Review: Medal of Honor

Say no to reality.

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7.9

The Good

Journal-like structure to storytelling is unique and refreshing * A focused experience that revolves around a few key characters and a sense of continuity make it easy to keep track of who you are and what you are doing

The Bad

Actual events on which the game is based can limit its creativity and appeal * Copious amounts of scripted events and actions interrupt the gameplay too often * A hanful of technical glithces make most of the action feel sloppy * Multiplayer is a mismatch between the different styles of Battlefield and Modern Warfare 2

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A successful military shooter today is as likely to readily volunteer a prescription of drama for a notional tale of world domination as it is to trust an often disarranged recollection of set-pieces to convey its proceedings. The resulting experience can be characteristically narcissistic if entirely forgivable under the intent of entertainment. Medal of Honor shares this unchanging enthusiasm to entertain audiences with a sensibly measured adaptation of a recent conflict. While the inevitable corollary of this is an experience that explores the genre in its own unique and intriguing ways, the actual events on which the game is based can, quite unfortunately, limit its creativity and appeal in several ways.

The campaign follows an elite coterie of US soldiers who are sent to seek and eradicate Taliban forces occupying encampments around Afghanistan. In many ways, this limited premise can immediately demarcate the boundary between realism and escapism as players are quickly forced to learn that it’s more practical to expect to spend significant portions of the campaign shooting enemies down mundane mud-paved corridors than preventing a posse of terrorists from tearing through a Russian airport à la Modern Warfare 2. Despite the unfortunate constrictions of the backdrop, Medal of Honor can feel categorically adept at working within the borders of reality to create reasonably interesting gameplay segments. An instance of this is the mission where you are the gunner of an Apache trying to eliminate a handful of intelligently concealed mortar positions. There’s a fair amount of variety between the missions but Medal of Honor offers little of the pizzazz that other more fictional military shooters today are able to afford and build on.

For most parts, it is easy to appreciate the fact that Medal of Honor sincerely recognises that it is portraying a real conflict and abnegates from pretending what it isn’t. The brief five hours campaign occasionally teases a hint of an overarching story but in the end, each mission feels like an unfettered heartfelt entry in the diary of the protagonist. Medal of Honor offers none of the cunning megalomaniac plotting to destroy countries, only all of the award winning film The Hurt Locker-esque experience. Despite the journal-like structure, Medal of Honor still manages to find plenty of space for bits of tragicomedy. In what could be described as one of the most contemplative moments, an ill-informed and impatient general from thousands of miles away makes the most egregious of decisions and ends up killing his own troops. Knowing that a huge mistake has been made, a soldier cheekily cuts off the live feed from the general before the later could provide his colonel with more orders.

More and more apparently, an unpretentious approach to storytelling like this allows Medal of Honor to deliver a focused experience that revolves around a few key characters. While perspectives will irrevocably shift in the interest of variety, such transitions are always managed in a way that feels logical. For instance, after being ambushed by waves of Taliban forces in a hut that is quickly falling apart, you are rescued by a helicopter. You play as the rescuers in the next mission as they receive their next objective. This revivifying sense of continuity can quickly build into a tidy and cohesive experience that easily allows you to be aware of who you are and what you are doing.

Unfortunately, much of this experience can feel, inadvertently or otherwise, manufactured. Scripted events work best when they are delivered in carefully measured portions yet the liberal, if not extravagant, use of such scripting in Medal of Honor can feel more naive than careless. There are times when your progress is deliberately halted at a cliff or door to allow your comrades to prattle on about the circumstances. You will quickly learn that enemies who are meant to be stabbed or shot by your comrades cannot be harmed by you and you cannot injure an enemy before a scripted event or before he does a scripted action. This heavy-handed brand of control can make much of the action feel regrettably clumsy. Elsewhere, a teammate gets clipped at a door and weapons on a support AC-130 gunship couldn’t reload, forcing me to restart from my last checkpoint on both occasions.

Much like the fashion these days, it’s entirely plausible that Medal of Honor is designed with an emphasis on multiplayer. DICE, the developers behind the successful multiplayer-focused Battlefield series, brings their expertise in competitive experiences to Medal of Honor yet much of the fun is lost when the developer desperately tries to combine the more methodical approach of Battlefield with the faster pace of Modern Warfare 2. Even with specific weapon unlocks and accessorial upgrades, the three classes available can feel interchangeable. On the furiously paced team deathmatch which takes place over constrained maps, such effort to infuse a slight touch of Battlefield can feel embarrassingly misplaced. Other modes like sector control, objective raid and the progressive combat mission can feel more tailored for support roles but the already diminished functionality of such classes make these modes only decent at best.

Last comments
At its best, Medal of Honor can be fascinating. The representation of a real conflict allows the game to explore storytelling in a way that feels unique and refreshing. Despite this, the game can suffer rather helplessly from working within the circumference of reality. The limited premise provides little inspiration and suffocates the game of much of its creativity. The fallacious use of scripted events also interrupts the gameplay, tearing immersion out in unsightly ways. A handful of technical glitches mean the action can feel sloppy in many parts. The multiplayer, while decent, feels like a mismatch between the disparate styles of Battlefield and Modern Warfare 2. Medal of Honor is a short lived experience because the five hours campaign is one of the shortest in a full-fledged game and the multiplayer is only entertaining enough to steal a glance from players invested in bigger and better multiplayer adventures elsewhere. But that’s probably for the best.