Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
Developer(s)	2015, Inc.
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Engine	Quake III Arena (with Ritual's custom SDK)
Version	1.11
Platform(s)	PC (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)
Release date	January 22, 2002
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: T (Teen) ELSPA: 15+ PEGI: 12+
Media	CD (2)
System requirements	450 MHz CPU, 128MB RAM, 1.2GB Hard disk space, 16MB GPU
Input methods	Keyboard and mouse

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (MOHAA) is a first-person shooter (FPS) computer game developed by 2015, Inc. and created by Steven Spielberg. It is the 3rd installment of the Medal of Honor series. The game, based on the Quake III Arena engine with modifications from Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.², simulates infantry combat in the European and North African Theaters during World War II. Allied Assault is the first game in the Medal of Honor series to be released for Windows, and the only one to be ported to Linux.

In the game the player takes on the role of Lt. Mike Powell of the United States Army Rangers who works for the OSS. Single player missions include assaulting German bases in Algiers and Norway, storming Omaha Beach on D-Day, and rescuing comrades behind enemy lines in occupied France. The original game's Omaha Beach mission is often compared to Steven Spielberg's 1998 film Saving Private Ryan. This level was re-created in Medal of Honor: Frontline for consoles. Other elements in the game are also comparable to the film, like the "Sniper Town" level and the "Guarding of the Bridge" level where the final battle sequence of the movie is very similar in action and visuals to the game.

The game has been re-released as the Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Deluxe Edition which includes the Medal of Honor: Spearhead expansion pack, two strategy guides, music from Allied Assault, and a preview of Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, and the Medal of Honor Allied Assault War Chest which includes the game and both expansion packs.

Overview

The game follows US Army Lt. Mike Powell, an agent for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Lt. Powell is sent through six missions in the North African and European theatre and is expected to complete multiple objectives on every mission. Col. Stanley Hargrove, Powell's mission commander, sends briefings and important information on how to complete your mission every so often. Along the way Powell will frequently be helped by Allied forces, however most of the time he is on his own against the Germans.

• Lighting the Torch (November 7, 1942) takes place in and around the Algerian coastal town of Arzew, where Powell is the lone survivor of his ranger squad after an ambush. He helps secure the beaches for Operation Torch as well as rescue SAS commando Maj. Jack Grillo.
• In Scuttling the U-529 (February 12, 1943), Powell goes to Norway to scuttle the U529, and destroy a prototype Naxos radar detector, a device that would shift the balance of power in the Atlantic back to the Nazis. It should also be noted that Major Grillo meets his untimely end here, after letting Powell into the complex .
• In Operation Overlord (June 6-7, 1944), Powell must survive the assault on Omaha Beach (This level became legendary in the course of WWII shooters and was heralded the most intense mission of the entire game), and then go with Capt. Ramsey to find paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division and assist them in taking out a battery of Nebelwerfers outside Carentan.
• In Behind Enemy Lines (June 22, 1944), Powell goes behind enemy lines to gather intelligence on German infantry movements and gain information on the German's rumored "King Tiger Tank."
• In Day of the Tiger (August 20, 1944), Powell has to protect an Allied tank crew and steal a King Tiger, in order to seize a bridge to quicken the siege of the town of Brest, France.
• In The Return to Schmerzen (January 18, 1945), Powell must go to Fort Schmerzen and destroy it. Schmerzen (pain in German) is a mustard gas production facility that Lt. James Patterson ironically gassed in Medal of Honor (PS).

Multiplayer

Medal of Honor also features a multiplayer mode where it is possible to play up to 64 players at the same time. Several game modes are available:

• Free for All - A classic Deathmatch where every player fights for his own.
• Team Deathmatch - Where Allies team faces off against Axis teams.
• Round Based - Same as Team Deathmatch, but players do not respawn after being killed. The team which has the last man standing wins the round.
• Objective - Allies or Axis have to plant one or more bombs at a given location and the other team have to defend this location.

