Medal of Honor: Breakthrough

Perhaps the greatest thing about first person shooters is that they inevitably have expansion packs which cost dramatically less than the game originally. You essentially get more of the game you liked originally.

Then sometimes, they don’t give you more of what you liked. They give you something loosely based upon something you liked. It’s sort of like the new Star Wars movies. Breakthrough features the same great gameplay, graphics, and weapons of the first two. It even seems to have better performance than Spearhead. However, it’s not quite as good.

One of the problems is the design of several of the levels. In particular, any level requiring you to protect something sucks. It’s far too hard without knowing what the specific strategy the designers were expecting you to figure out. It’s not obvious or even logical. Without reading a guide, I wouldn’t have thought to stand on some crates far away from the person I was trying to protect. Seems counter intuitive, no? And everyone loves trying to attack incoming tanks with mortars.

What makes the game unbearable at times is the complete lack of ammo. You’d expect to be able to pick up ammo from enemy soldiers, but that’s a bad assumption. You’ve got to scrounge around like an irishman for a drink. Eventually, you’ll get to a point where you get ambushed and you’ll realize you’ve got about 20 pistol bullets, 4 rifle, and 10 submachine gun with no ammo in sight. After dying the fourth time trying to beat enemies to death, you have to become a marksmen with your pistol. It’s not fun.

This is a decent, but extremely challenging expansion pack for Medal of Honor. At $30, it’s probably worth getting.

Pros: It’s a Medal of Honor expansion pack. Only $30

Cons: Poor level design. Not enough ammo availability.