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Medal of Honor (series): Difference between revisions
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Though notable in its own right, [[Medal of Honor]] is also known for having spawned Infinity Ward, who went on to make the more popular ''[[Call of Duty]]'' series. A distinct difference between the two is its narrative focus:
* In ''[[Medal of Honor]]'', you often play as a pivotal American frontline soldier in a particular theater of battle. Though [[More Dakka]] is generously provided, you often fight alone (the main exceptions being ''Pacific Assault''
* In ''[[Call of Duty]]'', playership is usually divided between a number of nationals, and any number of compatriots fighting alongside you. Though just as pivotal in terms of gameplay, more focus is put on your comrades and where you fit into this particular unit. The series, especially the later games, tends to have a far more "arcadey" feel to it, especially apparent in its somewhat bizarre ''[[Nazi Zombies]]'' survival game mode.
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* [[Badass Army]]: ''Medal of Honor'' (2010): The Army Rangers manage to be this while also being shades of [[Redshirt Army]], presumably to let you actually ''have'' friendly casualties during the game without having to kill off any members of your various squads. That said, the fact that three Rangers and an Air Force [[Death From Above|Enlisted Terminal Attack Controller]] managed to go up against an [[Zerg Rush|entire Taliban village]] and come out victorious ''is'' [[Lampshaded]].
{{quote|'''Dusty:''' ''"That's why they're Rangers."''}}
** The Tier 1 operators know that they would have serious difficulty in doing the same thing {{spoiler|and in fact, AFO Nepture does}}. Their focus is much narrower, based on speed, stealth, and tactical exfil at the end of the day. Tier 2 Rangers are more focused on conventional warfare, and they're better at it.
* [[Bad Boss]]: [[General Failure|General Flagg]], from ''Medal of Honor'' (2010). Not only does he seem dead set on not letting the commander on the ground run the operation, he's giving orders by ''[[Voice with an Internet Connection|teleconference]]'' from an office somewhere, in a ''[[Mildly Military|business suit]]''. What makes it worse is that he's just not any good at it.
* [[Bag of Spilling]]: Weapons do not carry over between major missions.
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* [[Blown Across the Room]]: Grenades (and large caliber bullets in the later games) caused flying bodies.
** Shooting someone in the face with a shotgun will make them flip head over heels. That alone makes using the shotgun a must.
* [[Check Point Starvation]]: The first three installments that were released for the console had no in-level checkpoints. This was a major problem with the [[Marathon Level|longer levels]] in ''Frontline''. However, ''Allied Assault'' was based
* [[Cherubic Choir]]
* [[Code Name]]: In ''Medal of Honor'' (2010), we have the two [[Badass|Tier 1]] squads, AFO ''Wolfpack'' and AFO ''Neptune'', Sgt Patterson's Ranger squad is ''Bravo One'', and the [[Big Damn Gunship|Apache]] crews go by ''Gunfighter'' Six and Eleven.
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** During ''Vanguard'''s first mission, one may recognize parts of the background music from the Manor House level in ''Frontline''.
* [[Cosmetic Award]]: Averted and played straight in the first game. Bronze, silver, and gold medals are granted on how much enemies you kill and how much objectives you carry out, and often netted new player models for multi-player and cheat codes, but the decorations themselves, earned by progression in the game and all the way to the Dreamworks Medal and the Congressional Medal of Honor, did nothing at all.
** ''Allied Assault'' has the same decorations, but you get them for things that aren't part of the actual mission but help anyway, such as saving an American POW, grabbing a manifest, and destroying two King Tigers with explosives you have to find first. Like the first ''Medal of Honor'', they did nothing but give you a sense of accomplishment.
* [[Custom Uniform]]: Depending on the mission, the AFO teams may wear anything from full uniform and body armor to traditional Afghan garb or [[Nice Hat|an FDNY baseball cap]]. TSgt Ybarra seems to have a custom uniform of his own, being the only guy in the Ranger missions to wear the DCUs, even though he was technically the only one wearing the ''correct'' uniform for the time period.
* [[Crapsack World]]: When a goat herder seems unimpressed by a heavily armed man in a pickup truck screaming at him to get out of the road, that says much about Afghanistan in the ''Medal of Honor'' (2010) setting. The country
* [[Death From Above]]: ''Medal of Honor'' (2010): Air Force Technical Sergeant Ybarra, whose job it is to fight alongside the Army Rangers and invoke this trope when necessary.
* [[Distress Call]]: In the first game, the objective of the first mission to save a G3 officer who crashed and took refuge in the sewers.
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** And {{spoiler|1=AFO Neptune's}} distress call is the impetus for the last Ranger mission in the 2010 game.