Several gametypes have been added through the use of mods:

• Freeze Tag - A popular mod. Just like Team Deathmatch except once killed you are frozen and must await unfreezing from your team mates.
• Freeze Tag - Objective - Mod, similarly to Objective you must plant/defend bomb targets except you are frozen when you die and must be 'melted' by team mates to continue.
• Demolition - Each side has an object they must prevent from be bombed by the opposite side, similarly to Objective, except this is played on Death Match maps.
• Capture The Flag - Teams have to steal the flag from the opposite side and return it to their base.
• Basebuilder - Players spend a few minutes placing objects like boxes on a certain map and then play that map.
• Assassination - Remniscent of the Counter-Strike game mode by the same name - one player is randomly chosen to be a VIP that one of the teams escorts to an extraction point while the other tries to eliminate him.
• Survival Horror - One randomly chosen player becomes the murderer, who plays alone, is invisible (appears only for short periods when attacking, glowing red) and equipped with a silenced pistol, giving him an significant tactical advantage despite being outnumbered, while all the rest of the players try to remain alive and hunt down the murderer. Once he's dead (or his time to play killer is up), a new murderer is picked.

Spearhead and Breakthrough add some more gamemodes:

• Tug of War - Players have multiple objectives which can be retaken by the opposing team. Players also respawn in this mode.
• Liberation - Same as Team Deathmatch, but players that get killed will respawn in the enemy prison. The only way you can be released is if a fellow team mate pulls the lever to lift the jail door bars.

Expansion packs

Spearhead is the first expansion pack for Allied Assault. It was developed by EA Los Angeles. Spearhead re-enacts 3 major European Theater battles through the eyes of Sgt. Jack Barnes (who is voiced by Gary Oldman), a paratrooper of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. As Barnes, players land behind the Atlantic Wall on D-Day in Normandy, hold the line near Bastogne in the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge, and infiltrate Berlin before the Red Army begins their attack. Spearhead adds Russian and British weapons to the player's arsenal as well as being available for multiplayer selection.

Breakthrough is the second expansion pack for Medal of Honor: Allied Assault this time developed by TKO Software where the player takes the role of Sgt. John Baker of the US 34th Infantry Division. This campaign covers the Battle of Kasserine Pass, the turning point of the North African campaign, the fall of Bizerte and the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, along with the epic race to Messina, Italy between George Patton's 7th U.S. Army and Bernard Law Montgomery's British 8th Army, the bloody Battle of Monte Cassino, followed by the amphibious landings and defense of the beachhead at Anzio, Italy in 1944. Breakthrough adds Italian weapons for single player and multiplayer as well as the British and Russian weapons from Spearhead.

As a note, there were in fact two men named John Baker in the United States Army who received the Medal of Honor. (One during the Indian Wars and one during the Vietnam War.)

Engine recreation

In December 2007 a community-driven free software project named OpenMoHAA has been started with the objective of turning the ioquake3 Quake III Arena engine source port into one capable of running MoHAA's media assets and gameplay. Although at an early development stage, significant success has already been claimed in the field of running the original game's levels.

Awards

• E3 2001 Game Critics Awards: Special Commendation for Sound

See also

• Return to Castle Wolfenstein
• Call of Duty
• Battlefield 1942
• Hidden and Dangerous
• Brothers In Arms: Road to Hill 30
• Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45
• Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault
• Medal of Honor: Airborne
• OpenMoHAA

External links

Official sites

• MoH official page
• 2015, developer of MoH:AA

Reviews

• Collection of reviews of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
• IGN review
• Medal of Honor: Allied Assault at MobyGames
• Medal of Honor: Allied Assault at the Internet Movie Database

Community

• .MAP Medal of Honor
• Mods-r-Us
• The Modding Theater
• Downloads for Freeze-Tag, Capture the flag and Demolition