Medal of Honor for so many years was synonymous with being the World War II gaming experience. As the years went by though, the over saturation in the genre and the runaway success of the Call of Duty franchise lead to stagnation in the series, as EA kept spamming out unoriginal sequels. WWII was overdone and the competition was moving on. As Call of Duty and even EA’s Battlefield series began captivating audiences with modern combat, the Medal of Honor series found itself left as a memory of gaming past. So just like the competition many years go jumped on the success of the WWII shooter that Medal of Honor started, EA has decided it’s time to try to steal a little thunder from the modern combat craze themselves with a reboot of their once gigantic series.

Taking the series out the trenches of WWII and into the caves of Afghanistan, new recruits Danger Close have been tasked with restoring Medal of Honor to its former glory.  By far the closest a video game has taken gamers into the front lines of today’s action, the gritty violence and up close action presented delivers the intensity of the war in the Middle East. Set after the events of September 11th the story picks up when a meeting with an informant to collect valuable Intel on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda quickly turns into a deadly ambush. Once the information is obtained a decision sends some elite Tier One Operators to take out the insurgent forces that lay in the valley ahead. It’s not the most gripping tale, but a believable one which adds to the realism and severity at hand.

 

You can tell that Danger Close had a great deal of insight from real Tier One Operators when crafting Medal of Honor. Each gun has its own unique feel all the way down to the kickback and sounds produced when fired. The controls are spot on too and what you’d come to expect in a shooter. The standard Call of Duty control scheme is in use, but with added ability to lean in and out of cover for when the action intensifies. Hitting crouch after sprint leads to helpful slide when advancing under enemy suppression. Mortar strikes, sniper shots, and crumbling buildings are all represented in a polished and detailed manor. Little flairs like dust storms obscuring vision momentarily will make you want to shower after each stage. Occasionally with everything that is happening on screen there will be some slow down, but the framerate rarely drops more than a couple of seconds the few times it does. Really the only complaint in the graphics department lies in a few cutscenes that just look out of place when compared to the rest of the game.

As the story unfolds a full tour through Afghanistan will take you from a night recon mission on ATV’s to a stealth sniping mission in the snow covered mountains. No two missions feel alike as the story weaves in and out of multiple Tier One Operators. Each battle pulls you in to the heat of the moment. You won’t find enemies flanking your every move, but the opposition puts up a respectable resistance. A true test of skills lies in the online only “Tier One” mode, where couch commandos will find the ultimate challenge. Checkpoints are disabled and a race against each mission’s par time will test trigger fingers trying top the leader boards. Consecutive head shots and knife kills extend your time and in Demon’s Souls-esque fashion you’ll see in level where your friends have died and can even leave them a note when you pass them by.

 

Unfortunately outside of this unique mode, you’ll find that each mission feels like one you’ve played before in other games. It’s like EA told Danger Close to make them Modern Warfare, but hide with some fancy camouflage. You’ll find the standard vehicle, AC-130, and stealth missions all with the same scripted linearity. They’re solid and enjoyable—so if taking out terrorists is your thing, there’s a lot to be satisfied with in the short 5 to 7 hours it takes to complete the single-player. But since the story is based loosely around real world events the ending finds itself without a climatic finish leaving a “that was it feeling” when the credits roll.

Overall what Danger Close has crafted with single-player portion of Medal of Honor is a step in the right direction for the series. It would have been nice to have had co-op added to the main adventure since there is rarely a moment of solidarity to be had. Also unique missions for “Tier One” mode could have enhanced a really cool idea and added to what is a really short experience. It just seems like EA wanted Medal of Honor to be more of an online multiplayer experience that could compete with Modern Warfare instead of crafting an epic single-player that would have separate itself from the pack.



In trying to ride on the coattails of Modern Warfare, EA has pulled out its big guns for crafting the multiplayer experience in Medal of Honor. Enlisting the services of Battlefield developers DICE, what you find in Medal of Honor is a solid and respectable online affair. It feels a lot like Battlefield only on a smaller scale. There’s the standard team death match, capture the flag, and territory defense variants that all work in leveling up one of three classes that the game offers. As you rank up new weapons and gun attachments are acquired in what has become a standard for the modern combat shooter.

The highlight of multiplayer is Combat Mission mode where as coalition forces you must clear five consecutive objectives to claim victory. As the opposing forces you must hold these objectives until the collations team health meter has been depleted. It’ a real tug of war experience and provides long skirmishes that capture the essence of war and with the right teammates feels like a large scale co-op experience.

 

Where the mulitplayer falls flat though is in the actual combat itself. Spawn camping is a real issue that needs to be addressed and a long drawn out leveling system provides unbalanced matches with players who have put the time in to obtain higher perks. Outside of the Combat Mission mode, most matches turn into a sniping fest since there is no kill cam to show where players are camping. Get into a bad spawn point and you’ll find yourself dieing over and over. This leads to some quick matches in Team Assault (deathmatch) when camper get quick access to tactical support actions that drive up their teams score fast.

Hopefully DICE will find time to add some much needed balance to the game while they work on Battlefield 3. The mulitplayer shows promise, but can become quickly frustrating and with a new Call of Duty on the horizon I fear many gamers will jump ship once its out. It’s hard to keep an audience when everything just feels like its been done somewhere else and better. Its almost like EA knew their product was slightly inferior to the competition and threw in an invitation to Battlefield 3 beta in hopes of keeping gamers from leaving. Again like the single-player there’s much promise to be had with the new Medal of Honor, but the disconnect between the two game modes leaves much to be desired.

 

Note: This game was reviewed on Xbox 360