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This game is being constantly bashed my MW2 fans. The biggest flaw in the marketing of this game was to compare it to, and suggest that its a contender to MW2. Its simply not the same game. The majority of negative reviews stem from the fact that EA touted this as a MW2 clone more or less, which got all the MW2 junkies on the bandwagon only to be depressed and angry. Its not the same. Its a completely different game, and when looked at alone, not comparitively its a solid game.
Modes:
Campaign:
Decent, but short. Great story, realistic gameplay. Sliding into cover should be incorporated in every FPS from here on out, works fantastically. There is always the opportunity to go back and try a harder difficulty.
Tier 1 Mode:
tough.........replay each mision of the campaign, with a maximum time limit, and no respawns or checkpoints..........
this trumps a veteran difficulty level where you can just figure out a route and sprint to a checkpoint then die and start right there..........
Multiplayer:
BFBC2 on smaller maps, made by the same BFBC guys, I enjoy it, I have put in about 6 hours online and its got the same issues they all have, spawn killing, campers, etc........graphically it excedes BFBC2
Bonus:
Medal of Honor Frontlines remastered (ps3 only)
I never played this before but I have been enjoying it alot. Its a solid FPS from the days before spawn killers, online, and nuke boosting.
Overall:
The campaign has some glitches, some that shouldn't have made it past testing, but oh well, there are a few in every game that comes out. The story is great. Graphics are average for the campaign, and above average, but not the best, for multiplayer. The online is constantly compared to MW2 which is very different, there are no "steady aim" perks that allow you to wildly spray ammo around. If you try running around you will get shot. The goal is realism, and while not perfect, it gets closer than the others. You run around a corner and a guy is crouched there, you are dead, he will see you before you get your gun up from a sprint, thats reality, but will frustrat the hell out of players that are used to running around with light step and marathon, jumping into prone and spraying dual p90's all over the screen...............
EA screwed up comparing this game to MW2, but in the end, its a decent game, two if you count frontlies, which i do because its a solid little game on its own. For me, it was worth the sixty i put out and twenty i got back in GC form. Any review that says this isn't MW2..............unless thats all you like, read on, because people that play other games will appreciate this game much more than those that think COD is all there is..............
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Alright, it sucks I have to put a disclaimer in my own review, but when dealing with video games and a crowd with a large number of hairless-chest thumping Justin Biebers, the word "fanboy" gets thrown around WAY too much. I will start my review by saying I own CoD4, MW2, and now MoH. I played the BFBC2 beta, I downloaded BF 1943 when it first released on the Playstation Store, but I have never played BFBC1 or the full release of BFBC2, so I came into the latest MoH with only a slight familiarity with the feel of EA's DICE games. If anything, I'm a fanboy of Frontline, and a frequent player of MW2, but understand and appreciate the different approach EA/DICE took with MoH versus Activision with MW2.
I used to play MoH: Frontline for hours, loved the soundtrack, and pre-ordered Rising Sun, but still returned to Frontline, which stands as my favorite modern release wartime FPS (Duke Nukem 3d being my #1 all time fav). I've played MoH games long before I ever stepped foot into a Call of Duty game.
This game was hyped up like crazy. Nobody expected Treyarch to throw in the towel with Black Ops because of this game, but MoH has failed to live up to said hype. Not to say that it's a horrible game. I got tired of reading "I want a refund! I can't play online!"... It's day 1 kids, relax, be patient, play the campaign mode, do your pre-algebra homework, inspect your lip for any incoming mustache hairs, or do whatever it is 13 year olds do these days.
I pre-ordered MoH for a couple reasons. To keep me occupied until Black Ops releases (because I'm tired of MW2) and to re-live Frontline. I played the beta. It was rough, but most betas are. EA seemed to respond to a lot of the feedback so I assumed the release would be a bit more polished. It is, but only slightly.
Starting with the single player campaign:
I'm only halfway through and I've moderately enjoyed the campaign thus far, but still have a few gripes. I started on medium difficulty, thinking it'd be challenging enough to keep me entertained, but not overwhelmingly difficult. Now that I've played through this far, I'm thinking I should have just jumped on hard. I've only died once, and I'll explain why in just a minute. I have had, on multiple occasions, AI walk AROUND me to go fire at my team, leaving me completely unnoticed and unharmed as if I were invisible. As other reviewers have pointed out, the enemy can be hiding behind a soggy Kleenex and be completely safe from your fire. The environment is semi-destructible. I was able to shoot a few rounds at a stack of tires and chip off tires one by one to reveal the enemy's head (well, a teensy little bit of his turban), but the wooden crate he was hiding behind must have been filled with blocks of lead, because nothing made it through.
