Medal of Honor sports several historically accurate weapons. The entire arsenal replicates actual American and German World War II munitions, with the frequent need to reload, which was common to arms of that day. The specific Allied weapons include a Colt .45, an OSS Hi-Standard Silenced pistol, an M1 Garand rifle, a Springfield '03 Sniper rifle (with no adjustable zoom), a Thompson submachine gun, a Browning Automatic rifle, a Mark II Frag grenade, a bazooka, a Winchester shotgun, and a .30 caliber mounted machine gun. The Germans have a Walther P38 semi-automatic pistol, a Mauser KAR 98K repeating rifle, an MP40 submachine gun, an STG44 Sturmgewehr rifle, an MG42 mounted machine gun, a Stielhandgrenate grenade, and the rocket-powered Panzerschrek. Each armament serves a different purpose on the battlefield. While you get to carry more weapons into battle than is realistically possible, most missions do not necessitate your picking up more than a handful of them. The limited yet completely authentic selection of convincing period weaponry serves this title well.

It is evident from the outset that, although Medal of Honor has a ton of violence, there is no bloodshed whatsoever. With my well-known position of being against non-adjustable gore in games, it might be assumed that this decision pleases me; instead, I find it very odd, presenting the artificial image of sanitized killing during wartime. While this design decision has maintained the ESRB rating at "Teen" rather than "Mature," the classification makes little sense in the context of the constant killing of humans present throughout the gameplay. The death animations alone are enough to give sensitive viewers nightmares.

The first and most lasting impression I get when playing Medal of Honor is that I am taking part in an incredibly immersive interactive movie. Scripting is evident everywhere, far more than I am used to in the first-person shooter genre, and if you replay scenarios you will quickly see that many events happen no matter what you do, even if it seems the first time through as if these were directly triggered by your actions. This design decision can in many ways enhance your sense of cinematic involvement, but it does have some downsides. For example, if one of your comrades is destined to be shot and killed, there is nothing you can do to stop it; and if one is destined to survive a skirmish, you can leave him totally exposed to heavy enemy fire and he will survive unscathed. In addition, because the responsiveness to your actions is a bit of an illusion, your fellow soldiers often block you inadvertently from getting a clear shot at the enemy. Nonetheless, the choreography is nothing short of stunning.

If you want to feel as if you were actually fighting during World War II in a totally engrossing interactive experience, you cannot do better than playing Medal of Honor. While some might gripe about the omnipresent scripting, tight linearity of the gameplay, inconsistent realism, or the less than stellar artificial intelligence, these deficiencies do not ruin the overwhelming emotional impact of this title. Although no individual element is truly novel, the composite presented offers a completly fresh experience. Every scene literally drips with well-crafted atmosphere, and many are so memorable they will stay with you for days after you finish. In the end, this release deserves a medal of honor for heroic effort.