Medal of Honor had a long hard hill to climb pre-release, the game was fighting a behemoth of an enemy known as Call of Duty and I think few of us expected it to do well on that front. Not only was it fighting that battle, but it had a sort of side skirmish going on with one of its own brothers, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and to make matters even more twisted the multiplayer portion of the game was being built by Dice, the very people that built the Battlefield franchise. 
 
As an unabashed and loyal fan to the Battlefield series, and as someone looking for an alternative to the juggernaut that is Call of Duty, I put my reserve down for Medal of Honor and was awaiting the day of its release. 
 
That day finally came and I delved immediately into the campaign, all the footage I had glimpsed from preview coverage had me excited. Not only was the game taking on a war that is in the news daily, it seemed to be doing so with a little more authenticity than the usual first person shooter. Obviously you have to expect some blockbuster movie makeover, war is fought a lot differently than what is depicted in most movies and games. 
 
The single player did not disappoint in so much as there were a lot of excellent moments; stealthy runs into enemy bases, ambushes and seemingly unending firefights with no chance of survival. Throw in a couple of nicely done set piece levels; a level taking place with two helicopters and a short but sweet sniper mission and the game felt not only well put together but there was a nice amount of fluidity to how each set of characters actions affected that of the others. Levels flowed together, almost, seamlessly at times. 
 
Cut to four hours later when credits began rolling and my jaw involuntarily found itself hanging open. Four hours? Really? I am not asking for a forty hour epic, but this was one hell of a short game, even beating out the likes of Modern Warfare 2. which at best was perhaps added another fifty percent in length. Looking back, and having played through the campaign again, hard mode is the way to go for a play through of this game. It adds some challenge, but not enough to make the game terribly frustrating, it also adds some length to the game in so much as you have to better pace yourself in order to survive. The came could have done well by shifting the difficulty a bit and adding a very hard mode. 
 
On the topic of multiplayer, after enjoying the brief campaign I had high hopes of spending the next few weeks wrapped up in for some time. Wow did I have my hopes in the wrong place. Perhaps it was still the bad taste left in my mouth from the campaign, but nothing about the multiplayer jived with me at all. I spent a few hours with it the first night and could not find myself doing anything except dying over and over again, usually immediately after spawning from a death only seconds ago. 
 
Back in the case the game went, into my bag, and the next day was handed off to a friend at work with "Take your time and play it, I am in no hurry to get this back." 
 
Cut to a week ago, Cyber Monday, Amazon had the game for $29.99 in a lightning deal. What possessed me at that moment to buy a second copy of the game (my original was on PS3, this time I bought it on 360) I could not honestly tell you. Maybe it was the fact that along with the discounted price I had a surplus of gaming credits from previous purchases, so all in all I ended up shelling out only around $10 for the game. At worst I told myself I could sell it off to a friend and make my money back, at best I could sell it off to someone at a small profit, what ever the reason I bought a game I had not really enjoyed a second time. 
 
The game arrived a couple of days later (thanks Amazon Prime!) I reluctantly peeled off the cellophane and threw it in the 360, a short install later I booted the game up and went straight to the multiplayer, I knew what the campaign was, I wanted to find new life in this game and to my surprise I enjoyed the two rounds I played. Perhaps it was from the patch that had since been released for the game, or maybe it was having distanced myself from the campaign far enough at this point to not have a jaded perspective on something that is so far removed, outside of general setting and teams (Al Qa... er, OpFor is going down!) what ever the reason I found something extremely satisfying in the game. I backed out of the game after those two rounds and waited for the evening when a friend I knew had recently picked it up during Black Friday would show up and we could voice chat our way through some more. 
 
Cut to day five of playing multiplayer (and having gone through the campaign once more, on hard this time) and loving nearly every minute of it. Do not get me wrong, the game has flaws, but for what ever reason I have found myself looking past them and enjoying what is a really nice game balanced between the multiplayer game play of Battlefield: Bad Company and Call of Duty; the former a game I love, the latter a game I can find nothing to even like about it. And what is more, I am finding myself saddened that the player base has dwindled to an almost death knell level of players even during peak gaming hours. Playing certain modes is nearly impossible during the morning hours as not enough people are out there playing them to even start a match proper. At most, I'll estimate, I have seen four or five thousand people playing the game spread across the six modes on 360.  
 
If you have read this wall of text, congratulations you have witnessed the Sunday morning ramblings of Murtaug.

