War game with a real fighting chance

MEDAL of Honour was the best first-person shooter on the PlayStation. It's also the best of its genre on the PS2. The caveat to both these conclusions is that neither PlayStation nor its successor is home to a decent selection of shooters. The N64 got GoldenEye; the PC got everything else. Now Medal of Honour is coming to the PC where its audience is likely to be far more critical.

Electronic Arts has done far more than just port across the earlier PlayStation title. Allied Assault has been given a pretty comprehensive makeover for its PC incarnation. Don't believe me? Just look at the recommended specifications: a 700Mhz Pentium 3, some 256MB of memory and a 32meg 3-D card are sure signs that Allied Assault is one title that can max out even the very best desktop rig. Beneath the surface beats the award-winning Quake III game engine. The better your PC, the better this game will look.

Allied Assault is different in other ways too. For a start it's a genuine Second World War game inspired by real events. There are no high-tech weapons and the best you can hope to get your hands on is a decent sub-machine gun, a Jeep-mounted cannon or a primitive rocket launcher - and you'll need them.

Allied Assault is no game of strategy. As befits its console roots, you're thrown into the action from the very first level and, more often than not, a shoot first, think later maxim pays dividends. The levels are big enough to sneak around in but all too often I found such a tactic ended with a single sniper shot to the head. It's frighteningly authentic, too.

The D-Day landings are straight out of Saving Private Ryan, starting on the boat surrounded by other soldiers whose only words of encouragement are the odd prayer and a whimper. Your palms will be sweaty even before the ramp drops. And when you hit the beaches, all hell breaks loose. If the machine gun fire doesn't get you, the landmines will. Even worse, every time you make a run for cover, someone else does the same. If they reach safety before you, you find yourself in the middle of a battlefield with nowhere to go.

Other scenarios are more fanciful, like the James Bond-esque mission where you have to penetrate the U-boat pens, plant some explosives and get the hell out before it goes off. Or even better, your battle against hopeless odds that's played out in a ruined lighthouse. Faced with such imaginative and expansive levels, it would be all too easy to get lost. EA has added a compass at the top of the screen to guide you to the next encounter and there's a handy bar chart showing how much ammo you have left.

The attention to detail extends far beyond the picturesque graphics. Enemy intelligence really is top notch. Once while hiding, a hoard of enemy soldiers appeared from nowhere and gunned me down. Why? Because I had reloaded my weapon too close and on hearing the clatter they came looking for me. Don't stick your head out into the breeze, either. If you're in hostile territory, it's liable to get blown off. You soon learn to adopt a survival instinct, risking quick peeks from behind good solid concrete walls and listening out for clues to the enemy's whereabouts on the excellent soundtrack. To use a poor analogy, games like Allied Assault have attracted a fair degree of flak in recent weeks. The moral majority reckon they cheapen history and de-sensitise players to the carnage of war. Allied Assault isn't a game for youngsters. Its natural home is probably the PC where gamers tend to be older and more mature. This title carries an age restriction to stop it falling into young and impressionable hands.

I guarantee you'll learn more about the Second World War playing through Allied Assault than any number of movies. It's also more fun than wading through a dusty tome your dad borrowed from the library. Medal of Honour: Allied Assault may not be the very best shoot 'em up the PC has to offer but it's certainly in the top half dozen and probably the number one that's based on real life events. Fans of the genre are unlikely to feel short-changed.

Woody Woodpecker. Format: PS2. Publisher: Cryo. Price: £34.99.

WOODY Woodpecker on the PS2 attempts to muscle in on the territory already claimed by Crash Bandicoot. It's a pleasant looking platform romp with a wide variety of sub-games. I particularly enjoyed Woody's ability to peck his way out of trouble. You can also play as Woody's two pals Knothead and Splinter. Although I'm not a massive fan of the cartoon (more of a Bugs Bunny man myself), I don't remember either of them. The cartoon-style environments are finely detailed and the whole thing moves along at a fair lick - no frame-rate problems are apparent even when there's a lot going on. There are 30 levels to overcome and plenty of game play for your cash. It's the first PS2 game to be aimed at young players - one for the kids to play when dad's had enough of Metal Gear Solid 2 perhaps.

Gizmo of the week

Another month and another new PC graphics card arrives. Those of you feeling pretty smug with a Geforce 3 card had better look away now. ATI reckons its new card - the Radeon 8500 - can outperform anything on the market and early tests seem to bear those claims out. It's packed with advanced features as well as the traditional ATI virtues such as DVD playback and a range of TV outputs so you can play your games on the big screen. The price - £249 - may seem like a lot to spend on a piece of silicon when an X-Box can be had for fifty quid more but the Radeon 8500 is as good as it gets at the moment.

Of course, nVidia can be trusted to have a Geforce 4 on sale before the summer so perhaps you'd be better off waiting. Then there's the new card from Matrox... and so it goes. Welcome to the world of instant obsolescence

Published: Friday, February 22, 2002