Medal of Honour (I'm using the Australian spelling variant from now on). We've restarted the entire series, booting out the WW2 part of it, to give out the war times of the modern era, and I'm getting the feeling that this may have already been done before. Call of Duty, perhaps? Wait, no, that can't be right because the CoD series decided to use the Russians as the central scapegoat for their series. This time around, we're headed for Afghanistan, six months after 9/11, with American soldiers trained to kill and pissed off that they experienced a modern-day, eastern seaboard, land based version of Pearl Harbour.
At the start of the game, you play as a specialist soldier that is secretly behind enemy lines, with the objective to save a contact, who gives out very little thanks and tells you to kill all the Taliban. Yeah, considering that I am only just one person, with three other soliders, given the objective to overcome impossible odds while said soldiers as I - the player character - am the one with the big fat bullseye on my chest. Wait a second, this sounds a hell of a lot like Bad Company 2!
So off I go to the vault that is my game collection, and pull out my copy of BC2. Same publisher, two of the same developers out of three. Oh wonderful, good to make that one difference. Look, I tolerated BC2, and even some of my friends thought it was their favourite game for that time of the year (although making it one of the best of 2010 makes me think their brains need scrubbing). What pisses me off even more is that a developer takes a game, releases it, then puts on a new paint job of the same game and releases it in the same year! It's like ordering a meatlovers pizza only to tear the toppings off and replacing it with other meat. Yes, I know there's multiplayer, and you can get most of the experience of weapons on there. This is not good game design, not everyone wants multiplayer. Pack that shit in.
I've entered the fourth paragraph, and I haven't told you the broader aspect of the story.Well, you are basically following the stories of a S.E.A.L., a Tier 1 operator, a Ranger, and a pilot, in order of playtime length. Again, it's 2002, where every American wants to kick the teeth in of everyone who looks Middle Eastern, and who worships Jack Bauer. U.S intelligence is as competent as a naked leper in a HDD repairing room, and there are over 1000 Taliban and AQ that need their live shortened, and it all starts by rescuing an informant and taking over an airfield.
Meanwhile, a Colonel wants to check the area out, while a General wants to go into the turf head first within 24 hours with Rangers, Mountain and Airborne to fuck some shit up. So the area checked out, it's more of a case of Unstoppable Force meets Immovable Object. For the most part, I didn't care, I entered a phase of acting like Team America in Durkadurkastan. Stuff got blown up, enemies died, and there's a moment where you can kiss the ass of your nearest buddy just to get some more ammo and doing it all again. Great I thought, more enemies to kill.
Then again, I didn't enjoy this game, not because I got it on the 360, and I should have chosen the PS3 platform to be rewarded with Medal of Honour: Frontline (a much better game). The game is a safe mix of BC2 and CoD: A squad of four mates able to take on a battalion of insurgents better than what Team Noble could, with only two weapons (like Halo and CoD) with Wolverine-like regeneration. Yes, there was a flight mission, but you never got to control the Apache, this is an FPS after all, flying would make it too much of a clusterfuck for the player. Second worst of all, it was too easy. I played it on hard, and I would have wanted more of a length in the storyline, and battle was like playing Gears of War but the 1st person camera trying to act like the player's eyesight.
My greatest gripe is for the ending. There was not much of a last stand; that was left for halfway in the game for the Rangers, but the end scene was a busy street in an unnamed country with two guys drinking tea. Roll credits from there. Where's the fun in that? Why tell me something that is going on then try to make me an idiot in suspense? Why are you releasing two of the same game in the same year? Has John Riccitiello suffered Alzheimer's?
Having said all of that though, this game is the most I've ever felt disgusted at a game. I'm not even going to bother planting pictures up, because you see a couple of photos used in the promo, you've seen the whole game. Now with single player being done before lunch, I've waited a couple of days to try to find some nice things about the game, now I'm off to take it back to the retailer and pick up Castlevania instead.
Judgement: Save your cash, unless you're a PS3 owner who wants to play a glossy Frontline. Even then, it's disgraceful for FPSes, and should be left as a bitter memory.
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