Medal of Honor - Playstation 3

It’s hard not to talk about Medal of Honor without mentioning a certain war – based FPS series.

First released on the original Playstation, Medal of Honor was arguably the first Second World War-based first-person shooter. Riding on its success, EA saw fit to make a series of the game, and pretty soon the market was inundated with WWII-based action games – some were good, some were bad.

Skip forward to 2007, and with the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, it became clear audiences had moved on, but the Medal of Honour series was still very much stuck in the past (Medal of Honor: Airborne anyone? No, I thought not).

So, here we are in 2010, and EA have relaunched the Medal of Honor series with an all-new modern setting – so fresh in fact that the conflict it’s based on is still ongoing.

Some may argue that Activision’s Modern Warfare series has become a little extreme with its plot and that what is needed right now, is a war game that takes things a little more seriously.

That’s where the new Medal of Honor tries to step in.

There’s no nuclear bombs going off in this game, no invasions on American soil, no levels where you are an undercover agent shooting innocent civilians in an airport – what you have here is a simple action/espionage game set in the backdrop of the current Afghan conflict.

The only controversy in this game is the fact that at one stage in its development it was confirmed that you could play as the Taliban in the multiplayer deathmatches.

Certain MPs complained, and EA changed the words “Taliban”, to “OPFOR”. Anyway, I digress.

The game follows several plot strands, with each one seeing the gamer controlling several different characters – a marine codenamed “Rabbit”, a sniper codenamed “Deuce” and during one mission, an Apache chopper pilot named “Hawk”.

Aside from all the standard running and shooting that you’d come to expect, things are kept fresh with a number of levels that make use of all the gadgets and tech that are available to US military.

There’s levels where you have to ride quad bikes, man a helicopter gun turret and arrange air strikes.

So far, so unoriginal.

Many will moan about Medal of Honor’s lack of originality, but all things considered this actually works in the game’s favour.

The controls are instantly familiar – as a result the game flows along quite nicely, and will fit your everyday FPS fan like a glove.

Sadly, Medal of Honor is let down by a number of glitches.

Every now and then the frame rate will inexplicably slow down, particularly when there is a lot going on. Other random bugs plague the game as well, such as bricks from exploding buildings randomly floating in the air for a few seconds.

Another gripe is that all too familiar problem with other open-world FPS’s – invisible walls they are everywhere, even between two objects such as a lamppost and a car – you have to walk around them, and not inbetween.

Despite the glitches, the visual presentation is of a high standard and the game looks very polished – when it is working correctly.

Audibly the game is a treat to the ears, with all the explosions, gun shots and communication between your soldiers it sounds fantastic – especially when played in Dolby Digital.

One nice little detail is the fact that as your guns run out of ammo, they begin to sound more hollow until you run out and reload.

The singleplayer campaign clocks in at about 5-6 hours, so to compensate the developers have thrown in a time trial mode called “Tier 1”.

Giving you the chance to race through each level, your time is saved and added to the EA servers, letting you see how well you’ve done against other players on the leaderboards.

As far the multiplayer, it’s somewhere between Call of Duty and Battlefield: Bad Company. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise, considering the multiplayer is built around same Frostbite engine used in EA’s other FPS series, Bad Company.

The maps are small, and as result it encourages the player to engage in combat at frantic pace.

If there is one gripe to be had, it’s the fact the game has a habit of re-spawning you right in the middle of the action, and before you have had a chance to get your bearings, you’re getting shot at and ultimately starting off all over again.

Aside from the “hardcore” setting, the multiplayer mode offers 4 different types of conflict.

There’s Combat Mission, where coalition forces have to fight through a campaign of five objectives, heavily defended by OPFOR forces (aka, the Taliban).

Team Assault is pretty much team deathmatch.

Sector Control is a domination-type game, where opposing sides secure bases to win the match and finally, there’s Objective Raid, where the coalition defend two objectives against the OPFOR saboteurs.

An added bonus for Playstation 3 owners is the fact Medal of Honor comes bundled with a HD remix of the Playstation 2 classic Medal of Honour: Frontline. Be warned though, this requires a 6gb install, which can take a while.

Ultimately, despite a relatively short campaign, Medal of Honor offers quite a solid shooter and is worth checking out.

Whether or not the game can box its weight against an increasingly flooded modern warfare market remains to be seen.

Verdict: 7 out of 10

The Good:
Gritty and realistic presentation
Good solid multiplayer
Lots of cool tech

The Bad:
A few graphical glitches
Short single player campaign

Subjects up for discussion include the Just Cause 2, EA showcase, Tow Truck Simulator and It’s My Circus: Elephant Friend.

