Buy it... if you want to hear Michael Giacchino's first breakthrough score, for despite residing in the video game genre, "Medal of Honor" is an engagingly robust orchestral work worthy of a motion picture.

Avoid it... if the strikingly obvious similarities between this music and John Williams' Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade might hinder your ability to enjoy its other, more original merits.

Giacchino

Medal of Honor: (Michael Giacchino) One of the most fascinating aspects of using a traditional orchestral score in a video game is that the music's style and viability both precede and survive long after the technology of the game is obsolete. This was especially the case in the 1990's, when gaming technology on computers was changing so quickly that the games were forced to evolve themselves or be a footnote in the history of home computing. When the first "Medal of Honor" game debuted in 1999, its producers realized just that, and the concept matured over the course of several sequel and spin-off games also related to World War II. Dreamworks and Steven Spielberg were responsible for expanding upon the idea of using full-blooded orchestral music in video games after the successful recording for the Star Wars spin-off game "Shadows of the Empire" earlier in the decade. This growth resulted in games inspired by Jurassic Park: The Lost World and Saving Private Ryan that both featured orchestral music by young composer Michael Giacchino, long before his transfer to major motion picture scoring in the mid-2000's yielded mainstream popularity and awards recognition. Partially to thank for the symphonic sound in video games is John Williams, who may never have recorded a single such score, but whose works influenced both McNeely and Giacchino in the medium's first major orchestral recordings. At the time, Spielberg referred to Giacchino as a "young John Williams" and, while his expansive career on television and the big screen later revealed a far wider range of stylistic talent, Giacchino's direct emulation of the maestro in these early efforts greatly supported that claim. Performed by the 64 members of The Northwest Sinfonia, the music for "Medal of Honor" gained widespread acclaim and immediate respect for Giacchino, despite some criticism regarding the blatant pulls of inspiration from contemporary Williams music. The franchise would slowly lose some of that distinctive spirit as it branched out into its many succeeding variants, Giacchino eventually unable to continue his involvement due to his exploding career and replaced by other feature film score younglings Christopher Lennertz and Ramin Djawadi.

While as a game, "Medal of Honor" was created in the mould of Saving Private Ryan, its music couldn't be any more different. The sole similarity between the 1998 Williams score and this subsequent game score (the latter reportedly written before the former was released and/or heard by Giacchino) is the atmosphere of solemn patriotism in the solitary performances of their title themes on brass. For the game, this theme's primary, most respectful performance comes in the opening "Medal of Honor" cue, which builds upon the style of James Horner's Apollo 13 for two minutes before an increase of bravado introduces the notable Williams-like, full-ensemble characteristics. In the noble brass counterpoint later in this performance and in a few places thereafter, the horns take on the style of John Scott, too. While this theme is technically the overarching idea of the score, its extended uses are quite limited, with the orchestral material on the game's album concluded by a jubilant variation of the theme in "The Jet Aircraft Facility." More specifically, the theme represents the primary character, OSS agent Lt. Jimmy Patterson, as he journeys through each mission in the game. Given the suspenseful nature of many of these cues, however, as well as the pacing of their action, the title theme is most often reduced to fragments. Far more cohesive, interestingly, is the theme for the Nazis, which is where Giacchino really takes a cue, so to speak, from Williams. Introduced in "Locating Enemy Positions" and exploding in full, marching movement in "Attack on Fort Schmerzen," this theme is an extremely obvious rearrangement of the scherzo and associated German themes from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The unmistakable similarities between the mass of Nazi-related music in "Medal of Honor" and that of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade can either be considered a major asset or a startling distraction. In either case, Giacchino provides cues like "The Radar Train" and "Rjuken Sabotage" with outstandingly rambunctious renditions of this theme that espouse an energy and complexity usually reserved for Williams' own works. With these two themes mingling throughout, "Medal of Honor" presents every mission in solid three to four minute cues that are all structured like a self-contained mini-symphony, allowing for a smooth flow to the game that isn't completely bound by immediate user activities.

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Each of the individual movements in "Medal of Honor" features the development of a distinct format of an individual motif from start to finish, whether it's the overwhelmingly engaging rhythms of "Taking Out the Railgun" or the more subtle, turbulent low range movements of "The U-Boat." Each cue is highly listenable, therefore, and attentive listeners will note a few sub-themes, such as a specific "stalking motif," that traverse multiple cues. The similarities to Williams' styles of the late 1980's and early 1990's doesn't stop with the outward Nazi material; many ambitious cues reference Williams' techniques in composition and orchestration from scores such as Hook, Far and Away, and Jurassic Park. The instrumentation of "Medal of Honor" is standard (in terms of an orchestral ensemble), however, with the absence of synthetic or exotic elements lending to a reliably robust product anchored by a strong central personality. The low strings are especially utilized by Giacchino with outstanding results, often producing churning rhythms of satisfaction. The only cue that does not synchronize with the style of the whole is the jazzy, Cole Porter-inspired "The Road to Berlin." Dreamworks Interactive initially only released the score on a 72-minute album through Amazon.com, causing more hype than probably necessary (remember that Amazon.com was still a relatively fresh idea at the time), and the subsequent products in the series by Giacchino and others often exhibited limited availability as well. The album presentation's only weaknesses come at its end. After a source radio broadcast version of "The Road to Berlin," the album features two hidden tracks. The first is an obnoxious collection of sound effects from German positions, while the conducting of the American national anthem by Giacchino's own mother is thrown on, with studio joking included, only for fun (the musicians intentionally butcher parts of the tune). That album went out of print and retailed at a value at least double its original retail price for many years. In 2011, La-La Land Records assembled all of the existing "Medal of Honor" game soundtracks by all three composers and released them in one massive, 8-CD set. That impressive collection, aside from remastering the sound and making all of the scores available again as part of a 2,000-copy pressing for $60, presents additional material from the later entries. The contents on the set's first CD for "Medal of Honor" are identical to those of the original product. In either case, this first franchise score successfully set the tone for its sequels and remains among the best imitations of John Williams' style ever achieved. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

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For Michael Giacchino reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.37 (in 21 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.23 (in 12,367 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.