Line #4 YMMV/MedalOfHonor


1	* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: The first game faced serious doubts about its success. Executives were skeptical about the success of a war-themed shooter at a time where sci-fi shooters like ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'' were considered the standard. Capt. Dale Dye, the military advisor Spielberg had brought on from ''Film/SavingPrivateRyan'', initially thought the game would be tasteless and disrespectful. The Congressional Medal of Honor Society attempted to talk Spielberg out of releasing the game fearing that a video game set in a real war was offensive to veterans. The game turned out to be a massive hit praised for its authenticity and realism, launched the franchise, and led to war-themed first person shooters becoming commonplace within the genre.
2	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The first game's score was... massively theatrical.
3	** The first games up to ''Frontline'', skip a few, and then ''Airborne'' had none other than Creator/MichaelGiacchino as composer, so there's a good reason for it. Some stand-out tracks are the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqO4wHrP1HA main theme]], the epic theme from [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ELFxB-tGhE Allied Assault]] and the TearJerker [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLiRgNFvfGw Arnhem Knights]]
4	** The epic battle music, as [[http://www.tracksounds.com/reviews/medal_honor.htm noted]] by film score [[http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/medal_honor.html reviewers]], clearly has a Music/JohnWilliams flavour, especially his work for ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade''. The theme for the German Army ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xulvBtTMfY The Radar Train]] (at about 2:44 - 2:59) compare with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1jOIxV3t1E Brother of the Crusiform Sword]] (at about 0:50) ) is clearly reminiscent of John Williams' theme for the Germans in that movie. This is no wonder, since the game's producer was Creator/StevenSpielberg and the tone of the first 1999 game was an adventurous and light-hearted version of WWII.
5	** ''European Assault'''s main theme, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n-uWmgOm9g Dogs of War]].
6	* BestLevelEver: Die Sturmgewehr and beyond in ''Allied Assault''. Why? Because you get to use the [[GameBreaker StG44]].
7	* CompleteMonster:
8	** ''European Assault'': [[BigBad Graf von Schrader]] is a high-ranking [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazi]] officer who was behind the project of developing the upgrades to Nazi weaponry and technology, as well as the creation of new weapons. Spreading his henchmen across Europe, Schrader has them develop and use new Nazi technology against the Allies, killing many innocent people. As [[PlayerCharacter Lieutenant William Holt]] tracks him down, Schrader creates an atomic dirty bomb, called "Virus House", which he planes to drop on London, which would kill thousands of people. When American forces attacked his facility, Schrader activates the bomb, trying to [[TakingYouWithMe take down all American troops along with him]], while never caring about the fact that all his men will die as well.
9	** ''[[VideoGame/MedalOfHonor2010 Warfighter]]'': [[BigBad The Cleric]], the leader of several [[MiddleEasternTerrorists terrorist factions in the Middle East]], is in reality [[spoiler:Hassan Rasheed, a wealthy Arab banker from Dubai]]. Convincing hundreds of people to follow his cause of "fighting the Eagle", The Cleric trains them and sends them to commit various terrorist acts, like taking half a dozen people hostage and trying to kill them and the soldiers who arrive to save them. Discovering a powerful bomb, called PETN, Hassan sends several [[SuicideAttack suicide bombers]] to various train stations to blow themselves up and kill countless innocent people. When Task Force discovers his base of operations and attacks it, Hassan sets his building on fire, along with all his men inside, and tries to blow himself up, hoping to [[TakingYouWithMe take down the US soldiers with him]].
10	* DemonicSpiders: The guard dogs from the very first game. This is upped in the ''Medal Of Honor: Underground'' bonus campaign "Panzerknacker Unleashed". The attack dogs there can only be killed by 9 pistol shots (the .45 only carries 8 bullets), two shotgun blasts or a grenade. The last two are very rare to find.
