While Call of Duty and other various high octane first person shooters may focus on massive and unrealistic Hollywood style effects and scenarios, Medal of Honor takes a much more honest approach to combat, sadly it can be said that at the same time it’s a very slow start to what builds up to some of the most heart felt moments in a first person shooter; in history.
The campaign for Medal of Honor was something that will always seem rather mundane for the first half of the game, but at the same time it is sprinkled with various and fantastic highlights as you make your way through each of the different scenarios that eventually tie into one larger story that will without a doubt impact you on some emotional front in one way or another.
In Call of Duty fashion, you play the role of three different soldiers who are carrying out various missions out on the battlefield; which is modern day Afghanistan.
Until the later half of the game you will be pleasantly surprised by some of the smaller things in the game such as the long range sniping parts (which feel oh so good when you take a 50. caliber bullet and lunge it 1000+ meters away and literally make someones legs explode off from impact) or when you hop on your ATV and zip through the hills.
Medal Of Honor doesn’t exactly try to break new ground, instead it tells the tale of exactly what the title implies, Honor.
As the story begins to round off you’ll reach a point where no mater how heartless you may be, if you are genuinely paying attention to the story you’ll begin to feel a wrench in your heart as you can finally relate that this is what these soldiers face overseas every day.
In the end it becomes a bold move and a fantastic display of integrity and loyalty to your brothers at arms and shows a fantastic story about sacrifice no matter what the odds, and how the military is like a brotherhood; never leave a friend behind…no matter what the cost.
Along with the most honest tale of military heroism are some pretty good visuals. It feels like the game is running off the Frostbite engine at times but then there are times where Medal of Honor looks better than most games on the market today…and this game came out in 2010.
However the biggest problem I had with the game was not it’s visuals or lack of ultra over the top action sequences, but was a very big core element of gameplay hit detection.
I cannot count how many times I’ve hit an enemy in the head or body for that matter and it never registered. This can be very annoying at harder difficulties, and it becomes so annoying that it’ll most likely make you want to quit after repeating various missions. Not because of self fault but because of terrible hit detection.
Regardless, MOH is still a very playable and enjoyable game. The multiplayer is an interesting aspect of MOH as it shares very common core elements with various titles, and ends up feeling like if Battlefield 3 took place in levels the size of Call of Duty.
There are an interesting amount of achievements that can be earned for simple dedication through out the multiplayer time span, and I think they achievements add up to be just enough to give you the full experience of multiplayer, without requiring endless days weeks or months to reach more realistic goals.
It’s clear that MOH and it’s multiplayer was not made to be the next biggest thing that would consume countless hours from players, but was made to be a fine tuned and well made addition to an over all good package.
While games like Call of Duty feel like they have no end, Medal of Honor gives you the feeling of complete accomplishment by the time you’re done, and will certainly take a nice chunk of hours to complete. In no ways is it an unrealistic time frame and for the price that this lost gem is going for right now, it’s safe to say that shooter fans that are tired of all the falseness that is in the market today, might find a comfortable home for a short time with Medal of Honor.
Between a slow starting but heavy hitting Single Player experience including various time trials, other ways to replay the missions for extra achievements, and a fantastic but aware of time multiplayer experience, Medal of Honor should be an easy pick up for the price that you simply cannot go wrong.
With levels that do not feel as compacted in as Call of Duty, and an excellent system of movement (being able to peak around corners and slide into over) MOH provides an excellent control scheme that most will feel comfortable with at first use.
It’s also to be noted that while other games give you a clear field of view, there will be many times as in real life, that dust storms are alive, and you can barely see six feet in front of you. Yet you’re under heavy gun fire and running for your life. These types of aspects are fresh, fun, and frantic at times as you’ll constantly be searching the high mountains for the next ambush, or quickly dart across open areas where an enemy could lay in wait, using the dust as his own type of camouflage.
As far as to say that this type of game will sway Call of Duty fanatics, it should be noted that uber fans of the Call of Duty game should stay away, as the things that make up the COD franchise are very few and far in Medal Of Honor. However fans of Battlefield or those who want a break from over the top first person shooters, and a heart felt story to follow along to, then Medal of Honor is a must have.
Oh that and it has lots of awesome beards.
Medal Of Honor gets a solid 8.5 beards out of 10
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