Medal of Honor had a long hard hill to climb pre-release, the game was fighting a behemoth of an enemy known as Call of Duty and I think few of us expected it to do well on that front. Not only was it fighting that battle, but it had a sort of side skirmish going on with one of its own brothers, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and to make matters even more twisted the multiplayer portion of the game was being built by Dice, the very people that built the Battlefield franchise. 
 
As an unabashed and loyal fan to the Battlefield series, and as someone looking for an alternative to the juggernaut that is Call of Duty, I put my reserve down for Medal of Honor and was awaiting the day of its release. 
 
That day finally came and I delved immediately into the campaign, all the footage I had glimpsed from preview coverage had me excited. Not only was the game taking on a war that is in the news daily, it seemed to be doing so with a little more authenticity than the usual first person shooter. Obviously you have to expect some blockbuster movie makeover, war is fought a lot differently than what is depicted in most movies and games. 
 
The single player did not disappoint in so much as there were a lot of excellent moments; stealthy runs into enemy bases, ambushes and seemingly unending firefights with no chance of survival. Throw in a couple of nicely done set piece levels; a level taking place with two helicopters and a short but sweet sniper mission and the game felt not only well put together but there was a nice amount of fluidity to how each set of characters actions affected that of the others. Levels flowed together, almost, seamlessly at times. 
 
Cut to four hours later when credits began rolling and my jaw involuntarily found itself hanging open. Four hours? Really? I am not asking for a forty hour epic, but this was one hell of a short game, even beating out the likes of Modern Warfare 2. which at best was perhaps added another fifty percent in length. Looking back, and having played through the campaign again, hard mode is the way to go for a play through of this game. It adds some challenge, but not enough to make the game terribly frustrating, it also adds some length to the game in so much as you have to better pace yourself in order to survive. The came could have done well by shifting the difficulty a bit and adding a very hard mode. 
 
On the topic of multiplayer, after enjoying the brief campaign I had high hopes of spending the next few weeks wrapped up in for some time. Wow did I have my hopes in the wrong place. Perhaps it was still the bad taste left in my mouth from the campaign, but nothing about the multiplayer jived with me at all. I spent a few hours with it the first night and could not find myself doing anything except dying over and over again, usually immediately after spawning from a death only seconds ago. 
 
Back in the case the game went, into my bag, and the next day was handed off to a friend at work with "Take your time and play it, I am in no hurry to get this back." 
 
Cut to a week ago, Cyber Monday, Amazon had the game for $29.99 in a lightning deal. What possessed me at that moment to buy a second copy of the game (my original was on PS3, this time I bought it on 360) I could not honestly tell you. Maybe it was the fact that along with the discounted price I had a surplus of gaming credits from previous purchases, so all in all I ended up shelling out only around $10 for the game. At worst I told myself I could sell it off to a friend and make my money back, at best I could sell it off to someone at a small profit, what ever the reason I bought a game I had not really enjoyed a second time. 
 
The game arrived a couple of days later (thanks Amazon Prime!) I reluctantly peeled off the cellophane and threw it in the 360, a short install later I booted the game up and went straight to the multiplayer, I knew what the campaign was, I wanted to find new life in this game and to my surprise I enjoyed the two rounds I played. Perhaps it was from the patch that had since been released for the game, or maybe it was having distanced myself from the campaign far enough at this point to not have a jaded perspective on something that is so far removed, outside of general setting and teams (Al Qa... er, OpFor is going down!) what ever the reason I found something extremely satisfying in the game. I backed out of the game after those two rounds and waited for the evening when a friend I knew had recently picked it up during Black Friday would show up and we could voice chat our way through some more. 
 
Cut to day five of playing multiplayer (and having gone through the campaign once more, on hard this time) and loving nearly every minute of it. Do not get me wrong, the game has flaws, but for what ever reason I have found myself looking past them and enjoying what is a really nice game balanced between the multiplayer game play of Battlefield: Bad Company and Call of Duty; the former a game I love, the latter a game I can find nothing to even like about it. And what is more, I am finding myself saddened that the player base has dwindled to an almost death knell level of players even during peak gaming hours. Playing certain modes is nearly impossible during the morning hours as not enough people are out there playing them to even start a match proper. At most, I'll estimate, I have seen four or five thousand people playing the game spread across the six modes on 360.  
 
If you have read this wall of text, congratulations you have witnessed the Sunday morning ramblings of Murtaug.

Nice~ I felt the same way, it really is almost a, COD BFBC hybrid, I think it's an allright game seeing as I picked it up for half price.

I also find the game was a bit flawed and the multiplayer very flawed but I think it's the close-to-realism that attracts me to this game.