ammo and running back to look for more. There were also a couple times where I had to restart the mission because there was no ammo to be found. This is a game you can’t just run through and hope to god you aren’t gonna die because you are. The AI is beefed up in this game which makes for a really pleasing experience, a bit frusturating at times but an overall “sigh when you’re done because you finally beat it” feeling. Trust me, the ending is worth the trouble. Oh, this was all on easy mode. For you purists you can go back and complete the game on Normal or Hard mode if you choose while trying to collect the rest of the medals. With eleven new levels, the new liberation multiplayer mode where defeated players become POWs, new soldier models, skins, and voices, there should be enough pizza to go around. I found, though, that once the pizza is eaten and settles that you should feel content for a while to come. Not Too Real Is Good Enough For Me Usually I don’t go for the “war simulator” games, but what drew me to MOH was the way it approached the graphics and gameplay. MOH has almost held its own throughout the years since its glorious birth on the Sony Playstation. To put it bluntly, the faux-realistic approach MOH has to its characters is half of the reason of why it is fun to continually shoot Nazis in the first place. From the wonderful facial expressions of anyone you see up close, to the way the volumetric fog and smoke actually makes you feel a bit gritty in the first level; the graphical detail couldn’t really get any better for what MOH is trying to accomplish. The detail is especially noticeable when your commanding officer removes the goggles from his eyes and you see the line of where the goggles were placed because of the red dirt that’s caked on his face. The character design and how they were presented was fantastic. They weren’t overly realistic, as in the just-released “Call of Duty”, but on the other hand, you don’t really recognize that they are animated models either. Another plus is almost every animated model is facially unique in some way, exactly the way it should be. It’s almost as if you are watching a really well done graphic novel play out in real time. It really is amazing how far games have come, basically spawning from the father of FPS’s, another Nazi destroying adventure featuring none other than your favorite mustac§hioed dictator of Germany, Wolfenstein 3D.The presentation and graphical options remain the same, although, as mentioned in the preview to this fine work of a game, a higher resolution would have been extremely nice; just making the game that much better.
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