Medal of Honor Underground
by Electronic Arts
(Click here)
Product Summary
Platform: PlayStationPublisher: Electronic Arts
Video Game Reviews of Medal of Honor Underground
Customer Review: an incredibly fun first-person shooter that shouldn't be forgotten just because it's old
Summary: 5 Stars
Medal of Honor: Underground is the second Medal of Honor game ever made. It was released for the Sony Playstation in 2000. While I believe certain things were changed for the worse and really don't think it's as good of a game overall compared to the original, it's a pretty awesome game anyway.
Right from the very beginning of the game I notice the storyline is becoming more of a focus than ever before. In the last game, you had the occasional cutscenes showing actual war footage from World War II, and in between were explanations from your female friend giving you important advice on exactly what you needed to do in order to complete the stages. In this game, you ARE that female friend from the last game, going around doing lots of soldier shooting and completing objectives. So your playable character is someone else. Right there is an indication to me that the series is making small storyline progression steps. Okay, not a HUGE deal or anything.
Before starting the game, you'll notice in the Options menu there's a difficulty setting. The game automatically has it set to Easy, and believe me, once you start the game you'll see why. The stages are pretty tough and easy mode is the correct difficulty for a first-time playthrough. To be completely honest, even on Easy mode this game is probably just as difficult as the last one, maybe even harder. The first few stages feature guards that are probably just as tough as they were in stages 10 and 11 from the previous Medal of Honor game. Yikes!
If you put the game on Normal mode, you'll only have 50% energy at the beginning of each stage. On Hard mode, the amount of energy you have left from the previous stage will carry over to the next stage So yeah, PLAY THE GAME ON EASY!!!
I had extremely mixed feelings once the game actually started up. Why you ask? Because the very first stage involves you finding your brother, and having you run directly behind him as he guides you through the rest of the level. To me, that's a sign of a game searching for a storyline change. While that's all fine and good, what made the original so great was how you were all alone on your missions and had to complete them by yourself. It kind of bothers me how in the very first level you're supposd to let your brother do all the killing while you stand back and watch. Of course, you can run past your brother and do all the killing yourself, but I'm not so sure that's a good idea. The point I'm trying to make is that throwing other people into the game shows signs of the Medal of Honor series moving in a direction involving more focused storylines, and I'm not very fond of that because the series is supposed to be all about shooting, killing, and well, more shooting.
Either way, once you complete level one, it seems the one-man army style from the previous game (well in this case, one-WOMAN army) has returned, which means, again it's just you by yourself exploring the stages and blasting guards, just like it was before. In other words, just how it SHOULD be.
It's harder to complete the objectives in this game compared to the original. I'm not exactly sure why, but it might have something to do with the layout of the stages which feature slightly more narrow hallways and smaller passageways. This makes it hard to see what's around the next corner soemtimes. Don't worry though, the stages are about as long as they were before, maybe even longer. But many times I'm finding in many situations you don't really have as much distance or freedom as you did before. This means you might walk up to a guard unexpectedly and not even realize it. Of course this means you will only have a split second to react.
Once again, head shots are your best friend. If you can manage to hit a guard in the head, he will probably fall over and die immediately. The soldiers look pretty much exactly like they did in the first MoH game. In fact, there's no changes at all as far as I can see. They don't seem to be any harder to kill or anything, but they aren't afraid to unleash some mean, nasty weapons on you either!
I don't like how this time around there's only a certain amount of ammo you can collect from each stage. For example, in one stage I couldn't collect any more machine gun bullets because I had 300 bullets and couldn't go past that. Things like that bother me a little.
I'm kind of disappointed the bullets from those big machine guns attached to the ground that you occasionally stumbled upon in the last game are slower this time around. Believe me, there's more guards in this game when you DO eventually find one of these machine guns, so because of the way the bullets fire slowly, you will probably get hit a lot more while trying to wipe out a group of guards. I'm actually finding it easier to ignore these stationed machine guns completely and just pull out either MY machine gun, or something else. It's easier and faster to kill with my weapons for some reason.
