Back in the days I played the 2 games on the PS1 and they were some of my favourite but I never got to play more than the demo of MoH:AA. I finally decided to give it a go and... yeah. This isn't that the game is old, it's plain and simply badly made. The contemporary critics actually pointed this out, but at the time it made a huge impression by depicting the D-Day landings and its general cinematographic atmosphere gave it a pass. Let's start with the good points. First, sound design. The orchestral music is amazing and does a lot of the heavy lifting to pull you in. The voice acting is alright (which is good for 2002), the weapons sound appropriately satisfying and the environment gives a lot of background noises and details. Then, the levels generally look good, are credible and do a good job at getting you into the mood. All this makes for great atmosphere that tends to pull you in. What doesn't tend to pull you in is the rest though, starting with the graphics. Buildings and set pieces are pretty, but nature looks like garbage. Smeared textures and flat pixellated bushes. The character models don't look great either, with a bad case of sameface that is increased by the creepy amount of facial details. But the worst part is really the gameplay. You are expected to use stealth at many places but there are no stealth mechanics whatsoever. You get detected seemingly at random and always end up fighting your way through very quick. The player character control is abysmal. The game wants to be a fast-paced shooter but you move way too slow for that. Reload animation are too long, but so is changing weapon, so in an emergency you are screwed. Most weapons suck and barely seem to do damage, with the M1 Garand being a big offender. Enemies seem to all be aware of your position at all times and have superhuman aim and reflexes. Simply frustrating. If you really want to play it, wait for a sale and just stop playing when it gets frustrating because it won't get better.
