It doesn’t take much thought to realise what bandwagon EA have jumped upon with their modern-warfare styled remake of Medal of Honor, but the question of whether it gives us anything different is quite another matter; some claim that it merely stuffs a liberal amount of Call of Duty and Battlefield into the mixing pot, while others fervently insist that it’ll be stealing COD’s throne come the holiday season. Regardless, it certainly doesn’t lack ambition - with the single-player campaign looking every inch as pulse-racing as it’s muse and boasting a real eye for fine detail, explosive set-pieces and phenomenal visuals, MOH is definitely set to impress on it’s October 15th release date. After playing through the recent multiplayer beta, however, I’m not so sure that the online team from DICE have done quite such a good job.
Best of Both
Not that it’s a bad system, of course; it plays out exactly as you’d expect the unholy love-child of both franchises to, and as Medal of Honor has inherited Call of Duty’s frenetic, lightning-fast twitch gameplay - while retaining a good dose of Bad Company’s scope and scale - you’re left with the perfect middle-ground for COD players who fanc
y a bit of a change but are intimidated by Battlefield’s system, or for Battlefield veterans who want a change of pace only with more depth than Modern Warfare or World at War can currently offer. Thrilling, explosive, positively soaked in tension and gorgeously exhilarating, Medal of Honor has all the makings of an online classic. What it doesn’t have, on the other hand, is a satisfying balance between both of the worlds from which it borrows.
In fact, it could easily be argued that EA have missed a lot of what made the originals so special by forcing these two uneasy bed-fellows together in the first place: to begin with, MOH doesn’t really manage to translate COD’s sheer accessibility despite the thrill-a-minute pace due to a broader focus, and a lack of the highly sophisticated kill-streak scheme or in-depth kit bashing means that it’s somewhat too shallow elsewhere. Next, although it may feel, play and even sound like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on the surface, Medal of Honor leaves us with a visibly disabled system instead, crippled in an attempt to shoe-horn in faster pace. The maps are linear, claustrophobic and restrictive, the only vehicles of a
ny interest you’ll be seeing are light tanks, the gorgeously destructible environments from Battlefield are jarringly absent beyond the most basic equivalents, tactics aren’t such a huge deal anymore - you can’t ‘squad up’ or spawn upon each other in this title, leaving you with a slightly more disorganised jumble of a team - and although the upgradeable classes are distinct enough (Special Ops serve as anti-vehicle and short range specialists, the Snipers obviously handle long range - well, what there is of it - and Riflemen act as the go-between), they don’t offer nearly as much variety or depth as Bad Company 2’s roster. In short, Medal of Honor is currently stuck in this awful middle-ground between COD’s arcade style and Battlefield’s hardcore ethics, attempting to emulate both but achieving neither.
y a bit of a change but are intimidated by Battlefield’s system, or for Battlefield veterans who want a change of pace only with more depth than Modern Warfare or World at War can currently offer. Thrilling, explosive, positively soaked in tension and gorgeously exhilarating, Medal of Honor has all the makings of an online classic. What it doesn’t have, on the other hand, is a satisfying balance between both of the worlds from which it borrows.In fact, it could easily be argued that EA have missed a lot of what made the originals so special by forcing these two uneasy bed-fellows together in the first place: to begin with, MOH doesn’t really manage to translate COD’s sheer accessibility despite the thrill-a-minute pace due to a broader focus, and a lack of the highly sophisticated kill-streak scheme or in-depth kit bashing means that it’s somewhat too shallow elsewhere. Next, although it may feel, play and even sound like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on the surface, Medal of Honor leaves us with a visibly disabled system instead, crippled in an attempt to shoe-horn in faster pace. The maps are linear, claustrophobic and restrictive, the only vehicles of a
ny interest you’ll be seeing are light tanks, the gorgeously destructible environments from Battlefield are jarringly absent beyond the most basic equivalents, tactics aren’t such a huge deal anymore - you can’t ‘squad up’ or spawn upon each other in this title, leaving you with a slightly more disorganised jumble of a team - and although the upgradeable classes are distinct enough (Special Ops serve as anti-vehicle and short range specialists, the Snipers obviously handle long range - well, what there is of it - and Riflemen act as the go-between), they don’t offer nearly as much variety or depth as Bad Company 2’s roster. In short, Medal of Honor is currently stuck in this awful middle-ground between COD’s arcade style and Battlefield’s hardcore ethics, attempting to emulate both but achieving neither. Gripping
