Topic: Medal of Honor (2010)

[Xessive]

Damn, that kinda sucks about how stripped the game feels.

I can now understand why Dice couldn't really move too far beyond BFBC2, they literally had no time to fabricate it from scratch, but the singleplayer being cut-down to a mere 4 hours would suggest that EA was banking on the multiplayer as the selling point. Time will tell if they decide to back the product and buff up the multiplayer experience.

Either way, have fun with it and let us know how you feel about it after some extensive time with it. It could be one of those games that gets awesome later, like BFBC2.

[W7RE]

So first thing is my friend and I got kicked out of 2 games as they were still trying to load. So we changed the game type and it let us in... on opposite teams. This is with the 2 of us in an xbox live party and grouped up using the in-game interface to do matchmaking together. After one match, it put us on the same team.

Then we played for a while and my friend took a break. Then he came back, we tried to matchmake, and his xbox froze. He had to hit the power button to restart it.



Two gameplay problems are still here taht were in the beta:

1) weapon accuracy is way too high. I literally just sniped someone from across an entire king of the hill style map, with a submachine gun. The problem is there's no weapon sway, and no bullet spread. The only thing to keep you from 100% staying on target is the recoil, but there's very little of it. So if you want to snipe someone with an SMG, just do quick bursts, and if they don't move after the first burst, you can kill them. This leads to LOTS of deaths that you didn't see coming, don't know where they came from, and don't know how to avoid in the future. Also, no killcam adds to this.

2) This is either a bug (delayed hit detection), or lag (EA servers are notoriously bad on launch days I hear, especially with BF/Dice games). Basically, there's a whole lot of situations where you take a couple hits, get behind cover, then take more hits and die. It feels like people are connecting with shots that are traveling through walls.

[Xessive]

So first thing is my friend and I got kicked out of 2 games as they were still trying to load. So we changed the game type and it let us in... on opposite teams. This is with the 2 of us in an xbox live party and grouped up using the in-game interface to do matchmaking together. After one match, it put us on the same team.

Then we played for a while and my friend took a break. Then he came back, we tried to matchmake, and his xbox froze. He had to hit the power button to restart it.



Two gameplay problems are still here taht were in the beta:

1) weapon accuracy is way too high. I literally just sniped someone from across an entire king of the hill style map, with a submachine gun. The problem is there's no weapon sway, and no bullet spread. The only thing to keep you from 100% staying on target is the recoil, but there's very little of it. So if you want to snipe someone with an SMG, just do quick bursts, and if they don't move after the first burst, you can kill them. This leads to LOTS of deaths that you didn't see coming, don't know where they came from, and don't know how to avoid in the future. Also, no killcam adds to this.

2) This is either a bug (delayed hit detection), or lag (EA servers are notoriously bad on launch days I hear, especially with BF/Dice games). Basically, there's a whole lot of situations where you take a couple hits, get behind cover, then take more hits and die. It feels like people are connecting with shots that are traveling through walls.

I've come across all those issues in BFBC2 when we first started playing (last March). First there were the connectivity issues, where friends often wind up on opposite teams etc. Then the weapon balancing, and finally the infuriating delayed kills. I see gunfire coming from my left so I run for cover, a few seconds later I'm dead and the killcam shows that I was no where near the shooter's sights when I died. I had the same issue in Modern Warfare 2, so I suspect it's a network issue.

If BFBC2 is any measure of Dice's diligence, then we can expect MoH to get a lot of balance tweaks and fixes over the next few months.

[W7RE]

Oh, and after a couple hours of sector control, I'm pretty sure this mode has 4 maps available to it. Yea, 4 maps.

[W7RE]

Ok, I decided to try out the single player, and it's a completely different game. Different engine, different control options, the movement even feels completely different.

I just flanked a guy on an MG when my buddies were yelling at me to grab a sniper rifle off a dead guy. When I enter the room were the guy with the MG is set up, he's not there, and neither is his gun. There is a stream of bullets coming from thin air in the center of the room, 2 feet from my face. I guess you're not supposed to take that MG out...

[Xessive]

Haha talk about serious adherence to a script! Don't spoil the puppet show!

[W7RE]

I'm thinking that maybe the MG fire was supposed to stop, letting you assume the MG guy was one of the guys you killed, or that he ran off. The level is setup so that you come out of a doorway, grab a sniper rifle that a guy just dropped, and head left to do some sniping. As you exit the doorway, the MG guy's room is right there in front of you. There's no way that MG fire is supposed to still be going... is there? lol

Even if it's just a bug, I'm pretty disappointed because I tried repeatedly to shoot that bastard by unloading around where the muzzle flash was. He never went down, and once I got up to his room I realized why.