Even being somewhat out in the open, if the enemy fires at you, no need to run and duck for cover, just watch for the flash reports and aim for his head... trust me, you'll have time.
The only time I've died was while playing the second mission, called Breaking Bagram. We cleared and secured the airfield, but once we made it into the warehouse, the fourth guy was missing (Mother? I'm not sure who's who). So when we secure the warehouse and start making our way over to the tower, my team just holds up in the second floor of the warehouse waiting on this dude to get there, but he never shows. And at that point, the entrance to the warehouse is sealed shut. I've reloaded at the last checkpoint, everybody is accounted for, but once we get into the warehouse, he's gone... I've done this several times with no change. My teammate VooDoo waits by a door upstairs in the warehouse, so after we cleared out the warehouse I ran up to this door before VooDoo could block it and I was able to walk right through it (just like using the "idclip" cheat code in Doom (that's an old (and awesome!) computer game for you Teen Disney watchers)). After clipping through the door, I go downstairs and look outside to see nothing... literally, absolutely nothing. It's just white. I step outside and immediately fall underneath the map.. I keep falling, watching the map above me getting smaller and smaller.. then finally I smack and die and have to start allover again. I finally had to replay the entire mission to get through this level, not sure where this fourth dude kept hiding out, but he is seriously not a good wingman. Chump.
Multiplayer is, well.. an experience. I've played all available matches, mostly as Rifleman, and have an hour of online game time racked up so far and I'm already bored with the maps they keep sticking me on, especially when I play hardcore and it gives you random match types, but will put you on the same exact map 2-3 times in a row. There's only a total of like 4 maps, too. Pretty unexciting. Unless you love the taste of a sniper's bullet in your mouth, your best bet is to stay on the ground. Don't look over walls, don't hop up on buildings, crates, ladders, etc, stay low and stay covered, or else you're sniped. Even on CoD, I'm always on the move, but not a run-and-gun type player. I look around corners, I sneak behind enemies (I always get "Most time near enemies"), but this technique doesn't work here. I think the only way to produce successful numbers are sniping. I have about a 50/50% K/D ratio, so it's not that I'm horrible at this game, but seriously, MP needs some work. There's still a die-delay after being shot. Countless times I come across an enemy player and we both shoot and kill each other. I know that's possible at extreme random times, but this will happen multiple times within 1 team deathmatch round that only lasts a few minutes.
Frontline: This is at least half the reason I bought this game. Seriously, if it weren't for being able to play Frontline again, plus now I can play for trophies, I might have just taken this to GameStop and traded it for BFBC2. It's not that it's the crappiest game I've ever played (it's not, by far), but it definitely hasn't lived up to the hype. I could tough out playing MW2 until Black Ops comes out. I know a lot of it can be patched, but just because it can be doesn't mean it will be, we'll just have to hope for the best.
If you have any questions about anything I said (or didn't say), please comment and I'll address. Bottom line, this game is fun, but it's a lot of unmet hype. Get it, you'll like it as long as you keep an open mind and don't set your expectations as high as the hype told you to. It has potential to be better, it has potential to be a LOT better, but will never be game of the year material.
*EDIT* 19-Oct-2010
Ok, not so much of a review edit, but more of a heads up that I will soon be adding to this. I've been able to get more game play in, mostly on multiplayer, so I'll be able to share a bit more of my opinion on this game. In a nutshell, I'm liking it more than I did with the first few hours of play I had, but not sure I'm to the point where I'm going to change the star rating. Plus, I shared my dislikes and never really got to touch up on the likes. Stay tuned...
*EDIT* 22-Oct-2010
Alright, now I've got a few moments to add onto this review.
Single player I still stand by most of what I said about single player above, the enemy is comprised of slow-to-fire, horrible aim idiots, and your teammates are quicker to the trigger, but just as horrible of a shot as the enemy is. To parrot what others have said, I would like to have more freedom to move about, but it's basically follow your teammate(s) on the invisible track throughout every level. I've restarted the game on hard and I really don't see a difference between it and medium difficulty that I initially started playing. I haven't run into any new bugs, the closest thing that I've come across though is the shot/impact delay. For example, I'll shoot at a wall approximately 10-15 yards away from me and there will literally at least a half-second delay from the point of pulling my trigger and hearing the blast to the actual impact of the bullet. This is acceptable if I were doing 600 yard sniping, but not within spitting distance. Hopefully this is something they can patch since it's supposed to be a realistic game.
