BMTG Founder and President, The Diesel, is also the resident BMTG Movie Critic. Here can be found all of Diesel's reviews, as well as guest reviews by other BMTG members.
Godfather, The
Medal of Honor Series - Frontline, Rising Sun, European Assault
Review
by Sandman
This
is a great game. It is very similar to Grand Theft Auto with a great story
line. Beginning the game we start as a boy whose father is murdered by a rival
mob family. As the father is murdered we are comforted by none other than
Don Vito Coreleone, the leader the Corleone crime family. He says that to
avenge the father’s death we have to go strong and then and only then
can we avenge the death of the father – similar to the way Vito avenged
the death of his father and mother, and brother in the Godfather movie.
The goal of the game is to become Don of NYC. To do this we have to extort all the businesses in Little Italy, Brooklyn, Midtown, New Jersey and Hell’s Kitchen. We then have to take over all the rackets, bomb all the compounds, take over the warehouses and hubs and do all the missions assigned to us by the Corleones. We also must buy all the safe houses in the various cities as well. The last step of the puzzle is to kill each leader of the four other rival families.
The rival families and the areas they control are:
Little Italy Corleone Midtown Barzini New Jersey Stracci Brooklyn Tattaglia Hell’s Kitchen Cuneo
This
game is repetitive, but as your experience increases and you level up with
health, speed, and street smarts, the game is easier and you can jam through
missions pretty easily.
I recommend watching The Godfather Part I and Part II as a refresher in the Godfather Story. It helps a bit to know what is coming next in the story line.
To beat the game I would set aside 30-40 hours to become the Don of NYC.
The weapons that they have are stellar and as the game goes on you can buy better weaponry. I highly recommend the Dillinger. It holds 250 clips per magazine. I also recommend the Python. The Python is the best hand gun that is available in the game. It can be lethal with head shots.
The
graphics on the game are also tremendous. The game takes place in 1940’s
Italy so the buildings and neighborhoods are all done to look from this era.
I really recommend this game to any Godfather enthusiast or those who love a good video game with a great story line.
Medal of Honor Series - Frontline, Rising Sun, European Assault
Review
by White Russian
Frontline
was given great reviews when it came out several years ago, but the other
two have been criticized. Rising Sun was beat up for being too short and being
the same as Frontline with different maps. European Assault has been beat
up by some for not making a big enough leap a la the Brothers in Arms and
Call of Duty games.
The bottom line, however, is that all three games are a lot of fun to play, which, after all, is the point of video games. The graphics are very good, the sound is excellent, the controls are easy to use, and the weapons are well done. There is a good balance between giving the game a realistic feel with historical accuracy and making it an enjoyable video game experience with plenty of action.
Frontline has you playing a soldier behind enemy lines starting on Omaha Beach and making your way to the heart of Nazi Germany, Rising Sun starts in Pearl Harbor and moves on to the Pacific Theatre, and European Assault has you as the first field operative of the newly formed Office of Strategic Services (OSS), taking you into France, North Africa, Russia, and Belgium (Battle of the Bulge).
One
of the criticisms of the series has been that there is not a lot of actual
strategy, instead you are one guy who just runs through and takes care of
the enemy single handed, especially in Frontline and Rising Sun. European
Assault introduces the squad concept and the maps are much more open, leaving
it up to you to explore and complete objectives in whatever order you want.
The squad based aspect of European Assault is pretty basic and you can just
let the three men assigned to you do their own thing while you take care of
the majority of the enemy, but you can’t just rush in and start firing
away or you will fall pretty quickly. In European Assault you have to take
cover and take your time, especially starting with the first Russian mission
– the Road to Stalingrad, where the difficulty takes a dramatic increase
and extra ammo and med kits are in short supply. Your squad mates, as well
as other allies that are not under your control, do not kill a bunch of the
enemy, but they take care of some and provide cover fire. I don’t want
my squad mates killing off everybody, anyway, and I don’t mind that
one soldier doing most of the killing is a bit unrealistic. It is a video
game and when you play you naturally want to do the action yourself, whether
it is realistic or not.
While European Assault may not make as big a leap as the critics crave, it adds enough to set it apart from the first two titles. In addition to the more open map is the adrenaline meter. As you go through a mission your adrenaline will build up based on what you are doing. When it is full, you can activate it and for a short time everything goes in slow motion while you become invincible. You just have to make sure you are out of danger when the adrenaline meter runs out or you will find yourself standing in the middle of a firestorm and you will no longer be invincible.
Of all the openings, Frontline has the best, with you being on one of the boats that lands on Omaha Beach on D-Day. When playing it the first time, there is an intense feel as you make your way up the beach, not knowing how difficult it is going to be. It turns out that the openings to all three games are not difficult at all, but they are very well done.
Controls
All three games have slightly different controls. This is a little annoying,
but not too big a deal to adjust to. From Medal of Honor to Rising Sun, the
controls change for no apparent good reason, but in Rising Sun you have the
ability to customize the controller to make it similar to Frontline. The controls
change a bit more when going to European Assault, but this is because more
features have been added. The adjustment is not difficult to make, especially
if you are focused on one game at time. If you jump back and forth between
the games, it would probably get a bit cumbersome.
Award System
All three games also have different ways of awarding medals at the end of
each mission. You can earn bronze, silver, or gold, based on how well you
do. In Frontline, just finishing the mission gets you a bronze, finishing
the mission while eliminating 95% of the enemy gets you a silver, and finishing
the mission while eliminating 95% of the enemy and ending with 75% health
gets you gold. The only problem is that it seems to be virtually impossible
to get gold in one of the missions – where you are riding in a mine
car on a roller coaster type track and you have enemies to the left and right.
There is no way to go back once you have sped past, so getting rid of 95%
of them seems like a long shot.
The award system in Rising Sun is probably lacking the most, as it is not always easy to tell even how close you were to getting gold. Different criteria are used than in Frontline, now taking into account how accurate you are with your shot. Using accuracy as a condition for a gold medal is a bad idea, as one time on a machine gun will kill your accuracy rating as you rattle off shots. Try manning a machine gun while riding an elephant (which does happen in Rising Sun) and see what happens to your accuracy.
The medal criteria on European Assault is the easiest of them all to follow, as you just need to finish every objective for gold, not just the main objective.
Saving Progress
In Frontline and European Assault, you have to finish your mission before
you can save. In Rising Sun there are various save points scattered throughout
the missions. None come close to the checkpoint concept that is done so well
in Halo, but the series was on the right track with Rising Sun, where you
could play for a short amount of time and still be able to save your progress.
For some reason, the save points are abandoned on European Assault. Instead
the revive feature has been introduced. Typically you start a level with some
med kits and two revives, and get more as you complete the supplemental objectives.
Med kits are used to heal yourself or your squad mates. A revive is used when
you are killed, and you continue in the same location with half health. So,
if you die in the middle of a crowd of Germans, they will continue attacking
you when you come back. The good thing about the revives is that you do not
have to start the mission over, but the major drawback is that you still have
to finish the mission to save your progress, meaning you can easily spend
an hour before you reach a point where you can save the game.
Length
Frontline seemed to be just the right length. Rising Sun was too short. European
Assault is in between.
Multiplayer
Standard deathmatch style. Not as good as Halo, of course, but still enjoyable.
European Assault has some good variations on the capture the flag style games.
No option for cooperative play, which is a negative.
