The thing that put me off playing medal of honor when it was first released was the fact that there are already so many first person shooters on the market, that and that this particular one is based on the current conflict in Afghanistan. i didn’t want it to be forcing a particular view on me or indeed to change my own, going in all guns blazing may work well in games but not always in reality and so i waited for a while until i gave it a play through. so given the wait is the game all that? it actually is and then some.
In modern shooters the quality of story telling usually takes a back seat leaving the guts and glory to, well the guts and the glory. medal of honor actually excels here, the story is engaging and quite brilliantly told and played out. the thing i really liked was how it lets you play as part of 3 different teams yet its all linked together seamlessly so you actually feel like you have worked towards accomplishing something epic. normally in shooters especially war or combat simulators the characters are not very likable however in medal of honor they actually are.
Realism is where the game really comes into its own and there is no shortage of that realism. from gun sounds and dust filling the air after a bomb has been dropped medal of honor has it all. as mentioned the sound is fantastic, each gun sounds 100% as it should and not only that, they behave and look just as they should. superior graphics are something you expect in modern day shooters and medal of honor doesn’t hold back in the least. the landscape of Afghanistan may not be a lot to visualize but its amazingly reproduced, gritty when it needs to be and lush with detail all the way trough.
The single player campaign may be short but in comparison to most recent shooters its not actually that short and it depends on how quick you decide to go. the levels are well thought out and are great fun, each one has something special about it that really propels the story forward and you really feel a part of the story by completing tasks. there appears to be no learning curve as it is of course a shooter but if you do want to play it right then depending on the others in your team is a definite. the actual difficulty level of the game is not much to write home about and playing on hard mode is more like just playing on normal, this doesn’t take away from game play it just makes it a little less challenging the first time around if you don’t know about it – playing on hard is the way to go.
And on to my final conclusion. medal of honor is a good game with an engaging story and equally engaging combat and story telling. the levels are really well put together and they even add a level where you take control of an apache gun ship tasked with the challenge of taking down enemy positions will under fire by rpg and anti air guns. the music/sounds and graphics are all top notch helping to really establish the situation and to show what's at stake. the combat though light at times is some of the best i have seen in a shooter yet, parts even rival the famed call of duty series. as if all of that is not enough my copy came with an exclusive copy of the older medal of honor frontline game, it may be older with predated graphics but its a great game. so after all that (excluding of course the online mutliplayer which it has – i just didn’t play it) i’m giving the game an 8 out of 10. if they had just made the main campaign a little big longer it would be almost perfect. if you like first person shooters then medal of honor is surely one not to be missed.
