The PS1 has a terrific library, but one thing it’s not known for is first-person shooters. Nonetheless, the console was home of one of the most influential games in the genre. Medal of Honor was the flash point that ignited interest in one of the most prominent subgenres of the ‘00s: the World War 2 FPS.

Medal of Honor wasn’t the first FPS to take place in WW2. Wolfenstein 3D, the game that popularized the FPS and set the foundation for the entire genre, took place in that era. However, Medal of Honor landed at the right time, with the right approach, and was able to capitalize on the incredible success of the 1998 film, Saving Private Ryan. And with Steven Spielberg being involved in both the film and the game, it’s not difficult to see how it was pulled off.

It’s an interesting piece of history, whether or not you think the sudden ubiquity of WW2 shooters was a good thing. But while I have experience with some of the later entries, such as Allied Assault and Frontline, I never played the original Medal of Honor. So, I was curious.

SEARCHING FOR NAZI GOLDENEYE

Medal of Honor is about the Allied fight against Fascism in the mid-20th century. You play as Jimmy Patterson, a one-man WMD. Nazis may not have lost the war if they actually used medkits instead of just dropping them on the ground. An army can’t march on methamphetamines alone.

You work for the Office of Strategic Services, and your job is to do the things that armies can’t. This largely includes sabotage of various Nazi implements. While there’s some very mild stealth segments, you’ll largely be tearing through the Wehrmacht by yourself.

While the semi-open level key hunt FPS formula was still the standard, and Half-Life introduced the linear, narrative-focused formula in 1998, Medal Of Honor is largely just plain old linear. It’s somewhat funny, since later games in the series would imitate Half-Life, but Medal of Honor is stuck in this weird in-between. You accomplish objectives, not unlike Goldeneye 007, but all the usual exploration is completely sucked out. Your objectives are always in your path. You’re almost literally just walking down corridors the whole time.

PAPERS?

That kind of gives the whole review away. The PS1 was extremely limited. I don’t know why perspective really mattered on the console, I’d have to ask someone who worked on it at the time (I probably will), but Medal of Honor is very simple.

Outdoor levels, for example, always take place at night. There’s exactly one mission where you can see daylight if you shoot out windows. The level ends with you walking out into the sunshine, there’s a loading screen, and you find yourself standing in the same spot, but now it’s dark. I think it’s just a way to explain why you can only see a few meters in front of you. Usually, you walk along a road flanked by hedges or cliffs. The standout for me was one that takes you through the alleys of a French town. Everything is corridors. Some corridors are slightly fancier than others.

When you place Medal of Honor against something like Goldeneye 007 (ostensibly its biggest influence), it is spectacularly deficient. That’s something that I had trouble getting past. Like, Medal of Honor is an outstanding FPS in terms of the PS1 library, but the constraints are hard to ignore. Moreso than in most other genres.

ALLIED TESTIKILLER

However, Medal of Honor makes up for these shortcomings in some ways. It took one of the best lessons it could from Goldeneye, and that’s the reactivity of its enemies (which Goldeneye  developers attribute to Time Crisis.) If you shoot a Nazi in the head, his helmet pops off. Shoot him… You know, I didn’t really shoot them anywhere else much. Should have maybe aimed for the dick more. Anyway, they react to where they get shot, doubling over in some cases, or firing off a few last wild shots.

In some levels, they’ll also take cover behind boxes and corners, which was pretty novel at the time. If you throw a grenade at them, sometimes a Nazi will throw themselves heroically on top of it to protect their comrades.

They still suffer the common problems of the period’s enemy AI. They sometimes won’t notice when their friend dies right next to them. My favourite quirk of theirs is that they’ll sometimes throw a grenade, then immediately run over top of it like they forgot. Hilarious. Not common, but happened often enough for me to enjoy it.

It also uses Goldeneye’s crosshair aiming system. Unfortunately, the ballistics aren’t as accurate. You can technically kill a Nazi in one hit by shooting him in the face, but 9 times out of 10, I’d hit his helmet, even if he was looking straight at me and I aimed low. It feels very hitscan. I found that, even if a Nazi is behind cover, you can often hit them if you aim slightly wide. Just a quirk of the hardware.

DreamWorks also tried to add some variety to things. In one mission, you go undercover and have to flash your credentials at Nazis to get them to let you past. A later mission repeats this, but says that enemy officers will recognize you’re not one of them. Since the draw fog is usually 10 meters away and it’s so lo-fi that it’s hard to recognize uniforms, they might as well not have even tried. First guy I came near: officer. The level just became a firefight like every other.

NAZI DRAINO

Still, it’s a pretty threadbare FPS. It ties in some educational content by adding little documentary snippets about the war to the end of each mission. However, its adherence to history is shaky. One mission I found absolutely hilarious is one where you go into an Austrian mine to save artwork stolen by the Nazis. An unlikely premise (nothing is stopping them from resetting the explosives after Jimmy leaves), but what I found most amusing is that a lot of the Nazis in that mission are armed with Panzerschreks. Rocket launchers. In a mine.

The Panzerschrecks are a horseshit inclusion, anyway. Medal of Honor never resorts to infinitely respawning Nazis, but it has no qualms about spawning them behind you. If they’re armed with a Panzerschreck, you have mere seconds to recognize their footsteps, turn around, and put a bullet in them before they blow you up. A direct hit from a rocket is an instant kill. And, by the end, every second Nazi has a Panzerschrek.

I get that there were only a few flavours of Nazis, so it’s difficult to have enemy variety or bosses, but getting insta-killed by a rocket-humping corridor-Nazi dumb enough to fire a Panzerschrek indoors is aggravating.

The fact that they give you a bazooka that same mission is even worse. Since the collision detection is shit, I’d blow myself up more often than I’d like to admit. For that matter, if a grenade hits a destructible wooden crate, it explodes on contact, so if it grazes one you’re standing next to, you’ll just die. It’s the worst. Especially since there are no mid-mission checkpoints.

Though, honestly, outside a couple missions at the end, I never had too much difficulty getting through the game.

OPERATION: DUALSHOCK

Another interesting thing about Medal of Honor is the fact that it’s a very early example of an FPS with the dual-analogue control scheme that would become the standard. It’s not set to that by default, but you can change it to it in the options menu if you have a Dualshock controller. It’s not the smoothest, but it’s familiar.

While I am quick to admit that Medal of Honor is one of the most influential first-person shooters, that doesn’t mean you need to play it today. When compared to its contemporaries on PC and N64, it’s an extremely dry, sparse experience. And because the subgenre became so packed in its wake, there are better, more enjoyable games to get a taste from, such as the seminal Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (2002). Or, hell, to be honest with you, I enjoyed most of the Army Men: World War games better (not Land Sea Air.)

But it had to start somewhere, and that somewhere was here. Medal of Honor is the main reason we spent nearly a decade up to our tits in World War 2 first-person shooters that could never find a way to innovate. So, it’s been an honour.

5/10

This review was conducted on a PS1 using a disc version of the game. It was paid for by the author. Screenshots were captured using a Retrotink 4K for upscaling.