Medal of Honor (1999) was released for Playstation as a pioneering FPS with an objective based victory system, which means that completing objectives like destroying artillery, or killing an officer, will lead to mission victory. Like most Medal of Honors, the original took place in WW2. Unlike Call of Duty (not yet developed), Medal of Honor usually has the player all alone in a mission, and focuses on "Super Soldier" abilities. Medal of Honor also featured a two player split screen deathmatch game mode, that allowed two players, to fight against each other on maps. New characters could be unlocked as well as new maps. Medal of Honor was a gaming revolution, and was extremely successful.
Medal of Honor Underground (2000) was the prequel to Medal of Honor. The player takes control of a French resistance soldier that was featured in Medal of Honor. The gameplay is much the same, and the Super Soldier attitude of a one man army game is maintained. The split screen returns from Medal of Honor, and a bonus mission is unlocked at the end of the game. Underground was well received, but not as well as Medal of Honor had been.
Medal of Honor Frontline (2002) was the next console title in the series, and returned almost all of the features of Medal of Honor, but had dramatically improved graphics. The game is set in WW2, and the player starts out as an infantryman on D-Day. The first mission is team based, but after that, the familiar one man army gameplay picks up, as the player is sent on special missions all over Europe. Split screen returned once again, but the gunplay remained mostly the same as it always had. Frontline got good reviews, but was not as well received as either Medal of Honor, or Underground.
The next console title was Medal of Honor, Rising Sun (2003). This was the first game to take place in the Pacific theater of WW2. The graphics were improved from Frontline, but the gameplay was much the same. The campaign took the player from Pearl Harbor to Burma, and involved more team based gameplay than any Medal of Honor (MoH) before it. However, some espionage black ops mission still took place. This was the first title to have a strong story line, that involved multiple characters, that the player could connect with, and some family ties. Rising Sun also improved upon the split screen, allowing up to four players, and four more AI controlled soldiers in free for all (ffa) or team deathmatch gameplay. The game also added an online multiplayer, that was similar to the split screen as far as gameplay is concerned. Rising Sun got mixed reviews from critics, but personally I believe that it was the best game in the series at that point.
Following Rising Sun was Medal of Honor European Assault (2005).
This still is my favorite MoH, despite the outdated graphics. These same graphics however, were a slight improvement upon Rising Sun, state of the art at the time. European Assault (Ea) overhauled the MoH series with a slew of new features. The first was the introduction of iron sights, like Call of Duty, Ea had the actual sights of the gun used for aiming, instead of just zooming in with on-screen crosshairs. A new HUD was installed, which alerted the player to primary, and secondary targets, & squad mates. The new HUD was an obvious improvement, but not as good, as the introduction of a more team focused gameplay. Every mission in Ea except the final mission was team based. Not only was the player now surrounded by allies, but three AI controlled soldiers were placed under command of the player, every level. These soldiers could follow movement, and attack orders, and be healed by the player. They were also less susceptible to death than other allies, but still killable. The player lost points for every dead squad ally under his command, and lost vital assistance during the mission itself. This addition made the super soldier feeling of previous games almost undetectable, but it sprang back with the next feature; adrenaline mode. Points for adrenaline mode were accumulated with kills, and when a player entered adrenaline mode, they were made invincible for a short period of time. The last new feature was the ability to play with different factions. While the player maintained one identity (American Sgt. Holt), the allies the player fought with ranged from British Commandos in France, to Desert Rats in North Africa, to Soviet partisans, and infantry in Stalingrad, to Americans during the battle of the Bulge. The multiplayer was maintained from Rising Sun, and added no new features. Ea was very well received, and is still worth the money to buy today (if you have a gamecube/wii, ps2, or xbox).Medal of Honor Vanguard (2007), had large console shoes to fill, inherited from European Assault. The game takes place in WW2, and the player controls a U.S paratrooper during multiple airborne mission across Europe. The game added a couple of new features, including weapon customization, and starting every level via parachute drop onto the battlefield. The biggest change was the completely team based gameplay. Vanguard finished the job that Rising Sun, and European Assault had started, in completely removing the one man army gameplay from campaigns. The squad mechanic of Ea was removed, but the intelligence, and resilience of all of the players allies has been improved to compensate. The online multiplayer was expanded upon to incorporate more players into a game. Vanguard also had the best graphics to date in the series, but despite all that had been done, was given poor scores by critics. I am of the belief that Vanguard is quite a god game, and deserves a solid score.
Medal of Honor Airborne (2007) was the first major blunder in the Medal of Honor series. The gameplay was almost identical to Vanguard, and the story followed the same lines. The only differences between Airborne, and Vanguard were improved graphics in Airborne, and expanded multiplayer in Airborne. The fact that the games were so similar, and released in the same year, did nothing to improve my opinion of the game.
Medal of Honor Heroes 2 (2007), was the next console game in the series, and the last to be based during WW2. The third MoH to be released in 07, Heroes 2 featured a short campaign based around a U.S Army Ranger, and his missions in france, with his Squad mates. Heroes 2 had the best graphics of any of the MoH's to be released that year, and the biggest multiplayer, featuring up to 32 players. Heroes 2 received poor reviews, but that can be attributed mostly to the fact the Medal of Honor was overdone in 2007. An overall good game.
Medal of Honor (2010) was the first MoH game to be produced after the brief hiatus. It was also the first MoH to not take place during WW2, but in modern Afghanistan, and to earn an M rating from the ESRB. Medal of Honor had the first campaign that spread the player out between four characters. Graphics in MoH were great in both campaign, and the new modern (like that of CoD or Battlefield) multiplayer. The game was well received, and offered, a few new gameplay features, including, a new healing system, based on time, not medic packs. MoH graded well with critics, and offered variety to the Call of Duty, and Battlefield dominated FPS world again. The one knock I have for MoH is the flurry of map packs for multiplayer that could be bought online, a regrettable development in all big FPS.
Medal of Honor Warfighter (2012) was the second blunder of the Medal of Honor series. The game looked promising from afar, but when it came down to the line, Warfighter's story line was atrofied, the gameplay glitchy, and the graphics... par. Warfighter puts the player in the shoes of tier 1 operators from America once again, but this time the narrative is shallow and painfully easy, compared to the previous entry. However the multiplayer showed great promise,with an impressive lineup of playable operatives from the Navy SEALS, Special Operations Division, Australian Special Air Service Regiment, Canadian Joint Task Force 2, German Kommando Spezialkräfte, Norwegian Forsvarets Spesialkommando, Polish GROM, Russian Alpha Group, South Korean SEALS, Swedish Särskilda Operationsgruppen, and British Special Air Service. This impressive lineup brought variety to the gameplay, but that couldn't save the multiplayer from the plagues of underdevolped maps and boring game modes.
Overall, the Medal of Honor series has a history of good games, established improvement with each title, multiplayer growth, and minor flaws overall. Extremely similar to the early Call of Duty games (see Call of Duty: Good post) it receives the same score from me:
8.5
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed, and here's the link to info on the frostbite 2 engine.
No comments:
Post a Comment