Multiplayer I don't know what it is, but there seems to be much less sniping going on. Snipers can still be an issue, but they don't appear to be as problematic as before. I have not played my gameplay style whatsoever, but I'm living longer, getting higher K/D rations, more points, etc. There is still the death delay problem. If you're firing an automatic rifle and get sniped, for example, you'll still be standing, but your gun will quit firing for a half second before you actually die. Almost giving you this weird "did my game just freeze up on me?!" feeling.
Overall The graphics for the most part look great, but still some odd, random "wth is that supposed to be?" moments. Like in the first level when you're waiting on a missile strike to open up this huge gate. The dirt and debris falling down to the ground is just brown streaks, very much like something you'd see on a Wii or PS2 FPS. Why they cut corners on stuff like that while putting in so much detail in other areas, I don't know. Like one of the multiplayer maps, if you look off in the far distance, you can see trucks driving down roads, and these have nothing at all to do with the game play. They can do that, but they can't do better than a half-arse brown smudge for debris?
I'm enjoying the game a lot more than I did the first few days. The storyline is ok so far, nothing too extreme, but nothing too boring either. I will continue to update as I continue playing this game.. until Nov 9, that is.
Any questions? Please post and I'll respond.
Buy Medal of Honor Now
This is the closest game available that is as close to being there, I as a fellow soldier and veteran I have walk in these men's shoes and I can atest to its realism; the real-world battle physics is both accurate and real not like other shooters when you fire an RPG it will either bring down a building or blow up your ride with you in it. This is real life uncut and unedited. This is only for those who like there games as real to life as it gets!
Read Best Reviews of Medal of Honor Here
First off, let me say that I know this review is longer than many will care to read. If that's the case, check out part 6 at the end.
I've numbered and titles the different sections of this review to help you navigate through them, should you only be interested in finding out certain things. Hope this is helpful.
T.O.C.
1. Background
2. Single Player Campaign
3. Online Multiplayer
4. Graphics
5. Sound
6. Summary
1. BACKGROUND
After 12 games, Electronic Arts has finally seen fit to end the war. World War II, that is. As you no doubt know, this reboot of Medal of Honor takes place during the current conflict in Afghanistan. Some people have scoffed at Electronic Arts for making this jump from WWII to, eh hem, "modern warfare", saying that they're just stealing notes from Call of Duty's playbook. I find this rather funny, though, considering that the original Call of Duty was, of course, a WWII game that shared more than a few similarities with the Medal of Honor series. But that was nearly 7 years ago. The situation today is much different. In many people's minds, the Call of Duty franchise (Modern Warfare 2, especially) is a member of first person shooter royalty, if not the very king itself. On the other hand, the Medal of Honor series has failed to keep up, both in terms of sales and ratings. In a way, it's as if the apprentice has become the master. In order to make a comeback, EA knew that had to make some changes. And so they have, which brings us to this reboot of the Medal of Honor series.
2. SINGLE PLAYER CAMPAIGN
Medal of Honor takes place in 2002, several months following the terrorist attacks of September 11th. In the game, you assume the role of U.S. special operations soldiers tasked to eliminate Taliban forces located in the mountains of Afghanistan.
The story is very thin by traditional standards. As far as the actual knowledge that the game provides you with, you just play as some special ops guys, hunting some terrorists that are holed up in some Afghan mountains. There are some cheesy cut scenes involving higher ups calling some bad shots from back in the States, but those don't add much of anything. Really, the lack of story is most likely due to a couple of things: 1) EA wanting to shy away from the more Hollywood-ish elements of other first person shooters. In other words, since Medal of Honor tries to be "realistic", there's no clean and neat story arch. And 2) Because the games set in a current, ongoing war, you just sort of find yourself in the middle of things, with no real back story and no real ending. But I guess that's one of the drawbacks to setting the game when and where they did. I mean, it's not like the writers could write in an ending to the war. They just wrote in an ending to one of the guys you play as. Trouble is, he has no established personality or character.
