Spearhead, the last expansion for the acclaimed Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, wasn't exactly what you'd call memorable. Sure, it had some great mission that even topped those in Allied Assault but at only three hours long there just wasn't enough to keep anyone occupied or really interested as much as the original game. It was a disappointment, not so much in the expansion's quality but in the overall length. So onto Breakthrough, the second expansion that already fixes the playing time issue of Spearhead; it is a short game but quite long for an expansion. However, despite the title this is by no means a breakthrough of any kind.

Filling the shoes of yet another American soldier in World War 2, the game picks up this time in the deserts and hills of Africa and Italy, which are rarely seen in war games these days. And with new locations come new enemies, Italians to be precise, although apart from the new weapons you'll be able to acquire from them, there's not much difference between them and the Germans. There's no story here; you play as some soldier fighting the war and playing missions that don't appear to be linked.

The game, staying true to the Medal of Honor tradition, opens with an absolute corker of a level. In fact, the first few levels of the expansion, set in Africa, are certainly some of the best this series has to offer. At the very beginning you'll get to head the assault of allied troops and armour against a heavily fortified German position right in the midst of sandstorm, so you won't actually be able to see the enemy until you're right on top of them. Lots of sporadic fighting, ducking and diving into trenches and bunkers, even getting to control a tank for a short period; it's exactly the kind of quality levels that made the original game such a hit. It's a shame then that Breakthrough can't keep up this momentum.

As soon as you begin the missions set in Italy, things really do begin to go pear shaped, though this can't be attributed to the levels themselves because some of the levels really could have been great. The huge attacks by allied troops on enemy held towns, the manning of heavy artillery to fend off an attack by tanks as well as the obligatory on-rail vehicle sections should all be good, clean, arcade style fun, but this expansion is littered with problems that prevent you from enjoying these levels.

Action still remains a pivotal part of the game, but it's where most of these problems can emerge. While I'm all for a challenge, fighting off the entire German and Italian army while I desperately search for a health pack because pinpoint accurate enemy weapons that take huge chunks of health off me have left my character nearly dead, isn't particularly challenging, at least not in a fun way. But this is one thing that happens a lot in Breakthrough, because someone, somewhere had the brilliant idea to make health pick-ups in this game as rare as humanly possibly. The same goes for ammo, because now when you dispatch enemies they no longer leave behind any small health pick me ups or ammunition, so you instead have to rely and hope that the farmhouses and buildings you encounter contain a stash big enough to replenish your supplies. Normally this wouldn't bother me but this isn't a tactical shooter; it's an arcade game and it's always been an arcade game, so I expect there to be a generous amount bullets and first aid kits, especially when the amount of soldiers you face number in their hundreds.

It doesn't help that the AI in this expansion is also of a pretty low quality. Enemies aren't so bad; they at least strafe about the place and roll around on the ground before lining themselves up for your weapon. That's not the main issue however; the main problem with the AI comes in the form of the allied soldiers. While the feeling of being a small player in an altogether bigger battle has always been one of Medal of Honor's strong points, in Breakthrough it fails on all accounts. Put simply, your teammates are morons. Harsh, but true, these guys really can't do anything right. They ignore enemy soldiers behind them, gladly letting themselves get shot in the back, they rarely make use of cover, always charging into the heat of battle despite always being outnumbered and, perhaps most annoying of all, they don't seem to mind shooting you if you just happen to find yourself in their line of fire between them and an enemy soldier. I lost count of the amount of times that a supposed allied friend took it upon themselves to pump me full of lead simply because I mistakenly walked in front of them while they where shooting. It's probably a good thing than that nearly every allied soldier you meet, bar those important to the game's progression, has a lifespan shorter than a goldfish's memory.

Other problems abound to make Breakthrough as frustrating as possible. The constant "head bobbing" every time you get shot, the nice but extremely linear and dated looking graphics engine, the expansion's annoying habit to quick save at moments you really didn't want to quicksave and, worst of all, the parts of the game where you're low on health, low on ammo and about to charged by a mass of soldiers with not so much as a teammate to take the first initial blow for you. Never before in a Medal of Honor game have I used the quicksave key so often but here I was using it nearly every five minutes, or at least when there was an eventual bit of calm. All this serves to prove is that while there are some great missions in this game, they are hampered by some extremely annoying flaws that do more to annoy than entertain.

But it's not all bad news. The multiplayer side of things is an entertaining diversion from the swear-inducing single player and, as with Spearhead, this expansion comes with a couple of new things for players online to try. The new Liberation game mode is perhaps the most noteworthy addition. It's a kind of a spin on the usual Counter Strike clone where players, instead of trying to kill each other, attempt to put the opposing team in jail. Whenever you lose all your energy from being shot, rather than die you are put into confinements with no weapon and there you'll have to wait until a teammate breaks you out or your entire team is captured and when that happens it's game over. While not as fast paced as the objective based game, it is an entertaining and original feature that's sure to please those who enjoy the multiplayer side of things and actually makes up in a small way, for the flaws in the single player missions.

Breakthrough is yet another disappointment from the Medal of Honor camp. It's longer than Spearhead at least but contains such an overwhelming amount of faults that it's a hard game to really enjoy. Yes, if you're a hardcore Medal of Honor fan then you will find parts of this game entertaining, but you'll probably also find parts of it so incredibly annoying that it'll damage any faith you have in the series. Hopefully these problems will be fixed in time for Pacific Assault next year. In the meantime however, if you're desperate for more WWII based action you'll probably do better to look elsewhere than this tired old warhorse.

Reviewed by Kieron Giacopazzi for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).