Medal of Honor

Any first person shooter set in modern times probably won’t escape a comparison to Modern Warfare 2 for a good long while. Considering the history of competition between Medal of Honor and Call of Duty however, EA had a lot of motive to both distinguish Medal of Honor from MW2 and create a better game.

It’s difficult to say whether they have or not however, as at the outset the two games are very, very similar. Both have great graphics, a focus on realism and are primarily multiplayer oriented - especially with the 5 hour length of the single player.

The short length of the single player is a little disappointing, as it is a good time. The game is played from the perspective of four different interconnected people - A Tier 1 operative named ‘Rabbit’, a Delta Force operative ‘Deuce’, a Ranger specialist named ‘Adams’ and a helicopter pilot who I never learned the name of - and who you only control for a short amount of time anyway.

All of them play a role in the fight against the Taliban and while the story is fairly conventional, it also feels a lot more realistic than any over-the-top Michael Bay explosion factory tour. Several points in the story do an excellent job of inspiring a sense of hopelessness in the face of overwhelming odds - even if there is very little time to reflect on it in such a fast paced game.

The music does an excellent job of adding to the pathos, although it’s only really noticeable in the previously mentioned moments of despair. When you are kicking ass it tends to fade into the background - although I might just be inoculated to up-tempo rock music in first person shooters after years of exposure.

While Rabbit, Deuce and Adams are all infantry of a sort, meaning you spend most of your time on foot (as you would expect) you don’t spend all of your time lining up enemies in your ironsights. Throughout the game you will also direct AC-130 and Predator drone support, execute some long range sniping, ride an ATV and man the guns on an Apache as the aforementioned helicopter pilot.

The large amount of different gameplay elements means you definitely won’t feel like you are just doing the same old thing repeatedly, although the length of the campaign doesn’t really give you an option anyway.

As you are playing members of the US military you generally use the same weapons throughout - you can pick up enemy weaponry but it’s generally no better than your own and your team mates have ammunition for your standard loadout. The weapons you do carry all have a significantly different feel to them, but tend to have a lot less recoil and a lot better accuracy than you might expect.



The AI ranges from average to good, with enemies moving behind cover and blind firing over the top and throwing grenades during breaks in the fire fight. They do tend to lose their intelligence if you manage to outflank them however, becoming easy targets for your fire.

Medal of Honor isn’t about single player however, it is about multiplayer and online the game... is a lot like a blend of MW2 and Battlefield Bad Company 2. The matchmaking is very good - almost every match I played was predominately with fellow Australians (even at 5am) and the net code minimised frustration for those times when I was playing internationally.

The multiplayer modes available have DICE stamped all over them, with Combat Mission the MoH equivalent of Rush and Objective Raid as Conquest. The other two modes, Team Assault (TDM) and Sector Control (CTP) are exactly what you would expect - shoot everyone on the other team and hold and control specific areas respectively.

Currently Objective Raid and Team Assault consistently have the most players - good news as Combat Mission can be very frustrating with a poor team and MoH not being fast paced enough for point control type gameplay.

Also available is Hardcore mode, allowing you to play Objective Raid, Team Assault and Sector Control maps with a much smaller margin for error. The only real problem with hardcore mode is the divide between it and standard gameplay - anyone just getting into first person shooters who wants to move from standard to hardcore is in for a rude shock at the change in difficulty. By no means should they make hardcore easier, but the already substantial gap between the hardcore and ordinary gamer crowds is only going to widen over time - and if hardcore is too inaccessible it will quickly stagnate.

It also has a scorechains system - or perks as they were known in Call of Duty. Rack up enough points without dying and you gain access to either defensive or offensive tactical support. The offensive actions range from a mortar strike at 50 points through to a cruise missile at 600 and the defensive include UAVs and different levels of ammo and armour benefits.

The implementation needs a little work in Medal of Honor however - it’s not common for a single player to do well enough to rack up the kills necessary to call in an air strike, but a team of experienced players can easily work together to get a couple of mortars ready and rain down fire around their opponent’s spawning area.

So is Medal of Honor better than Modern Warfare 2? On the PC the multiplayer differences might be a lot more significant with its dedicated server support, but on consoles it is fairly similar. EA has stated Medal of Honor is just the first step in a new direction for the series and while it might not be ground breaking, it is still a good first step. Now let’s just hope the second step isn’t charging $15 for maps you have already played.