For those of you who have not read Rob's review, you can check it out here.
My review is going to put a bit of a different spin on things. I'm not a hardcore gamer by any stretch of the imagination. Aside from Borderlands my last first person shooter was Quake II waaaay back in '98 on Heat and most of my gaming "career" has been spent running through Middle Earth in Lord Of The Rings Online up until about a year ago. Since then I have dabbled in a game here and a game there but none of which were FPS's so when I say that Medal of Honor is a huge change for me you best believe it.
The game itself looks and sounds great. The textures look clean, your teammates are really well designed, the weapons look really good as do the levels. Rocks, walls, crates and windows are getting shot up while you hear radio chatter from your teammates indicating where the enemy is or what you are required to do in between bullets whizzing past your head.
For those of you who are curious my i3 530 overclocked to 4.2Ghz, 5770 with an average overclock and 4GB of memory running slightly slower than spec was able to run the game with full settings at 1680x1050 without any slowdown although in the first two missions I noticed a lot of horizontal tearing but that may be a hardware/driver thing.
The controls were really well done and the game is easy to jump into. I especially like sliding into cover while running. The cover system is not your typical get into position, hug the wall, and shoot until all the bad guys are dead. Yes, you are hiding behind cover but that cover may get whittled away by machine gun fire or a RPG or you may be required to lean out, squeeze off a few shots and duck back in. Either way I did not run into any control issues aside from the fact that I should not game in low light until I remember what keys do what action. Where are my hellfire missles?!
Since I am pretty out of touch with FPS's I found the game brought some new features to the table. Riding towards your objective on a four wheeler and stopping to snipe a few enemies a country mile away was fun as was the attack mission with the choppers. There were two instances were the game was slowed down and allowed you to pick off some enemies in some very tense situations. There was even a section of a mission that required you to keep suppressing fire on a machine gun nest to allow your teammates to advance in order to call in an air strike. This may be standard fair now since the genre has blown up so huge but to me it was fresh.
All in all it's a pretty game that sounds great and is easy to pick up but now we come to the so-so, ho-hum part.
It would have been nice if there were more stealth elements. Running in and putting holes in everything that moves is nice and all but there needs to be some tact. There were a few points where you had to lay low but not to the extent that I was hoping for.
The AI in the game is not too bad but I found wave after wave of enemies ran right into my line of fire. This is likely a byproduct of the fact that you are required to sometimes move up to a specific point before your team advances, thus moving the mission forward with the next objective. Now I do not mind this as much as Rob did because the game makes you take initiative but what I did find kind of funky was depending on the route you take you can come up on an enemy who just stays hunkered down indefinitely. Ambushing enemies in real combat situations is nothing new but for them to keep their back to me for 30 seconds or more...no. It would have been nice if the enemy tried to flank you as well while members of their team laid down covering fire instead of digging into the same 5 or 6 spots. This would have added to some of the panic that I felt when I was getting shot at but could not find safe cover because I had no idea where the shots were coming from.
The length of the game is of course a major problem. It is like they put in the single player missions as an afterthought or plan on charging for DLC in the future. Either way it would have been nice if they stretched out the single player storyline but most FPS's live off of the multi-player aspect, which I have not had a chance to get into. Tier 1 mode, which is essentially a time attack mode with increased difficulty may give the game a bit more life however any game, no matter how awesome is hard to recommend when it has such a short lifespan. This is either a rental or wait until there is a sale on Steam unless you are a die hard MoH fan.
There were also a few little funky glitches here and there like when one of my teammates getting stuck on a tree near the location of an air strike. He was one tough mofo to survive that but for the most part the game was quite polished.
I am going to be a bit more forgiving in my final score since I am not sure what kids today consider hip when it comes to this genre. For someone who likes their games to have a storyline instead of just senseless killing and for someone who is not looking for a full blown simulator this may be just what someone needs to kill off an evening or two.
It gets an 80% but beware. You're only in for a fun 5 or 6 hour ride. Enjoy it while it lasts. I did.