As far as gunplay goes, in my opinion -and some people will take exception with this -the general feel of MoH's combat is very similar to Modern Warfare 2`s. The fact that the button layout between the two games is identical accounts for much of this feeling. If you've built up any muscle memory response at all with MW2, almost all of that programming will carry over perfectly to Medal of Honor. However similar, MoH's shooting system just isn't as polished or as balanced as Modern Warfare 2's. And this isn't coming from a CoD fanboy -while I think MW2 is certainly a great game, old school Rainbow Six PC titles are more my thing, when it comes to shooters. Modern Warfare isn't close to being my soapbox -I'm just calling the situation what it is.
Medal of Honor is a very linear game, sometimes painfully so. Linearity isn't necessarily a problem, as game developers have their ways of making you feel like you have at least some freedom, even when you don`t. But there are no such illusions in this game. There's one way to play it, and one way only. To take just one example, at one point, I wanted to go back through a door way I just walked through, and pick up a rifle off of a dead enemy. However, there was now an invisible door that had apparently formed over the doorway, even though I was still on the same level, and only a few seconds had passed. There are countless little invisible obstacles like this that the game uses to guide you along the mission. You feel like your hand is being held by the Invisible Man.
As a change of pace from running and gunning, there are several special sequences thrown in the mix. During one, you man the weapons of an Apache Gunship, taking out various ground targets. And then, my favorite, was the long range anti-personnel sniping level with the .50 cal Barret rifle, which takes place in the Afghan mountains. This is especially satisfying, in that your targets are so far away, that you must account for more than a second from when the bullet leaves the barrel to the time it reaches the target. In real life, the effect of this particular caliber is absolutely devastating; Metal of Honor reflects that fact well. Unfortunately, even these levels are on very strict "rails".
The Enemies are somewhat challenging, in that there are lots of them, and they can shoot straight. However, they're a few fries short of a Happy Meal. For instance, they almost always duck down, but the thing is, they'll sometimes do this regardless of whether there is cover or not. What this amounts to is they simply stop shooting, ball up, and wait for to you take a nice easy shot at them. But this is minor, and doesn't happen frequently. On the other side of the extreme, there are a few machine gun nests in the game that are apparently manned by people impervious to bullets. They can only be killed by explosives launched from aircraft. So much for realism...
The 3 teammates you have with you are similarly stupid, but fortunately, they can take care of themselves (being invincible makes that pretty easy). They can also give you ammunition when you run low (if you share the same weapon). There is no command system in Medal of Honor where you tell your teammate where to go or what to do. They are simply there, alongside you, doing what they're scripted to do, and nothing else.
All in all, the campaign itself is short. About 6 hours. Unless you're the kind of person who thinks training goats for money-eating contests is a smart idea, you probably won't feel that this game offers you $60 worth of single player gameplay, neither in quality nor quantity. It's basically a Modern Warfare 2 clone that lacks the polish and story. Some may not like the comparison of the two games, but that's just how EA set things up. Everyone knows that the Medal of Honor reboot is EA's answer to Call of Duty. Naturally, given this fact, on top of the fact that Call of Duty was once a challenger to Medal of Honor's crown, the comparison between the two games is completely called for.
(On a side note, as a bonus included with the Playstation 3 version of Medal of Honor, a remastered version of 2002's Medal of Honor: Frontline is added to the mix. The graphics have been smoothed out and tweaked, and features like aiming down the weapons' sights have been added. Personally, I consider Frontline to be the best of the Medal of Honor games on console, if not the greatest Medal of Honor game, period. It being included with this reboot is a fantastic perk for those like me who are fans of the old series, and it's certainly one of the best pieces of bonus content I've ever seen included with a game. This is the highlight of the package.)
3. ONLINE MULTIPLAYER
Surprisingly, the single player and multiplayer (MP) components had two different developers. EA Los Angeles did the single player campaign, while DICE did the multiplayer. Interestingly, while EA used a heavily-modified Unreal Engine 3 for the campaign game, DICE used Frostbite engine for the multiplayer. This lends a somewhat distinctive feel to the two components of the game.
Leading up the release of MoH, a lot of buzz was going on about it possibly being a hybrid between Modern Warfare 2 and Battlefield Bad Company 2. This was a fairly reasonable assumption, given the run and gun nature of both Call of Duty and Medal of Honor games, combined with the fact that DICE is also the developer behind Battlefield: Bad Company 2 . Well, there is a definite presence of both games, it seems EA stopped short of making MoH possess the best of both worlds. For instance, MoH has a class system (rifleman, special ops, and sniper), like Battlefield, but the classes aren't really assigned distinct roles as they are in that game. Also, the levels are on a much smaller scale.