Speaking of machine guns, what's up with the way your female playable character holds the machine gun in this game? She holds it to the side like they do in the movies, I guess because it's supposed to look cool, haha.
Load times are about the same. It still takes 15 to 20 seconds to load a stage. I don't mind it myself. These stages are fun and exciting, so waiting a few seconds for them to load up isn't a problem for me personally.
Loading your progress to a memory card is kind of strange. Well, maybe it's because my memory card is almost full, but I can't get my file to appear at the very top. I have to scroll down and search for it. Also, maybe I'm seeing things, but the framerate doesn't feel quite as fast this time around. I don't know, there seems to be an ever-so-slight reaction delay when you jump up in the air. Everything else seems exactly like it was before, though. You probably won't even notice. Forget I said anything!
Now with all that whining and negativity out of the way, let's talk about why I give the game a near-perfect rating. The amount of creativity that was involved in making this game is unbelievable. The level designs are outstanding. This time around you have daytime stages while walking through sandy areas, and castle stages where you have to deal with guards hiding in armor (head shots will take care of them). Some returning environments return from the last game such as the nighttime forest levels. You have more of those in this game, not to mention more challenging ones.
The stages are longer and more challenging this time around, because you have to eliminate moving trucks, army tanks and motorcycles. This is not only a welcome addition for those of you only familiar with the original Medal of Honor, but also a welcome increase in challenge. I love when I come across a big moving tank and have to find a way to get it to stop moving completely. Because you're doing more than just running around blasting soldiers, this game can probably be considered more of a realistic wartime experience compared to the previous game.
I'd say the stages this time around are more like mazes instead of straight-ahead "going from room to room" combat. A good example is the one forest stage, where multiple paths are present and you have to find out which path leads to where. You'll be spending more time figuring out where to go and killing soldiers along the way. Overall, the stages feel longer this time around.
The soundtrack is once again incredible. You'll really feel like you're in the middle of a warzone for the entire time you're playing the game.
Either way, this is one really exciting game. Along with Quake II and the original Medal of Honor, this is the third best first-person shooter on the original Playstation. An old game that's still worth playing over and over again. The nonstop shooting action brings me back to it and glues me in every time. Well that and the fact I like to improve my accuracy every time I play the game. Those head shots are crucial not only for survival, but also to save on ammunition later on. Remember that!
Description of Medal of Honor Underground
Medal of Honor Underground is a prequel to the successful Medal of Honor. You play as Manon, a young French girl recruited by the French resistance fighting against the coming German onslaught. The Nazis will use suppressive firing, squad tactics, tanks, half-tracks, and motorcycles to try to stop you. The game features 22 levels spread throughout seven missions, with 12 authentic weapons, including the pistol crossbow and the Panzerfaust. A new disguise mode allows Manon access to the Third Reich's most evil secrets. Artificial intelligence-controlled fellow agents will assist by battling the Gestapo, cracking safes, and driving vehicles. After fighting the Nazis across Europe and North Africa, try battling your friends in Medal of Honor Underground's split-screen multiplayer arenas.Medal of Honor Underground is a prequel to the successful Medal of Honor. You play as Manon, a young French girl recruited by the French resistance fighting against the coming German onslaught. The Nazis will use suppressive firing, squad tactics, tanks, half-tracks, and motorcycles to try to stop you. The game features 22 levels spread throughout seven missions, with 12 authentic weapons, including the pistol crossbow and the Panzerfaust. A new disguise mode allows Manon access to the Third Reich's most evil secrets. Artificial intelligence-controlled fellow agents will assist by battling the Gestapo, cracking safes, and driving vehicles. After fighting the Nazis across Europe and North Africa, try battling your friends in Medal of Honor Underground's split-screen multiplayer arenas.
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