* [[Do Not Drop Your Weapon]]
* [[Downer Ending]]: {{spoiler|The reboot has one of the main characters captured by the terrorists. A friendly squad comes in at the last minute and extracts him and his friend, and the point of view switches to the injured protagonist's first
** Also happens in ''Rising Sun''. In the last mission, {{spoiler|the [[Big Bad]] slits the throat of fellow soldier Tanaka right after he frees you from captivity aboard a supercarrier. He also manages to escape with your kidnapped brother}}
* [[Dramatic Irony]]: From the intro of the 2010 game, you can overhear a radio broadcaster saying "It's another quiet Tuesday morning in the Big Apple..." The next thing you hear is another news broadcast talking about [[The War on Terror|a plane crash in Lower Manhattan]], and how this must be a terrible accident...
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* [[Emergency Weapon]]: The pistol in all of the games, reserved when you had depleted your ammo for all other weapons. It was also selectable from the start. Despite being an [[Emergency Weapon]], it is quite accurate.
* [[Enemy Civil War]]: ''Underground's'' "Civil War Mode".
* [[Fake Static]]: Late in the 2010 game, General Flagg is about to order Colonel Drucker to {{spoiler|leave AFO Neptune to die rather than sending in a rescue team.}} The technician, Jimmy, hits a button and disconnects the General.
{{quote|''"[[Blatant Lies|We seem to have lost the VTC, Sir.]]"''}}
* [[Falling Into the Cockpit]]: During the Flyboys mission in ''Pacific Assault'', you are forced to take control of a dive bomber '''after your pilot bails out'''. Slightly averted as the cutscene before this mission informs us that Tommy Conlin (the player character) received some limited flying training from the pilots at Henderson Field.
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** Make sure you have [[God Mode]] employed when using it though, otherwise it becomes a [[Hoist by His Own Petard]] situation.
* [[Iconic Item]]: In the latest game, [[Player Character|Rabbit's]] Lucky Rabbit's Foot, which we get to see him pull out just before making any [[Leap of Faith]] {{spoiler|and when Preacher is mourning his death.}}
* [[It's Raining Men]]: The whole point of ''Airborne'',
* [[Lethal Joke Character]]: The first game had unlockable multi-player characters, such as the German attack dog, a wooden toy soldier, William Shakespeare, two of the game developers, and a velociraptor named Steven, a [[Shout-Out]] to [[Steven Spielberg|the game's producer.]] Their accuracy isn't affected.
** If I remember correctly, the raptor could kill you by jumping on you.
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* [[Minecart Madness]]: The level "Enemy Mine" (no relation to the [[Enemy Mine]] trope) in ''Frontline''.
** Which was a [[Shout-Out]] to the mine cart sequence from ''[[Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom|Temple of Doom]]''.
* [[Moral Guardians]]: Caused quite a flap that nearly kept the reboot from being released when it was revealed that in multi-player you'd get to play as the Taliban. The military went as far as to ban its sale in any military compounds, and eventually, the developers chickened out and just copied ''[[Modern Warfare]]'' by changing the name to "[[Op For]]".
* [[Multi Platform]]
* [[Nazis With Gnarly Weapons]]
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** The end of Operation Repunzel, where you must push Geritt off a balcony, then jump off yourself into a hay wagon. Oddly, he can survive without landing in the wagon, while you die if you don't.
* [[Nom De Guerre]]: The Tier 1 operators all go by callsigns, even when introducing themselves to other American soldiers.
** Which they are required to do. Currently, active SpecOps soldiers are not allowed to tell people what they do, as so have two personas: civilian and military.
* [[Noodle Incident]]: The Allied operative in The Golden Lion tells you about a funny story involving the mermaid statue the two of you pass near the end of the level. As he is killed soon
* [[No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom]]: Played straight in most of the games, averted in Rising Sun and Airborne to some degree.
** Vanguard as well. Some areas you can only get into if you land in them.
* [[Notice This]]: Important items and objects are highlighted. Other items may be glowing depending on the game (Allied
* [[Not Quite Saved Enough]]: {{spoiler|Rabbit; who dies just before the CASEVAC chopper lands.}}
* [[One Bullet Clips]]
** Averted with the M1 Garand, which the games simply don't let you reload ''at all'' until you've used up all the ammo in the current clip.
*** This is true to history, US military training stipulated emptying the magazine rather than trying to manually eject the clip and replace it with a new one, or topping off the half-used clip with loose ammo. It was possible to switch clips, but due to the sheer hassle given the en bloc design, not encouraged.