11	* FranchiseOriginalSin:
12	** As discussed in [[https://www.escapistmagazine.com/the-medal-of-honor-curse/ this article]] on ''Website/TheEscapist'', the early games contained versions of many of the things that more recent military shooters would be criticized for, most notably its desaturated color palette and how [[RealIsBrown that came to define "realism"]] even when it didn't make any sense - ''Medal of Honor'' did it in TheNineties, and got away with it, because it was following a trend by ''Film/SavingPrivateRyan'', another period piece related to it through Creator/StevenSpielberg, using sepia tones to give a hint of what more antique films made during the actual war looked like.
13	** The series has always presented a version of history that [[AmericaWonWorldWarII gives America more credit than it had earned]], but it didn't get out of hand until the franchise's later days. In earlier games, the most notable historical inaccuracy one could note was that an American soldier was taking place in operations that historically consisted entirely of other groups like the French Resistance or British SAS. ''Frontline'', the first console release after the franchise was sold to EA, and ''Airborne'', the last WWII-set game in the series before it was taken "out of rotation", present a good study in contrasts, as both have a mission set during Operation Market Garden, but present it entirely differently - ''Frontline'' shows it as it was in reality, the Allies' most notorious bungle, and your objectives through the mission are concerned much more with simply trying to keep yourself and as many allies as possible alive to get out of Arnhem without accomplishing much of note against the Nazi war machine; ''Airborne'' instead presents the battle as going relatively smoothly for the Airborne divisions who land in Nijmegen, and the narration afterwards presents the battle as a great victory. Their climaxes also give a good contrast: ''Frontline'' has the player take part in a bombing raid to destroy a prototype jet before it can be shipped out and mass-produced, which skirts by because it takes place in an area that really did undergo an Allied bombing mission right around the time that mission is set, and the jet in question really did exist but never entered service, with the game simply giving a more dramatic reason for why - ''Airborne'' ends with the 17th Airborne assaulting a flak tower, a mission the Americans never undertook in an area a flak tower was never built in, which on top of it has its defenders include outright super soldiers lugging around MG 42 machine guns as if they're as light and easy to use as the player's rifles.
14	* FridgeBrilliance: Generally, the first level in any game is an easy one. But ''Frontline's'' version of Omaha Beach ''will'' kill you, repeatedly, if you don't take the right path, and it's not explicitly marked so it's pretty much guaranteed to require at least a few restarts. One suspects they did this (killing you a lot) on purpose to represent what storming that beach really meant.
15	* GeniusBonus: ''Rising Sun'' features the real-world [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raffles_Hotel Raffles Hotel]] as a Japanese stronghold. It was the same place where the Singapore Sling cocktail was created (which is the missions namesake).
16	* HilariousInHindsight: The opening FMV to the original game ends with the line, "Are you ready to rise above and beyond the call of duty?". Beginning in 2003, going above and beyond ''Call of Duty'' is exactly what the ''Medal of Honor'' series was trying to do. Furthermore, the series would indeed attempt to go "Above and Beyond" in 2020 with...''Medal of Honor: Above in Beyond''.
17	* MemeticBadass: Jimmy Patterson. Although, let's face it, his badassery is practically {{canon}}.
18	* MemeticMutation:
19	** The Bread Is Delicious[[note]]In ''Frontline'' you could recover a small amount of health by eating freshly-baked bread, which would be accompanied by this message.[[/note]]
20	** Your Disguise Has Been Blown[[note]]Again from ''Frontline'', in Operation Repunzel, the game apparently believes that, absent a reminder, shooting your way past four Germans and an alarm system will not seem like blowing your cover for the player.[[/note]]
21	* SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound:
22	** The firing sound of the stationary turret in the first game.
23	** The reloading sounds of the [=StG44=]. From the removal of the magazine to the racking of the bolt handle, you know this is a ''mean'' weapon.
24	* {{Narm}}: The opening level of ''Rising Sun'' puts the player on board a battleship during the middle of the Pearl Harbor bombing, where they have to navigate the bombed ship by using a fire extinguisher to put out various fires in their way. Unfortunately, instead of carrying the tank with one hand and aiming the nozzle with the other like any functioning human being, the player character instead leaves the hose attached to the tank and aims the extinguisher like a gun.