Thanks to Rob and Techgage for the key.
My review is going to put a bit of a different spin on things. I'm not a hardcore gamer by any stretch of the imagination. Aside from Borderlands my last first person shooter was Quake II waaaay back in '98 on Heat and most of my gaming "career" has been spent running through Middle Earth in Lord Of The Rings Online up until about a year ago. Since then I have dabbled in a game here and a game there but none of which were FPS's so when I say that Medal of Honor is a huge change for me you best believe it.
The game itself looks and sounds great. The textures look clean, your teammates are really well designed, the weapons look really good as do the levels. Rocks, walls, crates and windows are getting shot up while you hear radio chatter from your teammates indicating where the enemy is or what you are required to do in between bullets whizzing past your head.
For those of you who are curious my i3 530 overclocked to 4.2Ghz, 5770 with an average overclock and 4GB of memory running slightly slower than spec was able to run the game with full settings at 1680x1050 without any slowdown although in the first two missions I noticed a lot of horizontal tearing but that may be a hardware/driver thing.
The controls were really well done and the game is easy to jump into. I especially like sliding into cover while running. The cover system is not your typical get into position, hug the wall, and shoot until all the bad guys are dead. Yes, you are hiding behind cover but that cover may get whittled away by machine gun fire or a RPG or you may be required to lean out, squeeze off a few shots and duck back in. Either way I did not run into any control issues aside from the fact that I should not game in low light until I remember what keys do what action. Where are my hellfire missles?!
Since I am pretty out of touch with FPS's I found the game brought some new features to the table. Riding towards your objective on a four wheeler and stopping to snipe a few enemies a country mile away was fun as was the attack mission with the choppers. There were two instances were the game was slowed down and allowed you to pick off some enemies in some very tense situations. There was even a section of a mission that required you to keep suppressing fire on a machine gun nest to allow your teammates to advance in order to call in an air strike. This may be standard fair now since the genre has blown up so huge but to me it was fresh.
All in all it's a pretty game that sounds great and is easy to pick up but now we come to the so-so, ho-hum part.
It would have been nice if there were more stealth elements. Running in and putting holes in everything that moves is nice and all but there needs to be some tact. There were a few points where you had to lay low but not to the extent that I was hoping for.
The AI in the game is not too bad but I found wave after wave of enemies ran right into my line of fire. This is likely a byproduct of the fact that you are required to sometimes move up to a specific point before your team advances, thus moving the mission forward with the next objective. Now I do not mind this as much as Rob did because the game makes you take initiative but what I did find kind of funky was depending on the route you take you can come up on an enemy who just stays hunkered down indefinitely. Ambushing enemies in real combat situations is nothing new but for them to keep their back to me for 30 seconds or more...no. It would have been nice if the enemy tried to flank you as well while members of their team laid down covering fire instead of digging into the same 5 or 6 spots. This would have added to some of the panic that I felt when I was getting shot at but could not find safe cover because I had no idea where the shots were coming from.
The length of the game is of course a major problem. It is like they put in the single player missions as an afterthought or plan on charging for DLC in the future. Either way it would have been nice if they stretched out the single player storyline but most FPS's live off of the multi-player aspect, which I have not had a chance to get into. Tier 1 mode, which is essentially a time attack mode with increased difficulty may give the game a bit more life however any game, no matter how awesome is hard to recommend when it has such a short lifespan. This is either a rental or wait until there is a sale on Steam unless you are a die hard MoH fan.
There were also a few little funky glitches here and there like when one of my teammates getting stuck on a tree near the location of an air strike. He was one tough mofo to survive that but for the most part the game was quite polished.
I am going to be a bit more forgiving in my final score since I am not sure what kids today consider hip when it comes to this genre. For someone who likes their games to have a storyline instead of just senseless killing and for someone who is not looking for a full blown simulator this may be just what someone needs to kill off an evening or two.
It gets an 80% but beware. You're only in for a fun 5 or 6 hour ride. Enjoy it while it lasts. I did.
Thanks to Rob and Techgage for the key.
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