“Do you have Bad Company 2? Keep playing that. Don’t have it? Buy it – not Medal of Honor.”
That was the excerpt I attached to this post. Now, normally I don’t accept generalisations like that as acceptable, especially if it’s merely a beta of a game we’re looking at, but I can’t help but make Medal of Honor an exception to this rule of mine. When Medal of Honor was announced, we were told that its single player would be separate from the multiplayer in the sense that the single player was being developed by EA LA (at least, I think it’s LA), and that the multiplayer was to be developed by DICE – creators of the much loved Battlefield franchise. With Bad Company 2 having only come out earlier this year, there was much hope that Medal of Honor’s multiplayer would not simply be a carbon copy of Bad Company 2′s, and while that isn’t strictly true, it’s similarities – and downfalls in comparison – are too, you know, right there. At the just recently passed E3 also, we finally got to see some multiplayer gameplay, and here was to the hope that it would not just be Bad Company 2, but with a Medal of Honor sticker on top. This just further proved my thoughts – it looked like Battlefield. It seemed to play like Battlefield, right down from the weapon bob and the Rush-esque game mode, to the way it looked (same engine as Bad Company 2 for MoH’s multiplayer, go figure) and sounded. I still reserved my open opinion of the game until I had it in my hands. EA recently sent a PC beta key my way, and I can now confirm, that Medal of Honor, is just Bad Company 2 – but not as good. Not as good at all.
Does this look sorta familiar? I thought it might.
So, it’s Bad Company 2. Right down to how the game feels, the pace of the gameplay (well, not quite, but i’ll get to that later), sounds, looks, everything. Much like Bad Company 2, there’s an objective based game mode which has vehicles in it, and you have to blow stuff up in a sequence in which the defending team are pushed back upon each accomplished objective. There’s also a more deathmatch-y mode too, with the games combat focused onto smaller, one might say ‘Modern Warfare-ish’, maps. This would all be acceptable if the single player turns out differently. If it’s significantly different, or even just very good by its own merits, then Medal of Honor would be a fairly good release. It’d probably get ripped somewhat for the issues I have with it – you know, the whole multiplayer thing, but even so, it’d be a good game and people would buy it, of course. However – and this is a big however – if the game handles like it currently does in the Beta, the multiplayer will suck. For me, at least. In my eyes, it’s downright broken.
Apparently the Taliban have gained access to equipment such as red dot sights. Interesting.
The first issue I have is with how the spawning works in a multiplayer game. In Bad Company 2, you can either spawn at set capture points, or on a member of your four man squad, provided they’re alive, of course. In Call of Duty games (the most recent ones, anyway), the game appears to place you either near a fight so you don’t frequently get spawn-killed (as best it can, anyhow), or spawn you away from the fight when it gets too heated, and your teammates spawn from there too until the process repeats itself. At least, that’s how I understand it. Medal of Honor tries to kind of meld the two concepts together, from what I can tell – and it’s frustrating. In the objective based game mode (I think it’s called Combat Mission), you can either spawn at your base, or on the front line. Spawning on the front line usually meant imminent death, a couple of bullets in my chest, or just placed me half way across the map away from the action due to a camping teammate. It seems to randomly pick a member of your team – as there’s no squad system in play at all here – and spawns you with him. This was problematic. As I said, either instant or near-death, or far away from anywhere so I couldn’t do any good until i’d ran across the map. Usually that resulted in me getting picked off before I could even get to where I wanted to go, and then I had to go through the spawning process all over again. Like I said – frustrating. This in itself was a total game killer for me. It just seemed broken, especially with non-existant or barely any spawn protection to shield me from the constant gunfire I was being subjected to upon entering the battlefield.
I either keep clicking, or just hold down the trigger. It doesn't seem to matter.
Another gripe I have with the game is with how the guns feel. In Bad Company 2, a game which, may I remind you, is powered by the same game engine as Medal of Honor’s multiplayer, needed you to burst for efficient shooting, unless you were at close range. Aiming down the sight and holding down the trigger seems to work just fine in Medal of Honor, or just repeatedly clicking as fast as you can if you have a semi-auto sniper rifle like I used. Now, this was great fun for me to some extent, because it meant I could get even easier kills than I usually do when i’m playing a first person shooter. But it was also kind of, again, frustrating, because it meant everyone else could get easy kills too. Again, this is another factor that breaks the game. Between holding down mouse 1 with my assault rifle, to spawning and dying, Medal of Honor’s beta is just not fun to play. The last gripe i’ll mention for now, until a possible video feature i’ll be doing on the beta, is with the progression. As you’d expect from a modern day first person shooter, there are unlockable weapons and attachments. These seem to be oddly ordered, particularly with the sniper class. The first sniper rifle you get is a semi-automatic one, and you’d expect it to have your typical sniper scope mounted on it, right? With something like a 4 to 8 times zoom on it? Nope. You get a red dot sight. You know, those sights you look through with the laser dot on that are mounted onto sub-machine guns and assault rifles for close quarters confrontation. A sniper rifle with a CQC sight on it. Brilliant! After that, you unlock an ACOG scope, which appears to be more like a 2 or 2.5 times zoom, which is still virtually pointless, and then you get the scope you were expecting.
That’s all I can really bare to say for now, for both your sake, and mine. I could probably go on for some time about this beta, and like I said, I may well do in a potential video feature. My advice for now is – wait until you hear better from this game, as for now, it’s broken, broken, broken. Same-y, too. If you’ve played Battlefield: Bad Company 2, you’ve played Medal of Honor. Well, you’ve played a much better version of the game if you’ve played Bad Company 2, so stick with that. Further advice would be to wait for what the reviews say about this game before you buy it.
Such a shame.
