Richard Ingram takes a look at this highly-anticipated WWII shooter.

If there was one rolling demo displayed at the E3 event last year, which titillated the taste buds of journalists and enthusiasts alike, it was most certainly the Omaha Beach scenes from Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. Before the show the franchise was only really recognised by its PlayStation roots, but soon after the PC contingent were all heralding it as the next big First Person Shooter, and a title which could give Return to Castle Wolfenstein a good run for its pennies. You simply couldn't fail to be impressed by the explosive movie like scenes in the videos, which were soon made available as downloads after the show. Obvious comparisons were made with the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan, and why not, after all the first two Medal of Honor games (developed for the PlayStation) were from Spielberg's own Dreamworks Interactive studios. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault came out of E3 gleaming with the converted 'Game Critics Award'; avid gamers added it to the top of their most wanted lists and patiently waited for its arrival.

Responsibility for Medal of Honor (MOH) was handed to little known developers 2015, and what a fantastic job they've done with it too. To put it bluntly I don't think I've played a more immersive and involving game since Half-Life exploded onto the scene, this most certainly casts a shadow over Wolfenstein, and after all there are many comparisons you can make between the two, namely with their graphics engines.

By taking a look at the screenshots which litter this review you can see just how good MOH looks, as still images. Imagine what those would look like actually moving in-game and you've got a near life-like presentation, it really is that impressive and at times you just want to have a good look at the scenery rather than finding a suitable sniping position, an add-on pack for rambling enthusiasts anyone? The environment has the ability to suck you in and has the unique feeling of you actually being there, watching the trees gently swaying in the gentle breeze, the sun, which actually does a blinding job, the fogging, which has been used to good effect and the planes which fly overhead and deposit their load all adds perfectly to the atmosphere and scenery of a war-torn period of time.

But before you get near the game you'll first need to tackle main menu, and it is just a case of getting used to its obvious console-style. With little doubt you'll spend the first few minutes with your cursor racing around the screen trying to find where everything is, but still, at least you'll be able to get a good listen to some of the superbly atmospheric music played in the background. To be honest I'm not usually a big fan at all when it comes to music playing in the background while I'm playing any type of first person shooter because to me it takes out the realism with the feeling that your just playing a game, but I've made an special exception for MOH because the powerful orchestral music playing softly in the background really adds to the atmosphere of your current situation, it's the kind of game, which music is really suited to.

The in-game sounds are just as important and impressive as the games' graphic presentation, the importance of sound is so often missed or overshadowed in place of graphics but in MOH it has been treated with equal measure and it most definitely shows. Take the voice acting as an example; the German soldiers speak their native language, rather than speaking English in an often half-baked attempt at a German accent, I don't know about you but I find the atmosphere much tenser if I don't understand what was being said, no-one likes to be left in the dark.

In MOH you take on the role of Lieutenant Mike Powell, whose job is to carry out specific missions as part of the Special Infantry. The operations carried out by such a team in the war-era mainly revolved around search and rescue, espionage and sabotage. The game contains 6 missions, split up into 33 levels and if you happen to complete secret objectives within these 6 missions you will be rewarded with medals, this medal system works very well and keeps the games' replay value up as you try and unlock the objectives.

The first of the six missions takes place in Algeria in North Africa; it begins with yourself and four other soldiers in the back of a transport vehicle with your group leader informing you of the task in hand, with your job as part of the unit to take control of a nearby village. As the vehicle comes to a halt you notice another truck pulling up to speak with a posted German guard, all of a sudden you hear shots and the truck explodes, this is where you and your squad emerge from the truck to attempt to take the village. After a while in a level you develop strong bonds with your squad, even more so when it's just you and another left, who is limping badly. Just like in Half-Life with Barney the security guard you throw yourself in front of him like a hero to take the brunt of any impact and attempt to gun down the source of the fire because he's on his last legs. He doesn't even thank you for it either, instead preferring to look at you attentively waiting for your next move.

Everyone who decided to buy this game on its UK release or anyone who is looking to will no doubt be looking forward to the Omaha Beach level, its almost worth buying this game for the pleasure of playing through this section alone. Running up the beach and taking cover with a bunch of you fellow men and you'll probably get some orders of some sort, in fact it seems everyone wants a piece of you one way or another, you'll then probably see one of the men run off and then get caught by a mortar shell. Heaven knows how many times you'll die trying to get to the top of the beach, but it's not a frustrating experience, quite the opposite in fact, because it's always different every time you play through it. When you finally get inside and up into one of the watch towers just look down onto the beach below and watch everyone still desperately trying to get to the top of the beach, it's strange because you expect everything in the game to revolve around your actions, but here the game world is happily carrying on without you.

