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By Contributing Writer Rob Pecknold Rating: Awesome A lot of weird things are happening as we approach the new millennium. First, we get the amazingly fun Tony Hawk's Pro Skater from Neversoft, the company that made the craptacular Apocalypse. Now, after making such horrible games as Jurassic Park: Trespasser and Small Soldiers, Dreamworks Interactive has created Medal of Honor, one of the best first-person shooters ever released. I have to commend Medal of Honor's development team for making some great level maps. They are fairly linear, but they end up having a great effect on you nonetheless. Also, compared to the enemies in Tomorrow Never Dies, the enemies in Medal of Honor are Yale graduates. They can hear you sneaking up on them, they will run if you've got a lot more firepower than they do, and they will call for back-up when necessary. If you throw a grenade at a group of Nazis, one of them might even jump on it in order to save his comrades! Medal of Honor has the best AI found in any PlayStation shooter, whether it's third-person or first-person. Medal of Honor has better area-specific damage than Goldeneye ever had, with different reactions for every single square inch of the Nazis' bodies. Also, you not only get to see the stats for your area-specific damage after each level, but you also get a ranking and sometimes an award based on your skills and where you hit enemies the most. As good as all of the missions are, the best ones are the ones in which you go undercover pretending to a common Nazi. The tension in these levels is incredible, and chills will definitely go down your spine when your true identity is discovered and dozens of Nazis try to shoot you to pieces. Medal of Honor is a very authentic World War II experience, right down to the recoil of the guns that you use. That's no surprise, though, considering that Captain Dale Dye, the historical consultant for Saving Private Ryan, was hired to make Medal of Honor just as accurate as the movie. He even put the developers through a mini boot camp in order to make them realize what real soldiers have to go through. Even with its awesome AI, atmosphere, and historical accuracy, the best part about this game is its soundtrack. Medal of Honor's soundtrack was made to mimic the symphonic sounds from Saving Private Ryan, and the result is the best soundtrack I've ever heard in a first-person shooter. Considering that the rest of the game is so good, the fact that the graphics are only decent is a big disappointment. The enemies are animated very nicely, and there isn't too much pop-up, but the graphics are very muddy and pixelated. The graphics are even worse in multi-player mode thanks to much lower frame rates and environments that are much less detailed. The multi-player mode isn't fun enough to warrant long-term play, but this doesn't hurt the game that much since the single-player mode offers such a great story and such varied missions. In addition to being one of the best PlayStation games of the year, Medal of Honor is also the best first-person shooter available on the system. If you have even the slightest interest in first-person shooters, don't hesitate to pick up Medal of Honor. Send your thoughts on this review to rob@mastergamer.com
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