Medal of Honor: Allied Assault War Chest

I remember being very impressed by and completely immersed in this game when it first came out. Playing it again I realized that the things that wowed me at the time are exactly the stuff that don't stand the test of 20 years. It's an extremely linear shooter, with occasional sections where it might seem like you have a choice but then get arbitrarily punished for them. At the time this was great because the shortcomings of the level design was overshadowed by the cinematic design of the missions, but looking at it now, the things that make for a great cinematic experience—good visual effects, good sound design, good animation—well, games (including probably several dozens of WWII shooters) just do it much better now and this doesn't look good as my standards have changed...and frankly, the novelty of "cinematic" ultra-linear games quickly wore off for me. Personally, I will always compare this to Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the more pulp sci-fi/paranormal themed WWII game released the same year. That has aged much more gracefully and remains a more unique experience. If you want what MoHAA can give you, there's been more than a few linear WWII shooters like it since that are basically just incremental improvements to its core. I sort of resent writing this review because I know how much I loved this game when it was released, and of course it's not the game's fault that the genre that it basically invented is such trite by now or that realistic graphics from 2002 haven't aged well.

It's getting hard to find a game without gay content in it. This one has none!!

I'm tempted to write "Here's all you need to know: you get to ride a WWII Panzer tank and level a village (yes, there's destructible environment in that level). But that's not the whole picture. This game started the whole 'modern military shooter genre but it's not quite there. It combines the elements of the old-school shooters and spunkgargleweewee, so on one hand you get health packs and decent weaponry, on the other hand you get teammates that get in your way and a shitty ending. Worth having, still more enjoyable than anything that came after COD4 but it also shows its age plus WWII is still kinda tiring.

I had this game on disc back in 2003, played it a few times, but never really got past D-Day. 18 years later and this go around is more frustrating than a trip down memory lane. Spent over an hour getting the game to run, after researching found a fix for it, and it runs, but not the greatest. It stutters a lot, especially during the D-Day invasion. Also, I find it quite annoying that every time I'm shot, first person view goes bonkers. The enemies have incredibly accurate shooting, yet I've shot them dead in the head, and they kneeled and got back up...really? Either that, or they are bullet sponges, I ran out of ammo constantly, and the reload time for weapons is atrocious. For a game released for PC in 2002, I found the graphics to be extremely lacking in detail. It feels like a console game slapped on to a PC. A year earlier Return to Castle Wolfenstein came out, and the game play and graphics were far superior, so what's EA's excuse? Enough about the bad, the good is, the game does a great job making you feel like you are a solider in World War II, especially with the high quality soundtrack, level briefings, and ambiance. Their are a lot of movie references in the game, like the Sub Base & Uboat are lifted straight out of Das Boot. D-Day level is a tribute to Saving Private Ryan. I imagine if you're an older gamer you may find the short comings of this game are just par for the course. It will bring you back to the days of Pentium 3's and PS2's. However, if you're a newer gamer, the experience alone to get this sucker running may not be worth it.

It instantly breaks on Windows 10 and doesn't run when you change game resolution.