Luckily, once you’ve gotten over this then Medal of Honor still has a lot to give; unlike Bad Company 2, for example, there’s no waiting around or lengthy slogging to get to the heart of the action, and you’re right in the thick of it from the moment you spawn, making for one hell of a more gripping and exciting title. Furthermore, is it as brutal and as quick as Call of Duty? Easily, and this keeps you on your toes in a battle that is more about wits and skill than blind luck or the fastest trigger-finger. What’s more, those who are able to think on their feet and do attempt to ‘buddy up’ on the more ambitious, objective-based game modes will find that - despite the initial, apparent lack of camaraderie - Medal of Honor does offer an opportunity for some whip-crack strategy and exhilarating, soft-core team-play after all if you actually go looking for it (and suffice to say, thos
e who work together will benefit drastically more than those who lone-wolf in a search for easy kills and points), meaning that this is a title that you can enjoy with your mates, as well.Unfortunately and nonetheless, though, issues begin to niggle once again after you take a closer look at the game modes themselves. Sure, the COD style team-deathmatch is as gripping as you would imagine with tight, multi-storied warrens to fight amongst and gameplay faster and more brutal than Bruce Willis on crack-cocaine, but the ‘Missions’ mode (basically an unashamed riff of Bad Company’s ‘Rush’ where one team must take a set of objectives while the other is tasked with defending them) has the disadvantage of feeling a tiny bit unrefined. I mean, Americans and tanks on one side and the foot-slogging Taliban on the other? Seriously, tanks VS insurgents? I don’t know about you but that appears to be just a tad unbalanced, and the fact that this mode can also be somewhat confusing and massively unforgiving (spawn, die, spawn, die, rinse and repeat) only helps to frustrate matters.
Epic
Once you’ve gotten your head around this then the Missions can be great fun, however; the back and forth of the action, the desperate last-stands, the manic, fraught orders being thrown about by your team-mates, the explosions erupting around you, the bullets tearing through cover an inch from your head, the beach-heads, the assaults… it’s all sure to get the adrenaline pumping in the biggest sense possible. Like Bad Company 2, it’s also the
sort of game where every match throws up it’s own little set-pieces and stories, giving you some very memorable gaming to walk away with. During one Mission, for example, a team-mate was wounded in the retreat and trapped behind enemy lines, leaving me and a number of others to go in after them and desperately fight our way through a scene just like Hollywood war-flick Green Zone, only to then engage in a pell-mell chase amongst the rocky tundra with tanks and snipers and the entire enemy force baying upon our heels.It was, in a word, absolutely epic.
What’s more, the sheer sophistication of the mode itself can only help matters - as you’re treated to a realistic mission brief with full VO and realistic maps torn straight from Afghanistan itself, you’ll start to realise something: you’ll start realise this isn’t a simple online punch-up. That this isn’t just a firefight between friends. No, what you’ll come to realise is that this is like an incredible blockbuster extract from an action movie, or the most grippingly intense battle-scene from the main campaign every time. And by God, is it good.
Sadly, you’ll also come to realise something else in your time with MOH; and for that reason the holiday launch could still be all too soon.
To be blunt, isn’t it a bit crass to place the action of a major, international release slap-bang in the middle of a current conflict where parents, sons,
sisters and siblings are fighting and dying? It's a matter that's almost certainly going to ruffle as many feathers, especially when you consider the fact that you can play as and against the organisation largely responsible for sending so many of our troops back in wooden boxes. Sure, this game's campaign throws you squarely into the boots of various Americans marines instead of a British unit, but is that the point? Personally I'm just as uneasy facing off against them as a US gunman ‘for a laugh’ when I know that real people are doing the exact same thing in Afghanistan right at that same moment, terrified out of their wits and fighting in a very real struggle for their lives. Here’s hoping that EA treat the topic with the respect that it duly deserves, and - much like the WW2 based Call of Duty 2 - send us a message that speaks in more than giggles and high scores.The Bottom Line
Medal of Honor is the sort of title that shows a lot of promise, is superbly enjoyable and has bundles of potential but is tragically held back by it’s own ambition. Instead of trying to fill out the blank corners of the map, we’re seeing yet another re-tread; atop that, it’s a re-tread that may unfortunately ruffle too many feathers with it’s setting and with it’s protagonists too. A COD killer this may turn out to be, but is it ready for the crown yet? Not quite.
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