Medal of Honor Review

Medal of Honor Multiplayer

Medal of Honor’s multiplayer portion is also flawed, with the main complaint being that the striking similarities to the Bad Company 2’s multiplayer component.

And when we say ‘similar’, we actually mean that it’s pretty much identical. There have been a handful of cosmetic tweaks to the interface, plus the obligatory array of new levels and weapons, but if anything it actually feels like Medal of Honor is a cut down version of Bad Company 2. Medal of Honor has sacrificed the Engineer class, for example, trimming things down to just three classes – two types of soldier and a sniper.

Those three classes are all you get for the entire multiplayer game, as Medal of Honor doesn’t allow players to create their own classes at all – merely customise existing ones. You’ll unlock new weapons as you go, plus new accessories and items that you can bolt on to them, but you’re still stuck within the limitations of the class. It’s a bit of a bother for those migrating from other, more expansive multiplayer shooters, but the number of weapons and accessories thankfully keep it from being at the forefront of your mind for long.


Medal of Honor’s multiplayer maps are perhaps the best thing about the online portion of the game, with levels proving impressively vast and well designed. It takes a while to learn the layouts and the mini-map is pretty much useless at stopping you stumbling down blind alleys, but once you know your way about things get a bit easier. One of the key benefits of moving Medal of Honor’s setting is that it brings a change of scenery to online gaming – the brooks, valleys and rocky passes of Afghanistan make a welcome respite from nondescript warehouses and identi-kit bunkers of other games.

Unfortunately, even the best levels aren’t as good as they could be. The openness of the maps allows snipers and campers to really come into their own, for example, and there’s apparently been little attempt to balance that. One of the more hilarious flaws we spotted was that, while wooden fences can be destroyed with gunfire, it’s not always possible to walk through afterwards – an invisible wall remains in place.

The sheer size of some of the levels makes the lack of a kill camera a painful omission too, as there’s apparently no way to see where that last, fatal bullet came from. When you die you get a pop-up window telling you which weapon you were killed with, but knowing you were shot with a sniper rifle doesn’t help much. It’d be far better to be given a hint as to where the enemy was hiding, especially if he’s a camper hiding on the outskirts of the map.


The question of taste raises itself again too. EA has made a big hoo-hah over the name changes in Medal of Honor’s multiplayer, but it’s all rendered incongruous by the fact that the Opposing Forces class selection screens depict the usual Terrorist stereotypes. Personally, we’re of the opinion that the name didn’t need to change anyway, but we can’t help but bristle at the claims of sensitivity when they sit next to evidence of the opposite. It encourages the cynic in us.

Despite all this though, multiplayer is still Medal of Honor’s saving grace – and a much needed one too, because the singleplayer is almost intolerably bland, brief and boring. Even with a littering of faults there's no denying that MOH is often fun and easy to drop in to, that's not the issue. The issue is that Medal of Honor apes its predecessors so blatantly that, because those games are cheaper now, they actually seem better value for money. There's just no real reason to pick up Medal of Honor over any of the competitors.

As it stands, Medal of Honor is possibly the blandest and most forgettable game we’ve played this year – a result of it arriving too late to an over saturated genre and bringing nothing new to the table.

Score Guide