Medal of Honor: Frontline is the latest entry in the acclaimed Medal of Honor series of WWII-era first-person shooters. First appearing on the Sony PlayStation back in 1998, Medal of Honor brought a sense of military realism and historical authenticity to a genre mainly known for straightforward action. The series gets the next-generation treatment in Frontline, which makes its debut on the PlayStation2, along with the PC game Allied Assault. WWII buffs have a lot of great gaming in store for them, though a few problems hold MOH:F back from being all that it can be.

Upon starting the game, the extremely high production values are immediately noticeable. From the menu screens to the mission briefings to the heads-up display, everything looks and feels like vintage material from the 1940s wartime era. Missions are preceded with segments of black-and-white war footage, as well as a manilla dossier that outlines mission objectives. The voiceovers are perfectly suited to the tone of the game, even though I had difficulty understanding them at times. Even the options screen resembles a desk full of old-school radio equipment with analog knobs and dials. Simply put, the game looks, eats and sleeps World War II.

The first mission, Your Finest Hour, recreates the atmosphere of the hectic, bombed-out beach on Normandy's coast. This scene, popularized by the film Saving Private Ryan, is an extremely intense and gripping experience, and one of the most impressive and effective uses of next-generation technology I've yet seen. Playing the role of Lt. Jimmy Patterson, you start out with your squad on a boat bound for the coast. Though you can't move initially, you can look around to witness German planes bombing the hell out of everything, and then suddenly you're underwater, watching your comrades torn apart by machine gun fire. After slogging through the surf, you meet up with your Captain, who issues your orders. You then attempt to help out your squad along the beach, amid the roar of planes, incessant gun fire and bombs exploding all around you. The experience is intense, engaging and LOUD. The volume of gunfire and explosions is almost deafening at times, and serves to pull you deeper into the experience. It works to great effect, so turn those speakers up when playing this game for the first time.

After the intense opening mission, the game settles in to a more relaxed pace. Missions take place in a variety of locations, ranging from Dutch villages, to German U-boat shipyards, to the French countryside. There are towns to storm, villages to save and bridges to blow to kingdom come. There is much visual diversity, which helps break up the action. Mission objectives usually involve infiltrating enemy territory and recovering documents or meeting up with covert operatives, and blasting Nazi soldiers into oblivion. There are many pre-scripted events that flesh out the story and provide you with instructions pointing you in the right direction. Unfortunately this detracts from the realism, as certain characters will always die despite your best efforts to save them, and others will smile happily no matter how many bullets you or the enemy pump into them.

During lulls in the action, the orchestral score comes soaring in over the proceedings. Provided by Michael Giacchino and the NorthWest Symphonia, the score in MOH:F does an outstanding job of recreating the Hollywood war epics that have graced the silver screen in recent years. Again, the production values are top-of-the-line in this game, and the excellent score only punctuates that point. Sound effects too are faithful representations of real world sounds, from weapons firing, to cackling fires, to bullets lodging themselves into wooden walls. German soldiers speak German (though there are English subtitles), and Allies voice their lines with competent, if not always believable, delivery. It's sometimes hard to hear your comrades talking above the background noise, but that most likely reflects real battlefield conditions.

In terms of visual technology, the game is a mixed bag. One the one hand, EA has crafted large levels filled with an impressive amount of geometry. Bombed-out buildings, urban decay and burnt, flaming wreckage are all modeled with attention to fine detail. Enemy soldiers are well-modeled and well-textured, and sport an impressive array of facial animations. They move fairly realistically as well, ducking for cover under cars, walls or chunks of debris. Some nice lighting effects add polish to each level. Explosions look great, with debris and dust being thrown into the air in convincing fashion. The first-person camera shakes when ordinance explodes nearby, adding to the already detailed presentation.

Medal of Honor: Frontline looks much sharper and cleaner than previous games in the series, though the game is still rife with problems. Chief among these is the frame rate, which hovers around 30fps when nothing is happening, but quickly drops when the action picks up. I expect a smooth 60fps presentation from 128 bit games, so this chuggy frame rate is quite disappointing. Textures are low-resolution and smeary, which is growing less acceptable in this third generation of PS2 software. The draw distance is fairly short in many levels, which limits the effectiveness of weapons like the sniper rifle (Nijmegen Bridge comes to mind). Overall the game is firmly in the middle of the PS2 pack, neither great nor terrible, but a little disappointing considering the visually stunning games I'm accustomed to seeing on this platform.