Here’s the highlights:

Crysis 2 (Xbox 360/PS3/PC):
A short teaser trailer and a shorter tech demo awaited us on the third floor, presided over by a member of the development team (dev team).

Shifting from the tropical island action of Crysis, Crysis 2 instead heads to that most obvious of video gaming clichés – New York City.

Where as the previous game gave players a choice of four nanosuit powers, Crysis 2 has instead grouped the strength, cloak, speed and armour powers into three distinct groups, allowing gamers to match their gameplay style to their particular talents, be it ‘Predator’, ‘Rambo’ or sniper.

The game itself looked as shiny and fast-paced as ever, with the Xbox build seeming pretty solid, if a little jerky at points, as the development team blew everything to pieces and waded in all guns blazing (not the approach I would have taken…)

The PS3 build is apparently “well on the way.”

Whether or not you’ll need a nuclear-powered desktop computer to run the game remains to be seen, however.

Crysis 2

Dead Space 2 (Xbox 360/PS3/PC):
After the success of Dead Space, EA are keen to take players back to the ‘verse of the Necromorphs, and have put players firmly back in the environment boots of Isaac Clarke – engineer and evil-hunter.

Instead of the confines of a starship, the action takes place on a moon of Jupiter this time, in a city known as ‘the Sprawl’. Once again the Necromorphs are on the loose and it’s the player’s job to put them back in their box.

The graphics seemed sharper and the gameplay smoother this time around, and a host of new enemies and weapons are up for grabs, including a javelin gun (which can also electrocute enemies), and Isaac’s new armour, which has a host of enhanced powers, as well as the stasis and kinesis modules that made exploring the Ishimura so much fun last time around.

This time you can blow holes in everything and even use the remains to throw at enemies – and who wouldn’t want to behead a Necromorph with a dinner plate.

The dev team were quick to point out the game’s new focus on inducing even more “horror and terror”, so expect more thrills and chills.

Isaac is also now “calling the shots” – no longer someone’s “errand boy” (and goodness knows I got fed up of “Isaac, go fix this, Isaac, go kill that…”.

All in all it’s looking good, and while the rumours of competitive multiplayer continue to circulate, the dev team could only shrug, and smile shyly – watch this Dead Space.

Dead Space 2

Star Wars: The Old Republic (PC):
A game that’s had Star Wars fans and MMORPG nuts up in arms for months, Old Republic was on show in a pre-beta build, putting the gamer in the armour of a Rattatiki bounty hunter out to join up with the Mandalorians (Boba Fett’s mates.)

The dev team were quick to push the fact that you can play as a non-human this time around and that the game has a full-voice cast, thereby cutting down on text boxes, but personally I found the mission and gameplay to be stilted and standard, not really straying from the MMO, but then, I was never one for MMOs.

Set some 3,000 years before the rise of Vader, it remains to be seen whether the Old Republic will rise, or fall.

And why isn’t Bioware making Knights of the Old Republic 3?

Star Wars: The Old Republic

APB (PC):
Staying in MMO mode, we come to APB (All Points Bulletin), an interesting little addition that turns the Internet into a giant game of cops and robbers.

Set in a persistent online city, the game pits ‘criminals’ against ‘enforcers’ and allows the gamer to build up a criminal or enforcer from street thug to kingpin, or visa versa for the good guys.

With the beta already running, the APB dev team just logged us into the city and set us lose on a couple of missions, which were a blast.

Jumping into a car I drove off towards a shop, with orders to break into it, steal the goods and escape unharmed. Picking up my team of hard-bitten crooks I sped to the point and jumped out, before discovering the first of my two main issues with the game – no headshots. Get right up close to a person and shoot them right between the eyes, and nothing happens.

The dev team insist this is a “balancing choice”, but I found it to be merely an irritation. Similarly, I quickly discovered (upon grabbing the bag and running for a car) that car windows are bulletproof – so no sniping civilians from a mile off, and no taking out the driver in a car chase.

While this is an odd choice, the effort needed to factor splintering glass into an MMORPG, so it appears on everyone’s screen at once, must be huge, so it’s forgivable.

Graphically the game is nothing spectacular, sitting a little better than World of Warcraft’s offerings, but the degree of player customisation is immense.

There’s a clothing editor, a chop-shop, a music mix board and a whole lot more up for grabs, and if you like what you’ve built you can even try to flog it to your peers for more game time – this could lead to an an interesting online economy, and one which might just be APB’s golden goose.

