Medal of Honor Review

Although EA was once the champion of the wartime console shooter when the original Medal of Honor launched in 1999, the publisher has slipped in rank over the last few years. In hopes

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Although EA was once the champion of the wartime console shooter when the original Medal of Honor launched in 1999, the publisher has slipped in rank over the last few years. In hopes of recapturing the market, EA has revived its aging Medal of Honor franchise for a new generation of gamers, featuring a new generation of combat heroes.

Rather than fabricate a modern war, developer Danger Close has decided to feature an ongoing conflict: the war in Afghanistan. As the game opens, sound bytes featuring the tragic terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, cycle through the speakers. As the camera pans and zooms over the globe, it freezes on the Middle East. In the new Medal of Honor you will square off against ruthless Taliban forces, holed up in the Afghan region.

Although the single-player campaign attempts to show the true nature of this war by featuring a realistic representation of those in the service, the game is only somewhat effective. As a generality, Medal of Honor does a good job of showing reverence to those who currently fight, have fought, and have fallen in combat. Medal of Honor is a love-letter to those brave men and women. Where it falls short is in getting the player to care about the characters they will control. The story paints soldiers with a single broad stroke--really giving zero time to develop its core cast--that you don't care anymore for the soldiers with a name floating over their heads than those spotted throughout the game's pre-rendered cutscenes.

While this lack of character focus hurts the game's story, it also puts bullet-holes in Medal of Honor's gameplay. While you play as multiple characters, including a much talked about "Tier 1" operator, gameplay is pretty much the same throughout. Certain characters are given certain weapons and objectives when they are pushed into the spotlight, but the only thing that really separates them are the A.I. controlled allies by their side. In fact, on more than one occasion I was only reminded which character I was in control of based solely on his company. If you thought playing as a Tier 1 operator would mean Medal of Honor would take bold steps in story or gameplay, you'll be disappointed. They aren't in the game what I suspect they are in real-life: terrifying, ghost-like enemies of opposition forces. In Medal of Honor, they're little more than a skin with a set of keys to a military ATV.

The game also suffers, somewhat, from its location. Because it's based in one region, the environments never drastically change. You'll jump from dirt covered locations in the first half of the game and progress to similar looking snow covered ones later but it always feels familiar. Of course, this stands to reason as a realistic representation of the landscape for the real war the game is based on; however, it doesn't make it terribly interesting to experience as a video game when competing titles have so much variety.

Medal of Honor suffers from numerous technical quirks (Note: I only played the retail version on the PS3). Textures have a tendency to pop into place seconds after loading a level is complete or during in-engine cutscenes. Animation is fantastic; however, the characters themselves don't show the same level of polish as EA's other military shooter franchise. Then there are just strange errors: In one level I was tasked with sneaking past a enemy-occupied bridge with a computer ally. Although my partner told me stealth was the only way to ensure survival in this area, he would constantly walk out in front of me during a key, scripted sequence and engage the enemy. The only way to stop this cycle was the restart the mission. Nothing appeared to change but he eventually stopped firing on the group of adversaries. There's a general lack of polish throughout the entire experience.

As a single-player experience, Medal of Honor has some intense set-piece moments, including an outstanding sequence where a squad of soldiers attempt to survive an ambush with very little ammunition. Gameplay does try to "change it up" every so often by giving players control of some of the stronger muscles in the American military's arm, like the "now-ubiquitous" AC-130 sequence. The game also features an outstanding on-rails helicopter mission, giving players the chance to devastate enemy forces from the sky. There is also a single-player, online mode called "Tier 1 Mode." Here players can replay single-player levels attempting to best competition "par" times. It's a solid addition that gives players a reason to replay the game. Gameplay throughout the experience, although lacking variety in location, provides 6 to 9 hours (depending on skill) of fantastic combat. However, the game's story lacks development for its specific characters. As a general tale for all soldiers the ending works well, but Medal of Honor doesn't earn the emotion it expects from players for the story it tells with these particular soldiers.

Although my online experience suffered from pre-launch server issues, I was able to put a few hours into Medal of Honor's multiplayer component. Developed separately at DICE, of Battlefield fame, the game's multiplayer is a more fast-paced experience than DICE's previous title, Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Sadly, Medal of Honor's online component isn't as well executed as DICE's last effort. There are three classes, each maxing out at level 15: rifleman, special operations, and sniper. Progression is tied to each class, unlocking a limited set of accessories and weapons at a relatively slow pace. There are a multitude of maps available for various modes, including a team deathmatch variant, multiple attack and defend modes, a domination (or "King of the Hill") mode and a multitiered objective mode called "Combat Mission."

What Medal of Honor executes better than other military shooters is give players in-game reward bonuses, like calling in missile or mortar strikes, based on skill rather than a predetermined number of kills. Instead of rewarding players after three kills with a special ability, the bonuses are based on how many points are collected. Kills gain players 10 points; however, based on the situation (like getting revenge for previous kills, saving an ally, defending an objective) you can earn more. The first bonuses appear after stringing together 50 points. These streak bonuses are also more strategic. Rather than have a set streak in place, players can choose to utilize their bonus as either an offensive or defensive reward. Call in a mortar strike to net yourself more points or scan the area for enemy placement, sharing the updated map with your team. It's so much better and more rewarding.