[Xessive]

That kinda reminds me of Allied Assault, back before the days of physics in games. The tower snipers were scripted to fall over the edge a specific way, no matter how you killed them they'd pop into position and consequently their death animation would play.

There were a few situations when machinegun nests would continue to fire, kinda like your bug. Then of course there was the infamous Omaha beach.. God I hated that mission because it was a heavily scripted sequence. You weren't playing so much as figuring out where the machineguns were scripted to "not fire," basically debugging in-game.

[W7RE]

So the servers seem to be working ok now, and I just had a few really fun games of multiplayer. You could have gotten this from any of the betas, but it does feel a lot like BFBC2, but with smaller maps. Because of this, it's more action more often, and less sneaking around to flank people and such, and (usually) no vehicles. You can still flank people and all, but it's not the same as running around the entire outside of a map in BC2 to get behind a team and then taking out a whole squad from behind.

There's also more people playing now. I see 35,000 online now (with 16.5k of them in team DM)


Overall after playing a bit of both single player and multiplayer, I'm still happy with the purchase. The multi seems more to me like a BFBC2 with more focus, but will probably be short lived because of it's extremely basic options and unlocks. The SP so far is decent for it's setting, but it really feels unfinished and like something from 10 years ago: the linearity, the invisible walls, the scripted events (which are magnified by bugs that make them obvious).

[Xessive]

Gamespot review is in, 7.5.

Here's what cheating SOB's have been using on BFBC2, Modern Warfare 2 (and soon MoH), and it's drastically sucking the fun out of online multiplayer. It's a hack tool and it is fucking bullshit.

[W7RE]

I just had a great match of combat mission. Usually I hate that mode, but the Airfield map is a lot of fun, whether attacking or defending. I think it's because most of the map is on a flat playfield, where the other combat mission maps are mountainous, usually giving the height advantage to the defenders. This game was pretty lopsided with the other team dominating. Then I started flanking the enemy and hitting them from behind. At the end one of my teammates and I defended the last objective by mowing down the waves of enemies rushing us in the small room. We defended successfully and I finished 27/10. I might have gone higher, but the match ended.

[W7RE]

The glitches and weird design choices in the single player are a gift that just keeps on giving.

I just loaded up my save from when it glitched out and wouldn't let me progress anymore. It took literally 30 seconds for the higher resolution textures to pop in.

Now I'm inside a hangar and in the top level. I notice a puddle on the floor that's got reflection, and I think, "ooh, they DID attempt to make the game look good." Then I realize the reflection isn't the ceiling or the filing cabinet next to it, it's the SKY haha! Oh, and from my angle, I can clearly see the dark lines of the corner of the skybox. Then I think, "wait a minute, a puddle on the upper floor?" I look around and realize that the catwalks outside this little upstairs room are transparent and metal, this floor is rock and gravel. I could be wrong, but I think this is the same outdoor ground texture I saw in another level already, but they're using it INSIDE here.

EDIT: On the other hand, the multiplayer visuals look amazing, even more so if you're playing on PC. I do like to complain about DICE because of their limited maps and allowing snipers to ruin some matches, but damnit, they know how to make a game look and sound amazing.

[MysterD]

1Up -> New MP DLC coming eventually for MOH.

X360 and PS3 owners on Nov 2nd will get 4 new maps and a new game-mode.
If you bought a new copy of MOH - this is FREE.
If you bought a used copy of MOH - DLC will be $9.99 / 800 MS Points.

No word on PC version yet.

[W7RE]

This initial round of DLC will add two new maps, Bagram Hangar and Khyber Caves, plus retooled versions of the pre-existing Kabul City Ruins and Diwagal Camp levels. Clean Sweep, the single new mode included with the DLC, is described as "an elimination mode where players must rely on their own skill and teammates' expertise to prevail as the winning team."

Yup, that's DICE: Referring to 2 new maps as 4 new maps. It wouldn't surprise me if the retooled maps are just adjusted for a different game mode (though they'd have to be much bigger to work for combat mission. Also, a game mode that took 30 seconds to make (start with team deathmatch, and set respawns to 0). I guess we are getting 2 new maps though, which is 2 more than they ever released for BC2.

[MysterD]

I finished Medal of Honor - Single Player Portion. Took about 8 hours to finish, according to XFire - that includes all the times I had to die and reload, too. The SP was pretty good, for what's actually there. Worth the $8 or so I spent on it

I'll have to eventually get around to checking the MP out...