APB

Need For Speed: World (PC)
One last MMO was on show in Shepherd’s Bush – an exciting little title called Need for Speed: World.

Now, as any petrolhead will know, NFS titles are some of the best street-racing titles out there, and NFS: World goes one step further – forget playing a game, this is more like living it.

An MMO like no other, NFS: World puts you in the driving seat of any number of hot-rod motors, with literally the entire world to take on at high speed.

Taking place in an American city, the game centres on racing, modding, painting and selling your motors. You can chose to jump into the ever-popular pursuit mode, or take on any number of races, facing down other players across the globe or putting in some practice on your own.

While still at an early stage, NFS: World was brilliant fun. Graphically the game looks great for an MMO, and the dev team claimed the game would be able to run on even a netbook’s hardware, and will be available free to start with.

The game is also big on social networking, even going so far as to include a link to Facebook – so be sure to find and insult that cheating player in the Audi TT who cut you up by using one of the game’s ‘power ups’ (a serious racing title this is not…)

Need for Speed World

Medal of Honour (Xbox 360/PS3/PC):
While still a way off, Medal of Honour put on a good show for the assembled fans, showing off some decent graphics and sound design and a cast of intriguing new characters.

The game itself centres around the war in Afghanistan and involves two levels of conflict – the “scalpel” of the military – A Tier One operator who remains nameless for now, and the “sledgehammer” – the US Army Rangers.

Appearing to be a Call of Duty Modern Warfare clone at first, the tech demo on display revealed a decent level of graphical mastery and gameplay mechanics, as a squad of Rangers took on the Taliban.

The environments appeared open and huge, and the sound of bullets whipping all around made the experience intense. That said, the ‘open’ environments seemed to be cover for a linear path, and I’d like to see an aspect of choice in the gameplay – do you call in the air support, or storm the building yourself.

Either way the game is shaping up nicely, and the fact that the man from the dev team looked exactly like the Tier One character was a nice touch (he had an awesome beard.)

Medal of Honor

Bulletstorm:
A surprise announcement, Bulletstorm is a cool-looking game in development by Epic (of Gears of War fame) and People Can Fly.

Coming across as a mix of Duke Nukem, Timesplitters and ten thousands buckets of blood, Bulletstorm is a sci-fi shooter which rewards you for shooting with style.

Set around a squad of mercenaries, the game is a blast through an abandoned city overrun with mutated plants and enemy soldiers, and there’s only you and your gear to stop them.

Lucky then that you’ve got weapons that can melt enemies, a ‘lash’ which can freeze them in place or throw them into orbit and a whole variety of interesting environmental kills just waiting to be triggered.

Kill enemies in an inventive way and the game rewards you with upgrade points, and there seemed to be a certain joy in finding new and interesting ways to murder the opposition.

Needless to say, this game doesn’t take itself seriously. I’ll be watching this one in the coming months.

Bulletstorm

Bad Company 2: Onslaught Mode (Xbox 360/PS3/PC):
Although there were other DLC packs on show at the event, the one that really stood out for me is the upcoming Onslaught mode for Bad Company 2.

Essentially a four-player co-op mode, Onslaught pits you and your friends against AI-controlled enemies on four of the multiplayer maps, with the objective being to capture a certain number of points and keep moving forwards.

While a simple addition to the game, the mode was a blast to play and a nice change to being sniped by some Australian from half a mile away – AI thankfully aren’t as good with a rifle as another human.

I’ll be buying this one as soon as it’s out.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

So that was the EA Showcase. There was a lot to see and a lot I haven’t covered in this article,  so why not check out the latest SGR podcast later today, and be sure to check back soon as we watch these games go from drawing-board to billboard.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 - Xbox 360

Apart from a couple of mis-steps (Battlefield Vietnam), Battlefield’s production team, DICE, have been instrumental in developing one of the the best series’ of online shooters of this generation, and Bad Company 2 (BC2) is no exception.

Picking up from the brilliant performance of Battlefield Bad Company, BC2 offers gamers more explosions, more levels, more hectic online gameplay and, most importantly, more fun.

Unlike its intellectual equal – Modern Warfare 2 – BC2 has an innate sense of fun to it.

Whether bombing around on a quad-bike online or bombing your way through a set-piece battle in the singleplayer campaign, the game is just great fun to play and the improved graphics, gameplay, sound and variety more than eclipses the series’ fine pedigree.

Firstly, the single player campaign.

