Also available on OSX and Linux Speadhead is the first of two expansion packs for Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, and while it's certainly shorter than the main game - three missions clocking in around three hours total as opposed to six missions clocking in around six hours total - it's still a substantial little campaign. It's basically more of the same and even revisits Normandy albeit in the context of the aftermath of the D-Day invasion rather than the invasion itself. In addition to Normandy, you fight the infamous Battle of the Bulge as well as the Battle of Berlin. In terms of gameplay, it plays exactly like the base Allied Assault game which makes sense considering that it's just an expansion pack, or as the young people these days would call it, "DLC," back when you paid $20 or $30 for an extra campaign instead of $5 or $10 for two or three extra multiplayer maps. Despite being essentially "more of the same," I was left the impression that Spearhead felt a bit rushed. The difficulty wasn't nearly as well balanced as in the core game with some portions being an absolute breeze and others - the infamous snowy "sniper alley" level where the snipers are all Tiger tanks - are balls hard are no matter what difficulty you play on. The health drops also seemed rather haphazard and much less thoughtfully placed. Like with the difficulty, some stages would have you think Costco was having a clearance sale on medkits whereas I literally couldn't find a single health kit in others. One positive thing that Spearhead did better than the core game in my opinion, however, was ally diversity. In the core game, you were pretty much always fighting with Americans. You may have a British SAS agent or a French resistance operative helping you, but it was pretty much American combat. In Spearhead, you fight with an American unit in one mission, a British unit in another, and a Russian unit in the last (which is obvious to anyone who's familiar with the Battle of Berlin). It's a small thing and something that a lot of folks likely don't care about at all, but it gave it some nice variety for me. The Spearhead expansion for Medal of Honor: Allied Assault is a fairly good albeit somewhat disappointing add-on to a legendary game. The gameplay is what you've come to love from Allied Assault, but the whole expansion feels like another couple months in development could have made a world of difference. That's really all it would have needed because there aren't any glaring issues but rather minor indicators of a rushed production - unbalanced difficulty, haphazard health placement, more numerous graphical and terrain glitches, etc. It's by no means bad, and it could certainly hold its own against many stand-alone World War II games, but given the game of which it's an expansion, it's impossible not to feel a little disappointed after finishing Spearhead. My Rating - B |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
March 2024
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