The AI in MOH is most certainly up there with Wolfenstein's, what's most impressive is the fact that you don't issue direct commands to your squad, instead they will react to the situation that they find themselves in. For example if you decide to lead them straight into a nest full of enemy soldiers who will pepper you full of holes they simply wont follow and will instead take cover and simply do the job properly, it makes you want to follow their order sometimes as you discover they are much more intelligent than yourself.

The in-game HUD (heads-up display) is very simple to get used to for both beginners and veterans alike. Players familiar with the Half-Life Mod 'Day of Defeat' are already used to the idea of replacing the ammo counter with actual pictures of the bullets you have left in your current clip. Also the compass is a nice inclusion; and especially useful as a small arrow on the compass points to your next objective, and also great to watch in action when you've just tripped over a grenade, very realistic as it spirals out of control. Movement in general is very restricted compared to other first-person shooters as jumping is more of a hindrance than help as it greatly slows you down, in fact you wont find you can jump very high either. Climbing ladders causes your weapon to disappear from your sight so make sure you are not reloading at the base of a ladder as it'll wait for you to finish reloading before attempting the climb, the scales being shifted fully towards realism here. In specific missions you'll get items on the outset such as binoculars and a radio, which you can use to call in air strikes, other missions you have to discover some items like identification papers and a gas mask, a very unique inclusion, which is surprisingly fun to use anyway.

You can also make use of vehicles and mounted guns on your journey, but it's a far cry from Operation Flashpoint where every vehicle can be entered or controlled, you are very restricted in this sense, being able to drive a vehicle usually lets you know what kind of mission your in for as its going to revolve somewhere around it. For example driving a tank through France is definitely one of best parts of the game, but that is the essence of that particular level, when it comes to a normal tank you'll spot chances are you won't be able to get in.

The weaponry you have at your disposal ranges from both American and German types, with your load-out usually depending on the type of mission you are about to embark on. This means you are not going to finish up with around 10+ weapons at the end of a mission, to me that can only be a good thing as no-one likes to carry that much around anyway especially in a game which is meant to promote realism.

I think there's no doubt that MOH's multiplayer doesn't scrub up quite as well as Wolfenstein's, but with such a superb single player experience on offer and the fact that Grey Matter let another development team create the Wolfenstein multiplayer they can be let off lightly. On offer are 11 multiplayer maps, spread over 4 games types, the map, which will become an initial favourite will of course be Omaha Beach, but then that's both obvious and understandable. In fact all maps are recognisable from the single player campaigns. Your load-out consists of a pistol, grenades and a weapon of choice from Rifles to RPG's, all types of arsenal, bar the Shotgun vary in style and execution depending on which side you're on, allies or axis. However, you can drop your weapon to pick up another if you so wish.

The multiplayer games types include the ever popular allies against axis, complete with in-map objectives for each side to complete. An assault mode is also included, which will turn the head of any Unreal Tournament enthusiast and a 'last man standing' game type, which is self explanatory. However, it seems some problems have arisen with the UK release, which will effect the way you play MOH on dedicated servers such as Barrysworld's or in fact anywhere. Firstly you need an original copy of the MOH CD in the drive for every server you wish to run, that means buying x amount of copies for each server you wish to run. The other main problem is distinguishing which servers are which as MOH separates the game port from the query port, so all this adds up to a limited amount of servers which are going to be available to play MoH in the UK and mainland Europe to coincide with its release, which is a disappointing start, lets hope the freshly released patch will resolve some of these issues and we can get onto playing MoH online.

I reviewed MOH on a 1.2 GHz AMD Athlon, 256mb of RAM, with a 64mb GeForce 2 MX graphics card. I played with a 1024 x 768 resolution and had no hint of any slowdown, everything ran very nicely indeed, but when beefed up to a 1280 x 1024 resolution the strains did begin to show a little as the frame rates dropped. The recommend machine specifications are: a 600 mhz CPU, 128mb of RAM and a 16mb graphics card.

So to sum up, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault is a game of epic proportions, superbly balanced, immersive and polished throughout, backed up with superb graphics and sublime sounds. There is no doubt in my mind that his will be the first person shooter, which future releases will be judged against, it's shifted the goalposts that little further up the pitch.