I came home to find an e-mail saying that I was accepted into the Beta of Medal of Honor. I must say, it was a pleasant surprise. So after many many hours of non-stop playing, I have come to a few conclusions, so I decided a mini "First Impression" review was in order.
Medal of Honor 2010 is made by the same people who make the incredible Battlefield Bad Company 2, DICE. So I must admit I had high expectations for this game. I am pleased to say, it really did not disappoint.
MoH is not Bad Company 2, it was not intended to be, and I am glad they did not try and make it like BC2. MoH is a lot more like Modern Warfare 2, only 100X better, especially since MW2 sucks so bad. In a nut shell, everything Modern Warfare got wrong, Medal of Honor got right. This game blows Mw2 out of the water in just about every respect.
Medal of Honor is a pretty fast paced game on maps that are the perfect size and it easily fulfills the needs of any hardcore FPS gamer. The gameplay feels very smooth and the game has a low learning curve if your already an FPS player.
How does it run?On my system, this game runs like a dream, averaging 100+ FPS stable at all times, easy. On all high/max settings, 1600x900. 100% frame lag free from what I could tell.
Hit registration seems OK, for a beta. There are times when you get killed "around a corner", but that's a pretty common problem in many FPS games, even BC2. So I really can't hold that against it. You also have to take into account other players latency issues and such. I have dumped multiple rounds into someones face, blood flying, only to have them make it through unharmed and knife me.
The Toys!
The weapons are quite powerful and accurate once you get them mastered. You can unlock different weapons, sights, barrels, and ammunition types for your 3 classes. Assault, Spec Ops, and Sniper. In the beta you seem to be very limited on how much you can unlock.
You get kill streak bonus's you can call upon such as a Mortar Strike, UAV, or Air Strike. Similar to MW2 in availability only, they are not even close to MW2 in how they work, you can't spam the map with them and they do not wipe everyone out. It's 100X more balanced than MW2 could ever dream. Like I said, it's like they learned a lot from MW2's failures.
The one thing I have noticed in the beta is explosive weapons seem to be pretty weak. Had Grenades, the noob tube, RPG's, Rockets, all of them. I am not sure if this is how they are supposed to be or its a bug, to me, it feels like a bug. In order to score a kill with these weapons, you pretty much have to either hit your enemy directly, right at their feet, or hope they have low HP.
The Sniper Rifles in the beta are beastly. You can pretty much run and gun like as assault class as they are configured at the moment. Very easy to use for any nub with any sort of FPS experience. They feel very overpowered, but they are still quite fun, I am sure they will change by the time the game goes retail.
On the flip side of the coin, your assault rifles can easily be used to snipe as well, it almost feels like there is no bullet drop or randomization at all. Then again, most of the battles are in semi-close quarters. It makes the battle feel quite, even, no matter what weapons you use.
The shotguns are a blast as well. Devastating up close and still pretty mean at moderate range. I am able to clear out an entire building of 3 or 4 enemies with relative ease in most cases if I rush in with a shotty and they don't all see me at once. haha
How does it look?From a graphic standpoint, the game looks great, again it's better than MW2. The environments are not as reactive like in Bad Company 2, but they are more reactive than in MW2. It's easy to see what can and cant be destroyed.
The Vehicles and mounted weapons!There are gun emplacements in some locations as well as small Bradly style vehicles on some maps, though not many. Such as objective based maps, where you have to capture a set of bases and push the enemy team back. There are no vehicles on the team deathmatch maps.
The Maps and Modes
In the beta, there seem to be 2 maps, each with a different mode, available to play. Both seem very well designed and are quite fun. 24 players per server.
The first map is Helmand Valley and the game mode is "Combat Mission". The idea here is to either take a set of objectives or defend them, depending on what side your on. If your the attackers, you have to try and push the enemy back at take each objective, until you have driven them back to the final one and taken it. If your a defender, it's pretty simple, stop them and tick away the attackers lives to win.
The second, and my favorite so far, is Kabul City Ruins and the mode is Team Assault (aka Team Deathmatch). Pretty much the same as any other Team Deathmatch, kill more of them, score more points than they do, and win. I like the spawn setup in this mode, its not set so one team can just camp one side of the map, your spawn location changes depending on what section of the map your team is in control of at that moment in time. It does well in keeping the action flowing.
The Negative. =(Hacks already!?!? My god these sad loosers sure don't waste any time. Sadly I ran into a two already. One player by the name of "phooka" was blatantly using a "wall hack" (sometimes known as "chams") to see where everyone was and a wonderful little no-spread hack as well. I had to go look it up to make sure these hacks even existed when I seen them the first time. You can imagine my dismay when I found a few sites looking for people to test their hacks in beta. Makes you want to smack the crap out of them idiots does it not? Oh well, haha.
You really cant hold this against the game, its only in beta, and hacks are a fact of online life. Not to mention, I have only see 2 people outright using hacks in the 15+ hours I played so far. That's not bad at all.
Player lag or server? That is the question the preoccupies my mind. Normally, I would place the blame on kids and people who play a game thinking they have a good enough internet connection or PC to play it, even though they don't. In this case, I am not so sure, it is a beta after all. It could just be that. Though expect people to tank entire clips and to drop dead out of the blue every so often. Nothing new to online FPS. Not to mention I have ran across "SA" players in the beta, playing on the North American servers. That's never a good sign and even worse for "lag". heh
Before you happen to guess what kinda of connection I am on, its 30Mbps down and 15Mbps up, with an average latency from 40-60 from New York, to Dallas, to Los Angeles. 30's to Chicago and St.Louis. So yeah, its not me. lol
Conclusions.What I like about the game is the fact it fills a niche that MW2 was not able to do. I love my Bad Company 2 and I still prefer that style of game over that of Medal of Honor, but I have to say, MoH easily fulfills my fast paced, non-battlefield style, gaming desires I get from time to time. Enough so that I will be picking this game up that's for sure.
The beta is wonderful, and I am having a lot of fun in it. One major plus, in-game chat is disabled in beta! If only it could stay disabled. lol
Anyway, I easily rate this game a 8 out of 10. The only reason it don't get a higher score is the fact it is still in it's beta stage at the moment. A lot can change from now until the game goes retail. Also, I still like Battlefield style games better.
On a side note, I am going to brag a little. Now, I am pretty damn good at just about any FPS I play, enough to hold my own against anyone and finish on top in many cases. I have discovered my main reason for playing MoH Beta at the moment. I will drop anyone, anywhere, anytime, with the shotguns. >:)
They are all I have been using for the past 3 days, in a nut shell, I dominate. I even dominate others using the shotguns. So if you happen across my path, watch out, no matter how good you think you are...chances are...I will still dominate you. haha
OK, done bragging and having fun now. To some video! :P
Here is a small video of me running around a team deathmatch map, exploring. This was the first time I played on this map and mode. What is now my favorite. It will give you an idea of what the gameplay is like. There is nothing special about the video, its not edited in any way, just raw footage. Rendered in 720P.
This video is the same map, different class and weapons. Having fun with those shotguns. Still raw gameplay but I cut out all the running around and focused on the action more. Still all filmed in one single match. I also rendered it in 1080P this time around.