Mediocre visuals are acceptable, though, if a game is built on a solid framework of intuitive play mechanics and engaging gameplay (think Grand Theft Auto III). Unfortunately, this is not the case with MOH:F, as it plays much worse than it looks. Playing an FPS game on a console is a bit of a crapshoot to begin with, but games like Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Goldeneye 007 and Red Faction proved that the concept can work with diligence and extensive play testing. Not so in Frontline. Movement with the left analog stick feels stiff, but is still manageable, if a bit slow. The real problem is the free look, accomplished by moving the right analog stick. Lining up the weapon crosshairs quickly becomes an exercise in frustration, as the control is not sensitive enough to allow precise movement. Couple this with a sluggish frame rate, and you'll find yourself jerking your rifle from side to side, missing targets just a few feet in front of you. The rest of the button placement is workable, and the game even offers the ability to completely customize the controller configuration. This is a nice feature that is sorely missing in most games nowadays. The different layout options can't solve the analog sensitivity problem, so no matter which scheme you select, the game is still clumsy and clunky.

Compounding the poor control is the routine and linear level design. Despite the illusion of free-roaming environments, MOH:F is nothing more than a corridor shooter, with pre-set paths through each level. There are very few opportunities to stray off the main path and explore, and few secrets to discover (save for ammo hidden in crates). Even during missions that take place in towns and cities, you can't duck down alleys or take alternate routes through the streets, and there are virtually no buildings which you can enter. While this streamlined approach to level design helps speed things along, it would have been nice to plan different strategies for the same missions. Instead, you'll be carrying out missions the same way each time, greatly diminishing replay value. Even with straight-ahead levels, mission objectives still are not obvious much of the time. Thankfully, EA included an in-game hint feature, which you can access with the Select button. It's not always clear how to accomplish mission objectives, but the help feature bailed me out when I got stumped, especially when I couldn't find that damned clock with the documents in it.

Weapon selection, naturally, is excellent. From pistols to rifles to automatics, the game provides a healthy arsenal with which to defend freedom. While not as robust as other shooter games, there's more than enough here to get the job done. Automatics are great for taking on a group of enemies, though the inaccuracy of the MP-40 or M1 Garand will make you think twice about jumping into a room full of soldiers. The Shotgun is fun to use, though its unfortunate lack of stopping power hampers its effectiveness. The most useful weapon is the Springfield Sniper Rifle, which sports a zoom scope perfect for scoring headshots at long distances. Reloading times are appropriately slow, so you must carefully plan when and where to reload your weapons. There are also a few mounted machine guns that appear in some levels, and you can commandeer these to pump some lead into hordes of Nazi soldiers. There are some explosive weapons (like the bazooka) which see limited use on certain levels, but are fun to tool around with nonetheless.

The claim of authenticity is the games' greatest strength for certain, but at the same time its' biggest flaw shines like a beacon. The game is rated T, which means that no matter how intense the game becomes, it can't make that all-important leap to the next level of graphic realism. There's no blood, no gore, no limbs flung from bodies, no enemies torn to pieces by exploding shrapnel, no comrades desperately trying to hold in their leaking entrails while pleading to you for mercy. When killed, soldiers simply fall over and disappear - no fuss, no muss. For all its audiovisual wonderment, there's never a moment when you'll feel overwhelmed. Perhaps this is not the hardware generation that will provide us with such moving and realistic interactive entertainment, but it's clear that EA is attempting just that with MOH:F, and they come up way short.

This is a shame, but ultimately it doesn't really matter, as the game has many other unfortunate flaws that prevent it from being the experience that EA intended. The production values are unquestionably high, but control issues and uninspired level design conspire to suck most of the fun out of what begins as a promising game. Despite flashes of brilliance, Medal of Honor: Frontline is a B-grade game at best, and is probably only worth a five-day rental from your local video store. If you're a diehard Medal of Honor fan, Frontline is the only game of its kind on PlayStation2, but if you're a multi-platform gamer, you're probably better off playing Medal of Honor: Allied Assault on the PC. Regardless, everyone should check this game out at some point, if only for that insane first mission.