While multiplayer will be the draw here, the overall Medal of Honor reboot experience still lacks the quality found in competing titles, including EA's own Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Although it will capture the audience looking for the latest shooter on the market, Medal of Honor falls short of being the game that can compete with Activision's premiere franchise. However, as a reboot to an important franchise in EA's catalog, Danger Close has done a great job with this first effort. It may not be perfect, but Medal of Honor has helped rekindle, in some small part, our dream of being the heroes that risk their lives for freedom.


This review is based only on a retail version on of Medal of Honor on the PlaySation 3, provided by EA. The PC and Xbox 360 versions were not provided for the purposes of this review.

Xav de Matos was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    October 12, 2010 7:37 AM

    Is not even remotely close to being as good as BC2

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      October 12, 2010 8:15 AM

      agreed, bring on vietnam!

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      October 12, 2010 8:38 AM

      yeah, I think BC2 really knocked it out of the park. I'm in a gaming group, and we were looking for a new game at the beginning of the year. We tried MW2, but after 2 weeks nobody wanted to play anymore, it was just a crazy frag fest. Then we tried BC2 and we've been playing it every week for over 6 months now.

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      October 12, 2010 9:45 AM

      Agreed but I think the intent here was to steal some of MW`s thunder but without some major standout gameplay elements of their own, this MoH is just going to get steamrolled by Black Ops. And yes. Bring on vietnam. I could go for some new BC2 content.

    • reply
      October 12, 2010 9:45 AM

      Agreed but I think the intent here was to steal some of MW`s thunder but without some major standout gameplay elements of their own, this MoH is just going to get steamrolled by Black Ops. And yes. Bring on vietnam. I could go for some new BC2 content.

    • reply
      October 12, 2010 10:02 AM

      I don't really see how BC2 can be thought of as some groundbreaking game. While it's a solid game, as with all of the Battlefield series the engine is really clunky and the player hitboxes are seemingly inconsistent. Not to mention the weapon unlocking system favors those that play a lot as the guns are dramatically better near the end of progression.

      It's good, but it's not great.

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        October 12, 2010 10:42 AM

        imo, bfbc2 is the pinnacle of this style game. the 4 classes mesh very well, the mechanics are near-perfect for encouraging team play and avoiding many of the pitfalls that plague this kind of game (like spawn camping), the maps are generally well-designed (with a few notable exceptions)... it all hangs together better than anything else ive played. about the only thing i would change is eliminating tracking KDR. it is an important stat, but unfortunately it is THE stat in many players minds, and the obsession over it leads to some extremely irritating play on the part of those players at times. id rather see an emphasis on SPM and WLR... id also not be opposed to tweaking the scoring in such a way that theres more emphasis on playing to win as opposed to playing solely to shoot some people in the face. but still these are extremely minor problems (or even non-problems, depending on your playstyle) and the game overall doesnt suffer much at all for them.

        also ill disagree on the "weaker weapons" and "tons of play required" bit... i recently started over again with a new soldier (first time ive done this, i wanted the fun of unlocking again)... and i was expecting to have a real problem being stuck with starter weapons, when in fact, i had no problem at all... my new guy just hit 12 hours played (not much, i dont think, even for a very casual player) and ive got about half of everything unlocked for engineer and recon, and about a third for the medic (and nothing for the assault, havent played it much because one of my regular squaddies likes to play it so i switch to the other roles as needed)... so in 12 hours ive got a large assortment of weapons to choose from including two launchers and mines for engineer, all the scope options (rds/acog/12x for recon) for those 3 classes, two shotguns, 2 (maybe 3?) vehicle specs, extra ammo/grenades specs, and lightweight gear spec. in other words, ive got a lot of options. a whole lot more than i expected to have in such a short time.

        also i think its worth mentioning that i am truly terrible at this game, a better player would advance faster im sure. i mean, im really really bad. ive never loved a game that i suck at so badly as much as i love this one.

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          October 12, 2010 12:18 PM

          BUT WHAT ABOUT JETS!!!!

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            October 12, 2010 1:07 PM

            meh... i can live without aircraft. i can never fly for shit anyway :)

            although honestly, with the map design in bc2 i dont think air power beyond the helos makes sense anyway, because theyre too small. a jet would cross atacama conquest in mere seconds. i actually prefer the more intimate map scale in bc2... theyre (generally) large enough to maneuver on, but small enough that contact is frequent... i think the way knots of firefights pop up, boil across a portion of the map, and dissipate is one of the strongest parts of the game. and one of the most interesting to watch, as well... man i wish there was a way to save replays...

          • reply
            October 12, 2010 5:43 PM

            Only if there are sharks.

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