|
|
 |
|
The latest iteration of the
Medal of Honor series has come to the PC, and the order of the day is “attention
to detail”.
Produced with an eye toward authenticity, they hired the consultant that worked with
the producers of "Saving Private Ryan”, studied photographs and technical documents
on weapons, vehicles, locations, uniforms and the like, and spent untold hours designing
missions and maps that more or less accurately portray historical battles and locales.
If the mission at the landing of omaha beach doesn’t remind you of the first 20 minutes
of “Saving Private Ryan”, then you didn’t see the movie. Those who have seen the movie
got a sense of the helplessness and futility that so many doomed soldiers trying to move
up the beach must have been feeling, and you will experience at least a small part of
that when trying to do it yourself here.
|
|
The graphics are excellent, in places.
The detailing of the models and environment are superb, but contrary to popular belief,
beauty is not skin deep, the real beauty is that the detail doesn’t stop at the textures.
Crouching behind a disabled tank, not only can you see through the empty spaces in the
tracks, but you can shoot through them, or not, should your aim falter. Railings and
chainlink fences can produce similar effects, even changing the outcome of a battle,
demonstrating in an often frustrating way what attention to detail can yield. Trees
sway in the wind, lightning flashes convincingly, and NPC’s mouths even move with
their speech – It’s not exactly like watching a movie, but at least it's not just an
eerie disembodied voice coming from an expressionless nodding head.
In other aspects though, the graphics and gameplay are neglected. Many windows are opaque,
staring out blankly next to their more transparent brethren, and seemingly defying physics
with their ability to repel bullets. Mirrors sit on desks in apparent uselessness, refusing
to reflect anything, and are also bulletproof. Lightbulbs do not produce dynamic lighting,
and they, too, are maddeningly indestructible. Multi-paned windows, the ones that are not
apparently made of steel, are easily shattered with a few shots from whatever weapon is
handy, however every piece of glass in the window is broken once you destroy even one. This
seems odd, when during the game’s tutorial, and at several other points in the game, large
objects, such as planks of wood, cannot be destroyed by shooting just one part, however even
this is not consistent in the game. Tank rounds will blow one wall off a structure, but not
another. Porcelain toilets deflect bullets like superman, and cannot be flushed. clipping
errors are commonplace, you will constantly see limbs and weapons protruding from otherwise
unharmed walls.
In the places where the game works as it seems it should, it shines, but the places where it
does not are glaring, leaving me with a somewhat less-than-happy look on my face, which brings
me to the multiplayer.
As with other parts of MOHAA, the multiplayer runs hot and cold. Initially, EA and 2015 relied
on a partnership with Gamespy to browse available servers, but the first patch introduced an
in-game server browser, which leaves a lot to be desired. Either the updates on server status
are slow, or the numbers don’t display properly, but either way it is not uncommon to find
yourself staring at a “server is full” message while several slots appear to be open, and then
be dumped straight back to the main menu. At this time, the player is forced to go through the
multiplayer menus again, repopulate the server list that they were just looking at, and try
their luck again. Using the refresh option refreshes the entire list of several hundred servers,
lacking the ability to refresh selectively, or even to mark favorite servers, and filtering is
also impossible.
The game shipped with the ability to use cheat codes in multiplayer games online, which caused
no small uproar from the fan community, and was quickly remedied with the above-mentioned patch,
but the lack of balance was not squashed here. Players may choose to enter either side of the
conflict, or switch teams mid-match, regardless of the balance between the sides. As one team
begins to lose, some players tuck their tails and run to the other side, making a 12 on 4 matchup
a very real possibility, and the game will gleefully allow it. There does not appear to be any
form of automatic balancing between teams, either in the form of evening out the number of players,
or in splitting up the dominating players.
Beyond these drawbacks, the multiplayer game can be a lot of fun. With a cache of weapons that
tend to live up to their real-life counterparts, realistic character movement, and a variety
of well-designed multiplayer maps, both team deathmatch and objective based missions can really
be a blast. It’s not exactly on par with any of the other big name multiplayer shooters out there,
but if you can get past the drawbacks listed above, it can be a lot of fun..
The storyline in the single player campaign is pretty thin, but it moves you along in a more or
less logical progression between locations and missions. Basically, you have to go here and blow
this up, and do these few other things along the way, or the allies will lose the war. Lather,
rinse, repeat. There are times when NPC's will jump in on your side and provide an assist, but
by the end it always boils down to the same thing – you vs. a hundred germans. There’s a good
variety of mission types that keep things mostly interesting, from infiltrating a submarine base
and blowing a u-boat to driving a tank through a village and really blowing it to hell, escorting
soldiers through a hornet’s nest of snipers, even rambling through a well-appointed mansion with
shotgun blazing to clear out a german command post. There’s enough variety to keep things more
or less, well, not exactly dull, and barely repetitive, but the maps are well structured, and at
times the atmosphere can be pretty engaging, but overall, that’s just not enough for me.
Tiamet's Rating:
3 out of 5 Planets
Talk about
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault>> |
|
|
|
Buy it @
amazon.com |
|
|
|
Game News
