My Top 100: #37 – Medal of Honor: Frontline

 

If Call of Duty 2 was the last amazing World War II shooter before the genre got stale, then Medal of Honor: Frontline is the game that started the whole mess to begin with.

Sure, the Medal of Honor franchise had been kicking around since Saving Private Ryan hit theatres, being one of the off-shoots Steven Spielberg contributed his writing to (the incredible Band of Brothers miniseries was the other).  Unfortunately, the PlayStation’s blocky resolution and short drawing distance limited your ability to truly feel like you were wandering the streets of Paris, or…  wherever else you went in that game.  I’m not sure – I don’t think I’ve ever gone beyond the first level.

I do own it, however!

In any case, EA made the leap into the new generation with 2002’s Frontline, forever changing the face of first person shooters in the 21st century.

 

 

After a sequence that (almost perfectly) re-creates the first scene of Saving Private Ryan from a first person perspective, Frontline throws you head first into the invasion of Normandy on D-Day.  Bullets are whizzing by, shells are going off left and right, and your Captain is yelling orders at you through the haze of battle.  As I rushed across the sand to provide covering fire, I felt that strange giddy mix of excitement, fear and anticipation.  I wasn’t even actually shooting anyone yet, but I knew I was in for quite a battle.

The rest of the game doesn’t quite match the intensity of the Normandy level, but there’s definitely a wide variety of things to experience.  You snipe, you sneak, you go through countryside villages, and have shootouts on submarines and trains…  all things that we’ve seen plenty of by now, but was quite mind-blowing at the time.

In one of the villages you walk through, there’s an old lady on her front porch, holding a broom.  Instead of sweeping, she just stands there, clutching the broom in fear, trembling.  When I first noticed her, I kinda just stood there and watched.  It was an emotional side that I had seen in movies before, but never in games.

Well done, EA!  It’s too bad the genre had to go so far downhill, so quickly after this.

I played the game for the first time at Abba’s place.  After rushing out to grab my own copy, I actually went to my sister’s room to hook up my PS2.  She had her TV hooked up to massive speakers, so I figured it would be the best way to experience the audio.  Obviously, it wasn’t ideal, so I had to figure out a way to get this setup in my own room.

Thankfully, we had an old amplifier sitting in our basement, collecting dust and not serving any purpose other than an incredibly huge paperweight.

 

 

My parents suggested I hook this thing up to my TV, and use the speakers from the sound system that I normally used for playing music.  They weren’t that big, but they could definitely do the trick.  I had played lots of Tool and Red Hot Chili Peppers tunes to prove that!

After figuring out the best way to hook it up to the small TV in my bedroom, I gave it a shot.  As I turned on the PS2 and the trademark “wwhhhhhheeeerrrrrrr” sound effect came on…  it sounded like a bomb had gone off next to my head.

In my infinite wisdom, I hadn’t checked any of the volume knobs on the amp beforehand, and of course, they were all cranked to the highest levels possible.  Probably from me playing with the then-unhooked amp as a small child, perhaps.  I wouldn’t put it past me.  In any case, there was ringing in my ears for a few minutes.  After the initial shock wore off (and everyone came to ask what the hell had happened), I settled in to play Frontline.

As the intro rolled along, it became apparent that I had blown something in my speakers.  The scream of “THIRTY SECOONNNDSS” sounded like “THCHRRTCHCH CHECHHONNNNSH”.

Unreal.  All I wanted was to get some booming stereo sound of my own, and it went to hell in a handbasket because of my Knob Negligence (TM, Andre Suley, 2013).  I was beyond pissed off – I wasn’t even able to let go of some of that rage by thrashing out on my bass!

Gah.  That was so dumb.

And that’s why Medal of Honor: Frontline is one of my favourite games.