While there is a system of leveling up and unlocking weapon upgrades, don't expect anything too deep. If leveling is the kind of thing you're concerned about, I'd say you won't find the process nearly as rewarding, interesting, or addicting as that of Modern Warfare 2. But if climbing the ranks isn't on your to-do list, and you just like playing for the sake of playing, you shouldn't have much of problem with this "lack".
One thing I like about MoH over and against similar games is that "noob-tubing" and across the map grenading isn't much of a problem, as those weapons are much more balanced om in MoH. This is good news for people who like to focus on actual gun battles, and not throwing contests.
One thing I find strange is that you can't go prone in multiplayer, or slide into cover when running -two things that are available in the SP game. The slide, I think, would have added something a little unique to the MP experience, but apparently EA thought differently.
Over all, while not quite the super hybrid that many wished for, I'd say MoH's multilayer is good. Just good.
4. GRAPHICS
Medal of Honor by no means offers cutting-edge visuals, but the graphics are quite good. Certainly above "acceptable". But, if you get too close a look at something, there's no getting around the fact that the visuals do appear somewhat sub-standard for a big name release. For instance, textures are rather choppy, popping in and out, and often noticeably pixelated. On one level, it starts out with a close up of a goat, and, to my surprise, the goat didn't have eyes or a mouth, just a blank face (!). Unless there's some freakish breed of faceless goat that I'm unaware of that Medal of Honor wanted to showcase, I'd say this is a technical glitch, and one of many. However, the back ground and scenery very impressive, as are other things viewed from a distance. Night vision, infra red, and thermal vision are all very well done, offering a gritty realism. What's more, the lighting and shadows are both very good in Medal of Honor.
5. SOUND
This is one of the game's strongest points. Everything from the thump and echo of various rifles, to the buzz of the minigun on top of the chattering of helicopter blades, to the explosions in the distance -they're all done so well as to be some of the best combat sounds in any FPS to date.
6. CONCLUSION & SUMMARY
Story 3/10
Gameplay 6/10
Graphics 7/10
Sounds 8/10
Replay Value (single player campaign) 3/10
The new Medal of Honor is a decent attempt at a reboot of the series. But I can't help but wonder if Medal of Honor didn't reinvent itself, so much as it poorly mimicked its main competitor. It's gameplay is very derivative, but it at least borrows from some strong points of other games. As far as story, it offers something of a unique setting and perspective, in that it takes place during the current war in Afghanistan. But this setting placed some serious limitations on story development, and so that aspect of the game is noticeably lacking. At only about 6 hours long, most won't feel the single player is worth $60.
Even though the single player gameplay is derivative of Call of Duty, I think that the multiplayer in Medal of Honor might actually appeal more to Battlefield fans, given the fact that it shares the same developer, DICE. But even given that fact, I think MoH lacks many of the key elements that keep BFBC fans playing. Medal of Honot was thought to be a possible hybrid of Modern Warfare 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Sadly this just isn't the case. While fun for a time, MoH's multiplayer is nothing special.
All in all, I don't think it can be said that Medal of Honor brings anything exceptionally new or exciting to the FPS table. In fact, it's a basically a slightly less polished rehash of Modern Warfare 2's single player gameplay, with no compelling story or multiplayer to make up for it. But at the end of the day, it's a fairly solid first-person shooter, worthy of a rent. There was as much potential for this game as there was hype for it, and while it appears many copies are being sold, I think most buyers are going to get less than what they expected, if they are judging it against Modern Warfare 2. But that's just my opinion... Only time will tell if EA has succeeded in reinventing their classic FPS franchise.
Feel free to leave any questions or comments in the reply section.
Take care and thanks for reading.
-Chris Helton
Want Medal of Honor Discount?
Let me start by saying that I am in the US Army stationed in afghanistan. My guys and i were looking forward to this game very much as modern warfare 2 split screen was getting old. We were horribly dissapointed to find out that there was no split screen and even more so when we found out that online is also needed for tier 1. as you can guess we dont have internet capable of online out here.
So we were content to take turns playing the campaign. once again we were dissapointed when we finished it in 2 days probably a total of 4 hours of play. now the game is already gathering some of that fantastic dust that is out here. if you are thinking about getting this game just wait for black ops. at least they know how to make a campaign that is not a cakewalk and have split screen multiplayer.
