Much to my excitement, I got home on Tuesday and had Medal of Honor sitting on my porch (which has been a dice throw as of late). While I didn’t have a lot of time to play it after I got home and ate, I made sure to set aside some time. After all, it is supposed to be the new uber game of “shoot bitches” (the term we use for FPSs). I had some reasonably high expectations for this game after MW2 and BC2, and so far I’ve not felt too let down.
First I played the single player, since I believe that is what you should do with all games. It was good, not great, but good. I didn’t get very far, but I did finish the first three missions. I’m going to pick on a few sections as to why the game is “good” but not “great”. The first piece was a section of stealth and ATVing. The ATVing was interesting, but rather flat (as in boring). You were playing as “Deuce” and chasing “Dusty” (the guy on the cover of the box). Basically, you just followed him up to random points, got off, shot people, got back on. The ATVs didn’t feel fast or even remotely exciting. In one dismount location you get to play with a Barret .50 cal which is ULTRA cool… but you get all of 3 or 4 targets… which is dumb.
The second section of note is when you’re commanding air strikes on a OpFor that is trying to take an air strip you want. So this tends to be really cool, right? You get to command the BIG guns and drop all sorts of ordnance on unsuspecting peons. The first tool they give you is GAU-8 strafes from Warthogs. There are a bunch of enemies in the distance so you get to chew them up. Except for the fact that they pose no threat to anyone and you don’t actually need to strafe them. Then they give you hellfire missiles for the technicals that are showing up. Missiles are always a good time, except the game starts to rush you (as in lots of targets getting dangerously close). Then tanks show up and they give you guided smart bombs, and eventually dumb bombs.
The first time I played through this section I lost because the technicals got too close to my allies. I botched that because the game didn’t make it clear enough that I had missiles and how to switch to them. I figured it out by my second try, but it is little issues like that which keep cropping up and tarnish the game play. Overall this section should have been ULTRA AWESOME to play, like the section in MW2 where you are on an AC-130 Spectre, but it isn’t that awesome. The game rushes you through the section giving you a lot of targets and not a lot of time. Your person isn’t actually ever in danger either, just your friends up front. Maybe I was too tired, but I didn’t really get any excitement from this section. Sure, it was enjoyable to blow the shit out of some tanks, but I would have much preferred a little free time to screw with the peons on the ground.
Upon completion of the level, I was treated with a great quote in the game, which I immediately recognized from Generation Kill:
“Gentlemen. We just seized an airfield. That was pretty fuckin’ ninja.”
After I completed my time in single player, I jumped over to the online multiplayer play. I played 3 rounds of multiplayer for a total of 29m 22s. I finished that day with a 60/37 Kill/Death ratio. While this isn’t fantastic, it is darn good for essentially my first time playing. I had played the beta for maybe 20-30mn way back when it came out, and then never played again. I have unlocked Sniper up to level 3. I checked out the upgrade tree and you get 1 weapon at level 4, but don’t get any new weapons again till level 9. I worry that those higher up weapons will unbalance the game towards the long time players and destroy the newbies, but we’ll see. I’m also a little sad to see so few weapons. MW2 had a TON of weapons to choose from, BC2 had a reasonable number, but MOH here just has a pitiful amount. Besides these complaints, MOH multiplayer was fun to play. Like single player I would rate it a “good but not great”. Again, there are some bits that are broken and need massaging before it is anything more than “good”.
I would recommend purchasing it, but I don’t think it will be quite the hit that MW2 or BC2 were. Fortunately COD: Black Ops will be out in just a few more weeks, and hopefully that will be the uber new shooter we’re all hoping for.