Medal of Honor

Medal of Honor is an attempt by EA and the newly formed Danger Close to reboot a much beloved and prestigious franchise in a modern setting, following in the footsteps of Modern Warfare. The game is set during a 2 day period in Afghanistan and jumps between 3 different characters during this. The setting may sound exciting, being set in a current real war but the game completely disappoints on this premise. The characters all completely lack any discernable features to set them apart from each other. They are just soldiers who crack a few jokes between shoot outs. As the game is based on a real world conflict, there will obviously be no last boss fight or bad guy, but the complete failure to characterise any of them results in a complete lack or impact or drama from the events in the game. There is a general who tends to give bad orders but he is the closest thing that the game has to a villain. The story is non-existent, and the game is just a series of contrivances resulting in shoot outs. The three characters you play as are all presented as ordinary men putting it all on the line, so its a real pity that Danger Close made no attempt to weave a proper tale into the game. 

 The graphics of Medal of Honor are very mixed. The lighting looks brilliant, with the interplay between the light and the environment being fantastic. The sun sets and dawns that occur during some of the levels are particularly memorable. The explosions and environmental damage that occurs at points all look great. Dust and mud rains from the sky after mortar shots. On the other hand, fire looks awful, texture pop in is present in notable places. Character models are excellent but are animated poorly, such as clipping through terrain. Plants that you move through do not physically react to your presence and interaction with them. Backgrounds look good but many of the immediate textures are completely lacking in detail, making them look fake and taking you out of the experience. Medal of Honor looks good at a glance, but on a closer inspection its graphics do not hold up, and its samey environments are devoid of an art direction. 

The music track in the game is forgettable. None of it inspires any kind of reaction or has any impact. Its all just light ambiance, with some ill placed attempts to create a sense of urgency. The voice work is average, with no stand-out performances. The gun fire is very good, with many of them sounding powerful and the ricocheting of the fire around an area is realistic and well done. The sounds of jets as they fly over head and of soldiers in battle is all strong.

The gameplay of Medal of Honor has a strong core, but is weighed down with issues. The game is blatantly based at the Call of Duty market, with near identical structure and shooting mechanics. However, it is a boring game lacking in significant set pieces or production values. The campaign never excited me at any point, and as you are battling Taliban forces in Afghanistan the game cannot have the thrilling power of the enemy forces in cod’s fictional battles. There is a level where you repel a tank force of Taliban, which is the largest scale encounter in the game [and funny because the Taliban do not have tanks]. The game is heavily scripted to the point where you cannot play the game in any way other than the exact manner that the developers intended. Your hand is held, and then you are forcefully dragged down the path they want you to walk, Kicking and screaming if necessary. I actually had to restart an entire level because the game would not initiate the next boring scripted sequence that the player has no input into. Levels are completely linear, with no room for exploration or deviating from the path. Auto aim takes skill out of the shooting, and the weapon selection is uninspired and thinly spread. Enemy AI is poor, as they fail to make use of tactics and just remain stationary behind cover waiting to be killed. 

 Medal of Honor has some serious technical issues. Scripting problems can grind a level to a halt, but the game has performance problems. Textures and graphics pop in regularly, enemies literally appear from no were in scripted ways, scenery disappears and the frame rate falls through the floor when shooting gets to anywhere near a point that you are having fun. Rubble falls through the ground, and it all goes against the lofty aspirations that the game has to challenge the titan that is Call of Duty. The interface is slick, but there is an online pass for full access to the multiplayer portion of the game. 

The multiplayer is very different to the single player. Its actually made by a different developer, DICE.   Multiplayer is fun and fast-paced, and the gunplay occupies an interesting gray area between the twitchy shooting of Modern Warfare and the more strategic use of terrain and positioning of Bad Company 2. The controls are actually different to the single player, but its accessible and fun to play, as unlike the single player, it is not scripted and confining. Unfortunately, the map selection is not great, and while its a solid multiplayer helping it is not as good as Bad Company 2 or Black ops so why bother with it?  The campaign is also about 4 hours long, and has very little replay value in its single player campaign. 

Medal of Honor is a game that should have concentrated on developing its own identity rather than aping and directly trying to emulate the Call of Duty series. The characters are bland and never explored. The core mechanics of the shooting is fine, but the heavily scripted nature of the campaign kills any fun or excitement. There is no sense of scale in this game, with enemy forces almost exclusively consisting of groups of ground troops. The game portrays the American soldiers as heroes, yet you destroy an entire village at one point during an on rails helicopter sequence.   You slaughter scores of people yet few, if any allied soldiers are killed. The game also needs to learn that Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are completely different things, as it seems to mix them a few times. The technical issues are crippling, and the game goes completely too far into its military jargon, which didn’t help my immersion into its campaign. Medal of Honor feels years behind the top fps games on the market, and fails to achieve its potential on any front. Don’t  waste your time with this sub-par and disappointing game. 

  Pros: 

• Lovely lighting effects
• Guns feel powerful
• Multiplayer is a nice and solid change from the singleplayer campaign

• The game is boring to play, with no sense of scale or freedom
• Weapon selection is sparse
• Feels like a poor imitation of cod
• Story is a joke
• Level design is horrible 
• Glitches and technical problems are everywhere and destroy the games pace
• Failed potential
• Too much military jargon
• Most heavily scripted game I have played in a long time
• 4 hours long
• The way the war in Afghanistan is presented verges on jingoism

• Trust a guy because he had a daughter....because none of the other people we are killing could possibly have daughters...

• 4/10