25	* OlderThanTheyThink: Manon Batiste (who was the HeroOfAnotherStory in the original 1999 game and the main heroine of the 2000 sequel ''Underground'') predates the recent controversies of female protagonists in historical World War II games by almost twenty years. Unlike VideoGame/CallOfDutyVanguard or VideoGame/CallOfDutyWWII however, which depicted a single woman sniper rallying the entire Red Army to fight off the invading German Army as Stalingrad and women fighting frontline battles in the German and American armies respectively, neither of which happened, her character is based on a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hélène_Deschamps_Adams real female Nazi hunter]].
26	* ParanoiaFuel: In a series that didn't have RegeneratingHealth until the more recent incarnations, stealth missions and the battles on the Japanese mainland in certain titles become this. One botched step and an entire area may come down your head for the former, and with the latter the bunkers and ambushes are explicitly designed to incite this.
27	* PortingDisaster: The GBA port of ''Underground'' is rather infamous for this. While most of the levels are surprisingly faithful to the [=PS1=] original, that doesn't count for much when the pixelated mess that passes for the graphics prevents you from seeing any of it. The music is also an unlistenable, bitcrushed mess.
28	* ScrappyWeapon: ''Allied Assault'' has three.
29	** The regular Mauser [=Kar98k=]. Its fire rate is atrociously slow for a non-scoped gun, its laughable damage per shot (three center-of-mass shots to kill a human!) makes it look like a pistol, and reloading it is so sluggish, you'd think you're being teased by your in-game avatar. Fortunately, you're never stuck with it in single-player – in the sole instance where you can get one, you also get a Springfield. ''Spearhead'' buffs its damage to usable levels in the one mission where you get one, but you're still better off using almost anything else.
30	** The Springfield 1903, the Allies' one and ony sniper rifle. It's a reliable, powerful and accurate gun, but it takes about twice as long to cycle after firing as the scoped [=Kar98k=]. If you get into a SniperDuel against a German sniper, he'll plug you three times before you manage to squeeze the second shot if you don't hit him first time, and considering the Springfield is your rifle in [[ThatOneLevel "Sniper's Last Stand"]] and subsequent {{Sniping Mission}}s, you can guess how aggravating that gets.
31	** The ShortRangeShotgun's pellet spread is so awful, it can't guarantee a one-shell kill at ''literally'' farther than spitting range, and it fires and reloads so slowly it's very hard to avoid retaliation fire from the soldier you've wounded instead of killing. You also only get the shells you start the mission with; fairly realistically, the Nazis don't have shotshells lying around in their armories. All in all, if you get a shotgun, do yourself a favor: forget that you have it and only use your SMG for close quarters.
32	* ThatOneLevel:
33	** The Golden Lion (rail-shooter sequences, tons of snipers, etc) and Nijmegen Bridge (infinitely RespawningEnemies with little cover) in ''Frontline''.
34	** [[BrutalBonusLevel Panzerknacker Unleashed]] from ''MOH Underground''. The first level had dogs that could be killed by 8 pistol shots or one shotgun blast. The 2nd level had zombies armed with automatics and ridiculous accuracy [[spoiler:that explode when killed]] as well as armored knights that are always charging at you.
35	** ''Allied Assault'' has a few. Day of the King Tiger, the fifth mission, is a double whammy. Sniper's Last Stand has German snipers EVERYWHERE, so you're forced to inch around any and all corners and make extensive use of the quicksave feature just to move across the street; the second half is not ''as'' heavy on snipers, but it's an EscortMission – at least the CombatMedic in the crew is generous with the healing. The following mission, The Hunt for the King Tiger, pits infantry with Panzerschrecks against a tank ''that doesn't have a machine gun''.
36	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Despite them later marrying, Manon and Jimmy never actually interact face-to-face in the series on-screen. Considering how EA later took part in the co-op craze of the early 2010s with games like ''VideoGame/DeadSpace3'', the fact we never got a co-op title that expands on the relationship of both of them is a waste.

Context YMMV / MedalOfHonor