* [[One-Man Army]]: In the first game, very specifically done as an agent of the OSS. You stop a prototype rail gun, sink a prototype U-
** And that's just the first game.
** The 2010 game is somewhat more realistic. You still rack up hundreds of enemy kills, but you're in a squad, against mooks with little practical training, and when the time comes for more explosions, you have to all in other assets. In the end, {{spoiler|all that happened in a two
* [[Out-of-Genre Experience]]: After a previously realistic campaign, ''Airborne's'' last two missions pits you against [[Gas Mask Mooks|gas-masked]] [[Super Soldier|Super Soldiers]] toting [[BFG|machine guns]].
* [[Parachute in a Tree|Parachute on a Windmill]]: In the Rough Landing level of ''Frontline'', a paratrooper who jumps with you is caught on a windmill
* [[Real Is Brown]]: Many of the games.
** Especially the 2010 reboot. Then again, Afghanistan is not known for its color palette.
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* [[Regenerating Health]]: In the 2010 reboot.
* [[Remixed Level]]: Fort Schmerzen, used to produce mustard gas in the first game, is the final mission in ''Allied Assault''.
* [[Respawning Enemies]]: Most games have these in at least a couple of levels. Similar to the later ''[[Call of Duty]]'', you often have to push your way through.
* [[RPG Elements]]: Only in ''Airborne's'' campaign, where you gain XP for using weapons, which levels that weapon up, giving it a new [[Gun Accessories|accessory]] per level.
* [[Scenery Porn]]: ''Medal of Honor'' (2010): It's a shame that Afghanistan has been torn up by war for so long
* [[Shaggy Dog Story]]: {{spoiler|The G3 officer in the first mission is dead.}} You're stuck to deal with the angry Nazi search parties.
** ''Allied Assault'' had a mission where you had to [[Continuity Nod|rescue the pilot who accompanied the officer]].
** Mission 2 in ''
* [[Shout-Out]]: Tier 1 remarks that seizing Bagram Air Base was [[Generation Kill|pretty fucking ninja.]]
** The manor house level in ''Frontline'' has an [[Evil Chef]] who appears to do a [[The Muppet Show|Swedish Chef]] impression.
** Frontline and Allied Assault also recreated the Normandy landing from [[Saving Private Ryan]]. Reviews picked up on this and treated it as evidence of this being the game of the film, and is undoubtedly the [[Trope Codifier]] for WWII games.
* [[Silliness Switch]]: ''Panzerknacker Unleashed!'' for ''Underground'' featured dogs dancing, driving jeeps, and wielding guns, German knights, zombies, and evil
** The knights were
** Did you forget the zombies [[Made of Explodium|exploded]] when killed?
*** There was also a "Civil War" mode which caused enemies to fight one another.
* [[Sniping Mission]]: ''Rising Sun'' - On an elephant. With a turret.
** ''Allied Assault'' - Mission 5 has two. Sniper's Last Stand - Outskirts is a sniper versus sniper battle, made difficult since the [[The All-Seeing AI]] can shoot through concealment without difficulty. The Bridge is the other sniping mission, although you aren't sniped back.
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* [[Sorting Algorithm of Weapon Effectiveness]]: Averted.
* [[Southern-Fried Private|Southern Fried Marine]]: Willy Gaines in Pacific Assault.
* [[Standard FPS Guns]]: Omits the knife, but you get a pistol, an automatic weapon, a rifle, a shotgun, grenades, and a
* [[Stereotype Flip]]: One of the game's first cutscenes is a passenger-eye
* [[Stock Subtitle]]: ''Heroes''.
* [[Storming the Castle]]: ''Underground'' had Manon infiltrate an SS castle to retrieve evidence of the Holocaust, the only time in the franchise that the topic was touched on. Also, the bonus mission.
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* [[Timed Mission]]: ''Underground'' had "[[Crazy Taxi|Wacky Taxi]] mode" where all missions get timers.
* [[To Absent Friends]]: The final cutscene in ''Medal of Honor'' (2010) {{spoiler|when Preacher mourns Rabbit's death.}}
* [[Truth in Television]]: Most of the campaign of ''Medal of Honor'' (2010) takes place during [[wikipedia:Operation Anaconda|Operation Anaconda]]. In particular, the events of the final two missions are similar to the real
* [[Very Definitely Final Dungeon]]: Nordhausen in the original, Gotha in ''Frontline'', Fort Schmerzen in ''Allied Assault'', the Flakturm in ''Airborne'', etc.
* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]: The first game was renowned for enemies reacting to body part
** On the other hand, it was totally "clean". There was none of the gore and violence associated with most modern FPS games. There was not a single drop of blood when you shot an enemy. The known information of the prototypes did have some blood and gore, but it wasn't in the final game.
*** Actually, while it's not real blood, in the early games and ''Allied Assault'', I believe there would be pinkish puffs wherever you shot somebody.
**** Not in Allied Assault, it was just a smoke/dust puff. Among the Allied Assault modding community, Blood mods are numerous.
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