Medal of Honor Allied Assault: Spearhead

Medal Of Honor: Spearhead

At long last it’s once again time to equip your medals and get ready for some Second World War battle. Barely has the original version, the "mother" if you will, gathered a grain of dust, before the first add-on for MoHAA sees the light of day. Spearhead, even though it’s "only" and add-on to the original game, is no less than a massive addition to a great game.

EA, one of the true giants in the industry, managed to get the "Game of The Year Award" last year for MoHAA, and with Spearhead seem to have a candidate for that title once again. It might be wrapped as an add-on, demanding you’ve already purchased the original game beforehand, but still it looks and feels more like a real sequel.

D-Day once again

June 6th, 1944 – probably the most important date of the century. You are Sargent Jack Barnes, an American paratrooper, waiting with your buddies high up in the skies, preparing to descent on the wartorn hell below. The fight is raginf between the Germans and The Allies, a war of nerves, endurance and chance, if there’s such a thing at all in times of war.

Not much is left to chance, really, in Spearhead. The player is at times tied on hands and feet to act in a linear manner – which is both good and bad. You won’t be able to complete the missions in the course of one night though. This game demands just a little more effort, and so much for the better. But really, it’s a bit dissapointing that your team mates must die at certain times in the game, and that it seems best to shoot the Axis soldiers in a specific order. These issues canøt be viewed as minor only, but unfortunately no patch can really fix them either.

Players with a scroll-button on the mouse might experience their targeting scope suddenly appearing in the middle of a fight when changing weapons, which might just be your last mistake on the battlefield. "Watch it, I’ve got a scope! Gonna shoot!!"..nah, right?

Beautiful country of ze enemy

Medal Of Honor: Spearhead

In this game you are constantly situated behind enemy lines. The landscapes and buildings around you are realistically depicted, and – just as in the the earlier MOH games on PSone and PS2 – it heightens the unique atmosphere. The realism is high, and the soundscapes are believable. When you reload your gun, it really takes quite a while – just like in real life. Everything but your choice of additional weapons and smoke grenads seems the same from the original game. It’s a cool visual effect, though, when you dump those red-smoked M18 Grenades in the snowclad landscapes of the Ardennes. This part of your inventory adds a lot to the Multiplayer part of the game. It was kind of missing from start, anyway.

The add-on boasts 12 new multiplayer maps, among these a few very large and detailed ones. This part of the game is still a potantial timestealer, where you not only get to smash your opponent to bits and pieces, but also his surroundings. The cool thing here being, that the wall he is camping behind can be blown away. The game still needs a bit more gore and chunks, it seems. This would help to raise the level of realism even more.

Oldman steps it up

Medal Of Honor: Spearhead

EA have signed Hollwood buff Gary Oldman (The Fifth Element, Leon, Bram Stoker’s: Dracula m.m.) to act as the voice of the main character, thereby being the storyteller of the game. We ordinarily know Oldman from luxury cameo-parts, where he is often depicted as being a mean and narcissistic guy, but in the case of Spearhead, he is a much more sympathetic and melancholic actor. He does the job well, five stars for his effort. And if we guess correctly, this is not the first time we’ll see that constellation in a game like this. But that’s an entirely different story.

An extended add-on

Medal Of Honor: Spearhead

If you read the small print on the cover, right under “Expansion Pack” it says First Edition Central Europe. This gives quite a clear indication of more releases looming on the horizon. Let’s just hope that if future add-ons are planned, that they won’t only be weapon upgrades, but actually add new elements to the gameplay as well. It’s clear that EA knows theyve got a hit on their hands - but what the h… it works!

Medal of Honor Allied Assault is a classic already, and even though this add-on doesn’t quite reach the skies in the same way as the original game, you really should look into it if you enjoyed the first release.