The story follows the four no-hopers from the previous game: Sarge, the veteran, Sweetwater, the ‘intellectual’, Haggard, the demo man and ‘new guy’ Marlowe, as the four feckless troopers unravel a plot which revolves around a World War 2 era superweapon devised by the Japanese, which now threatens the modern world.

Starting off with a nicely-executed mission set in 1944 (making clever use of the weapons encoded in BF1942), the campaign is a brilliant rollercoaster ride through modern combat areas. There’s stealthy missions in the snow, tank battles in the desert and everything in between.

While the plot itself isn’t the best-written, or even very well explained, it stands up to casual scrutiny and as you’re going to be spending most of your time choosing what to blow up next it doesn’t really matter very much.

Each of the voice actors from the previous game returns and the squad’s banter is still a joy to listen to, though the slightly darker tone of the storyline this time round takes a lot of the comedy factor away – no gold-plated HinD gunships this time boys.

But, while a little repetitive at points, the singleplayer is an enjoyable blast, especially as DICE’s Frostbite engine is still brilliant fun to play with – don’t even try to hide behind cover for too long.

Of course this being a Battlefield game the main component inside the box is the multiplayer, and once again DICE does not disappoint.

As well as the familiar Conquest game mode, DICE have bought back Bad Company’s Gold Rush, now renamed simply Rush – a fast-paced attack/defend game where unlimited defenders have to stop a limited number of attackers destroying strategic positions, either with demolitions charges, conventional weaponry or by dropping a building on the site – a process made all the easier by DICE’s Destruction 2.0 software.

This allows the gamer to destroy entire buildings, not just blow out the walls as in the Bad Company, and can completely change the layout of a battlefield in an instant (especially if you’re in the building at the time.)

There are also smaller game modes for the console of the game: Squad Rush and Squad Deathmatch are 4v4 games designed to have a faster pace than their bigger counterparts, and are fun in their own way, even if you prefer the action and intensity of the bigger battles.

The selection of weapons and vehicles on offer is massive, with the vehicles varying from map to map.

There’s mass tank battles in a sand-filled harbour, snowy sharpshooting near an oil pipeline and dogfighting in the clouds with one of the many helicopters awaiting a pilot (a shame that so many ‘pilots’ get in and take off with no one in the side-seat, and then fly the chopper into the floor. You know who you are.)

Like previous games, BC2 uses a ‘class’ selection system to keep the gameplay going, and playing as a certain class, capturing objectives and killing enemies unlocks new guns, equipment and specialities for each class.

While this process does lend itself to a little too much ‘grinding’ for my liking, you do unlock new items pretty quickly, provided that you get in on the action, but I still don’t see the point of forcing you to hack away with the medic class until you unlock your first-aid kit, surely that’s the point of the medic from the off?

The environment has also been tweaked a little since the last game, and the game has become a little more realistic for it. Weapons can take an age to reload, most sniper rifles require you to come out of the sight-view to reload and the bullets themselves dip in flight, so learning to lead your target at a distance is essential.

The game has also tweaked the spawning mechanic. While you can respawn at any number of set points, you can still join a squad with your friends, or matchmake for a random squad, and spawn right next to the living squad member – provided they stay alive.

While perhaps not all that realistic, this mechanic keeps the game fluid and exciting, as well as allowing some sneaky play – why not send one guy around the back of the enemy position, then respawn on him and attack from the rear?

Graphically the game is brilliant to look at, and immersive in its design. The singleplayer is filled with cool effects, from fog and smoke to hazy sunshine, and there’s very little graphical drop-in or texture issues.

The multiplayer also runs very smoothly. Though occasional graphical bugs can mar the experience, these are minor at best and don’t detract from the fun of the battle.

The sound effects are worthy of particular note as well. Whether you’re in the middle of the battle or sniping from afar, the game takes pains to make the battle sound just right: tank cannons thunder their fire off in the distance, the distinctive sound of a ricochet sounds that a sniper’s sights are on you, and the boom of explosions drags you into the battle – it’s just brilliant.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 is a game that provides exactly what its audience want. It’s big, brash and fun to play, offering a good 8-10 hours of singleplayer and a huge variety of multiplayer options to boot. While the singleplayer plot is a little contrived, the game as a whole is well thought out and executed perfectly, and now that the server issues that marred the game seem to have passed (did you not expect a lot of people to buy and play the game, DICE?) there’s a lot of fun to be had.

I’ll see you on the battlefield.

Score: 9/10

Good Stuff:
Great multiplayer
Lots of variety
Great graphics and sound

Not So Good Stuff:
Predictable and contrived plot
‘Grinding’ to unlock items in multiplayer
Laggy server issues