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What game has your favorite beach landing/invasion level?

S

SoundPulse

Banned
Van Bur3n said:
Call of Duty 2's Pointe Du Hoc. A more unique take on D-Day landing taking place elsewhere outside of the typical Omaha Beach setting.

Callofduty2pointeduhoc.jpg
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This level with a good sound system back in the day was a goddamn treat.
 
D

DorkLord54

Member
If we can name honourable mentions, then Pointe du Hoc is definitely my next favourite. It just feels so intense and cibematic, with the scripting not being so on-rails as to make it unenjoyable. My greatest fear about CoD: WWII is that Sledgehammer will make their Omaha landing super scripted.
 
T

Teasing_Pink

Member
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault is still the best and most harrowing to me. It was the first time I had to stop and reflect on what I was playing; it felt "dirty", for lack of a better description, to be playing this as entertainment, when there were men who had to experience this firsthand.

Where Battlefield and the like is abstract in its excesses, MOHAA just hit too close to the mark.
 
DaciaJC

DaciaJC

Gold Member
yophlow said:
Medal of Honor: Frontline, no question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD01yVeogzw
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I agree. A lot of people will say that Allied Assault did it better, and in terms of scale, they're not wrong, but for me, Frontline's depiction feels more intense. Not exactly sure why, but I think it's a combination of more convincing visual effects (e.g. the tracers, explosions) and the cold color grading reminiscent of the film.

Both are great levels, either way.
 
T

Twilight Gap

Member
Long Night of Solace in Halo Reach was an amazing Halo level with incredible visuals, music and classic encounters. In retrospect, it seems rather small in scope but at the time it was the level that made you go "fuck yea this is the new Halo game"

Silent Cartographer was good too in 2001 and the encounters are a bit better there, but I find it a slog to return to. Long Night of Solace has better pacing.
 
D

D4rth Man7iz

Member
Tyraniboah said:
Halo: CE for me. Riding the Pelicans while the main theme kicks in as Covenant are firing on you was pretty epic.

latest
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This right here! I played this mission countless times even before H1 came out. It was the Demo included on a Official Xbox Magazine disc back in the day.
 
S

StayDead

Member
I love the beach level in Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, but then again it was the multiplayer map. Still one of the best maps.
 
P

Paganmoon

Member
Only one to come to mind is Day of Defeats Overlord map.

Allies are at such a crazy disandvantage on that map, but as soon as a few break through, it could be over pretty quickly.
 
D

DocSeuss

Member
Cranster said:
The obvious winner.

hwuibyy7to9pnbxvvdsv.gif
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Hey, I recognize this gif ;)

Zap Rowsdower said:
Wolfenstein: TNO's opening is pretty strong.
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ActWan said:
I'll throw in a mention of Wolfenstein the New Order's opening level
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It's interesting ya'll mention this. I was really surprised after release to hear a bunch of people didn't like this level, but they felt the game got a lot better after the timeskip. Never could see much of a difference between this level and the others.

Swimming through wreckage and bullets on my way to a turret to shoot a giant robot dog was Extremely Good Stuff imo.
 
T

TranceKuja

Member
Landing at Dollet from Final Fantasy 8, mostly because of the incredible music. Also the novelty of seeing the in-game character models in CGI-cutscenes. Blew my mind back then.

I hope these gifs work.

giphy.gif


giphy.gif
 
S

ScOULaris

Member
DaciaJC said:
I agree. A lot of people will say that Allied Assault did it better, and in terms of scale, they're not wrong, but for me, Frontline's depiction feels more intense. Not exactly sure why, but I think it's a combination of more convincing visual effects (e.g. the tracers, explosions) and the cold color grading reminiscent of the film.

Both are great levels, either way.
Click to expand...

Back when Allied Assault and Frontline first came out, I was more impressed by Allied Assault because of its slightly better production values (a virtue of being a PC exclusive compared to Frontline on the PS2). But looking at the two missions in video form now I'm reminded of just how similar they were. They are basically the same with a few minor deviations here and there.

My PC wasn't good enough to play Allied Assault back then, so in terms of personal impact I'd have to give the nod to Frontline's D-Day mission.

And man, MoH games had such superb sound design. They were truly top-class when it came to authentic, high-fidelity sound effects in a time before that became a priority for most developers.

