It’s hard not to talk about Medal of Honor without mentioning a certain war-based FPS series.
First released on the original Playstation, Medal of Honor was arguably the first Second World War-based first-person shooter. Riding on its success, EA saw fit to make a series of the game, and pretty soon the market was inundated with WWII-based action games – some were good, some were bad.
Skip forward to 2007, and with the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, it became clear audiences had moved on, but the Medal of Honor series was still very much stuck in the past (Medal of Honor: Airborne anyone? No, I thought not).
So, here we are in 2010, and EA have relaunched the Medal of Honor series with an all-new modern setting - so fresh in fact that the conflict it’s based on is still ongoing.
Some may argue that Activision’s Modern Warfare series has become a little extreme with its plot and that what is needed right now, is a war game that takes things a little more seriously.
That's where the new Medal of Honor tries to step in.
There’s no nuclear bombs going off in this game, no invasions on American soil, no levels where you are an undercover agent shooting innocent civilians in an airport – what you have here is a simple action/espionage game set in the backdrop of the current Afghan conflict.
The only controversy in this game is the fact that at one stage in its development it was confirmed that you could play as the Taliban in the multiplayer deathmatches.
Certain MPs complained, and EA changed the words “Taliban”, to “OPFOR”. Anyway, I digress.
The game follows several plot strands, with each one seeing the gamer controlling several different characters - a marine codenamed “Rabbit”, a sniper codenamed “Deuce” and during one mission, an Apache chopper pilot named “Hawk”.
Aside from all the standard running and shooting that you’d come to expect, things are kept fresh with a number of levels that make use of all the gadgets and tech that are available to US military.
There’s levels where you have to ride quad bikes, man a helicopter gun turret and arrange air strikes.
So far, so unoriginal.
Many will moan about Medal of Honor’s lack of originality, but all things considered this actually works in the game’s favour.
The controls are instantly familiar - as a result the game flows along quite nicely, and will fit your everyday FPS fan like a glove.
Sadly, Medal of Honor is let down by a number of glitches.
Every now and then the frame rate will inexplicably slow down, particularly when there is a lot going on. Other random bugs plague the game as well, such as bricks from exploding buildings randomly floating in the air for a few seconds.
Another gripe is that all too familiar problem with other open-world FPS’s – invisible walls, they are everywhere, even between two objects such as a lamppost and a car – you have to walk around them, and not inbetween.
Despite the glitches, the visual presentation is of a high standard and the game looks very polished – when it is working correctly.
Audibly the game is a treat to the ears, with all the explosions, gun shots and communication between your soldiers it sounds fantastic – especially when played in Dolby Digital.
One nice little detail is the fact that as your guns run out of ammo, they begin to sound more hollow until you run out and reload.
The singleplayer campaign clocks in at about 5-6 hours, so to compensate the developers have thrown in a time trial mode called “Tier 1”.
Giving you the chance to race through each level, your time is saved and added to the EA servers, letting you see how well you’ve done against other players on the leaderboards.
As far the multiplayer, it’s somewhere between Call of Duty and Battlefield: Bad Company. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise, considering the multiplayer is built around same Frostbite engine used in EA’s other FPS series, Bad Company.
The maps are small, and as result it encourages the player to engage in combat at frantic pace.
If there is one gripe to be had, it’s the fact the game has a habit of re-spawning you right in the middle of the action, and before you have had a chance to get your bearings, you’re getting shot at and ultimately starting off all over again.
Aside from the “hardcore” setting, the multiplayer mode offers 4 different types of conflict.
There’s Combat Mission, where coalition forces have to fight through a campaign of five objectives, heavily defended by OPFOR forces (aka, the Taliban).
Team Assault is pretty much team deathmatch.
Sector Control is a domination-type game, where opposing sides secure bases to win the match and finally, there’s Objective Raid, where the coalition defend two objectives against the OPFOR saboteurs.
An added bonus for Playstation 3 owners is the fact Medal of Honor comes bundled with a HD remix of the Playstation 2 classic Medal of Honor: Frontline. Be warned though, this requires a 6gb installation, which can take a while.
Ultimately, despite a relatively short campaign, Medal of Honor offers quite a solid shooter and is worth checking out.
Whether or not the game can box its weight against an increasingly flooded modern warfare market remains to be seen.
Verdict: 7 out of 10
The Good:
Gritty and realistic presentation
Good solid multiplayer
Lots of cool tech
The Bad:
A few graphical glitches
Short single player campaign
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