EDIT: Here's a video of the Remastered version of Frontline's D-Day level.
 
T

the_lizard

Member
Zero and done. OP nailed it with Corinth River. I've played through that level probably close to 40 times in total. Fantastic level. If only Guerilla would have built on the things that made KZ2 so special, instead of pivoting to try and create a sci-fi Call of Duty with KZ3 and beyond.
 
LordKasual

LordKasual

Banned
Final Fantasy 8 Dollett invasion. The landing and the exit were awesome.

Halo Combat Evolved, still one of the best FPS stages
 
A

Atolm

Member
Man I don't want to sound like a douche but my god, Allied Assault has aged so poorly. Even in comparison to other idTech 3 shooters.
 
T

TheLetdown

Member
SkyMasterson said:
Except Allied Assault did it before and was the better game.

I enjoyed Frontline too, but Allied Assualt was the best way to experience a WWII game at the time.
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Not one lie to be found in this post. God, MOHAA was so great at that moment, especially MP on a realism server.

That multiplayer Normandy beach map could be a little one-sided, but once you were able to get up to the nests and start weeding them out, it felt so good.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Killzone 2 is good, but I think the Titanfall 2 campaign deserves a shoutout too for the landing stage near the end. It was really rad.
 
D

Deleted member 752119

Unconfirmed Member
Tyraniboah said:
Halo: CE for me. Riding the Pelicans while the main theme kicks in as Covenant are firing on you was pretty epic.

latest
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Yeah, nothing has topped that experience for me yet. Things have surpassed it in graphics, sound etc., but notthing has blown me away that did the first time I played it.
 
S

ScOULaris

Member
the_lizard said:
Zero and done. OP nailed it with Corinth River. I've played through that level probably close to 40 times in total. Fantastic level. If only Guerilla would have built on the things that made KZ2 so special, instead of pivoting to try and create a sci-fi Call of Duty with KZ3 and beyond.
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Agreed. I can only imagine what they could produce if they put as much time into a proper KZ2-style sequel on modern hardware as they did into Horizon: Zero Dawn. It would be awe-inspiring. I'm sure that Shadow Fall's many drawbacks were mostly due to the time crunch that they were under to produce a PS4 launch game.

MetalliCabombination said:
Does god of war 3 count?
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You mean ascending Mt. Olympus in the beginning? Sure, I'd say that counts.
 
Z

Zojirushi

Member
There was a scene in Halo Reach I remember being pretty good as well. It had Elites dropping in onto your head in those sarcophagus like things.

You weren't really storming the beach afair more walking alongside it.
 
Falchion

Falchion

Member
My mind immediately went to Frontline but the Halo CE assault on the Silent Cartographer was pretty awesome too.
 
P

Peltz

Member
The one from Halo CE was definitely the most memorable, especially if you played it back when it was new. It was such a mind blowing experience.
 
T

Triggerhappytel

Member
RenegadeXV8 said:
Allied Assault had a far better D-Day opening. I made the mistake of playing Frontline after AA and it felt pretty lame overall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5f-VKEq0JA
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Yeah, this is much better. I saw a friend play this on PC after having played Frontline, and it was much more impressive. Frontline has excellent sound effects but the actual beach invasion itself is really limp, because there's only ever about 8 or 10 Allied soldiers on the beach at any one time and you're barely in any danger from the machine guns in the bunkers. I realise the lack of soldiers was probably due to the underpowered hardware but it never managed to create the level of illusion I was expecting.
 
S

ScOULaris

Member
Triggerhappytel said:
Yeah, this is much better. I saw a friend play this on PC after having played Frontline, and it was much more impressive. Frontline has excellent sound effects but the actual beach invasion itself is really limp, because there's only ever about 8 or 10 Allied soldiers on the beach at any one time and you're barely in any danger from the machine guns in the bunkers. I realise the lack of soldiers was probably due to the underpowered hardware but it never managed to create the level of illusion I was expecting.
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Yeah, both Allied Assault and Frontline seem a bit underwhelming now in terms of the number of soldiers they were able to show rushing the beach at once. Hopefully we'll see some massive NPC counts in the upcoming CoD WW2 Normandy level. Experiencing D-Day (virtually) with such a high level of graphical and audio fidelity combined with hundreds of allied soldiers hitting the coast at the same time would really be something.
 
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