For those of you who have been hiding under a rock for the last couple of days, I am glad to inform you that the Medal of Honor Beta is live for PC and Playstation 3, as long as you're a VIP from Bad Company 2, or pre-ordered the series reboot set for launch at the end of 2010.

I've clocked in about 4 hours gameplay now and whilst that might not seem like a lot by conventional standards, keep in mind there's only two maps, and two gametypes. This editorial isn't a whinge, moan and rant post, I am merely expressing what I believe is right, and what is wrong with this Beta, and whether it's worth going to the trouble of even downloading. It is also worth noting that this game isn't Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and people should remember then when playing this game.

What It Does Right

Sound Effects:

Something synonymous with the Battlefield series and Medal of Honor series is the always stellar environmental sound effects. Whether it is friendly soldiers yelling out that they're throwing a fragmentation grenade full of death, or whether they need ammo, you're always informed. In Medal of Honor this has been taken one step forward, and now there is contextual conversations that are triggered when you encounter too many enemies, or even get killed too much.

Weapons have great sounding effects whether it be the initial firing sound or empty shells hitting the cold hard ground. Something I love even after hearing it so much is the whip of bullets rushing past your head and thud into walls behind you.

Gametypes & Maps:

From the samples included in the Beta Medal of Honor is focusing on small scale infantry based battles as opposed to large open maps that DICE, the Multiplayer developers and developers of the Bad Company series, as used to working on.

Included in the Beta was the maps Helmund Valley and Kabul City Ruins played on Combat Mission and Team Assault respectively. Combat Mission is a more story driven multiplayer game mode that tasks you with capturing five objectives which each relate to a larger goal, in this case, capturing a Taliban high priority target. Team Assault is a Team Deathmatch game mode set in a smaller environment featuring street level and indoors combat.

Both play to their advantages with Helmund Valley allowing the Taliban fighters to sneak around in tight rocky areas whilst the US Rangers are in a more open flat creek bed. They do have to their advantage though an Armoured Bradley. Both Gametypes are fun, and really give a good idea of how the game will play out.

Weapons & Attachments:

A running gripe that seems to be trending in most First-person shooters now is the whole system of "Start off with Iron Sights then get the best attachment and dominate. Medal of Honor rectifies this by still starting you off with Iron Sights but offering weapon attachments as your Global Rank and EXP goes up instead of a standalone weapon experience. The attachments also offer no damage modifiers (That I've noticed yet) which helps balance the game out. The guns seem great and have their pros and cons, my favorite being the Spec-Ops Assault Rifle.

Dedicated Servers for PC:

Activision and Infinity Wards downfall on Modern Warfare 2 was the removal of PC Dedicated Servers. This caused a furore amongst the PC community and as such the game wasn't able to be modded, or feature any of the great features that the community had created during the lifespan of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2.

Dedicated Servers are back for PC in the Medal of Honor Beta and they work great. Both gametypes have a max player limit of 24 however I would imagine once the full game comes out that will be admin controlled. Hopefully there is extensive modification abilities for the full game i.e.; weapon restrictions/vehicle removal etc.

What It Does Wrong

Dedicated Server Browser:

The addition of Dedicated Servers is great, but in order to fully utilise them I need to be able to view them all. Way too many times I would be browsing the list, looking for a low latency server, only for the Beta client to disconnect which in turn would force me to re-download the whole entire list and then it would happen again.

The list of servers is extremely bloated, and I think a nice addition would be a listing system similar to CoD4 in that you can sift through the matches with various tabs, so one for Team Assault and one for Combat Mission. Continental listing would also be great, but is highly unlikely.

Is Perhaps Subconsciously Racist?:

""Racism is the belief that race is a primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."

When compared, the US Rangers and Taliban soldiers in Medal of Honor have the same three classes. An Assault class, Spec-Ops and Sniper class. The Assault class for the US Rangers has an M16 whilst the Taliban have an AK-47. The M16 fires a 5.56mm round, the AK-47 a 7.62mm round. In a real world firefight the AK-47 has more punch and stopping power, yet for some reason in the game the M16 is amazingly stronger, and more prone to causing death to the person on the point-to-kill end.

The same is true to both sides Sniper rifles, with the US one being stronger yet firing a weaker round compared to its enemy counterpart. I understand this is a game, but something like that is noticeable and unexplainably stupid. I've personally fired both weapons, as well as Bolt action rifles with more power and kick than a 5.56/7.62 round and it doesn't add up.

Gameplay is too Chaotic:

When playing the Beta it's not unseen to literally spawn and die in the crossfire of one of your comrades fighting an enemy. Say you're lucky enough to make it out of your spawn area, you're more than likely to actually get killed from someone you can't even see, and not because of the map design, but because of the sheer amount of debris in the air.

Team Assault, even at best of times is difficult to enjoy because of the fact there's generally 12 people within 15-20 meters of your spawn point having a literal turkey shoot as everyone tries to scramble out of the spawn point to defend the objectives. This is especially apparent at the last objective for the Taliban as you get locked into one tiny space.

New Offense or Defense Rewards:

Completely different to Modern Warfare 2, when you get enough kills in a row you have access to two default kill streaks, either a Mortar Strike, UAV or Ammo, that I have seen so far. It then comes down to either helping yourself or helping the team. This shoots itself in the foot though, by offering more experience for being Rambo then helping the progress of your team.

That's not dissimilar to most games now that give bigger and better rewards for operating as a lone wolf as opposed to acting as a team player, which is completely contradictory to the whole idea of this game, that being the team work of the US Rangers in their missions.

The Wrap

I hope people have enjoyed reading this and have kept an open mind in doing so, because I do and have enjoyed the Beta, and will get the full retail release when it comes out. That being said, the game can do with improvement and hopefully when it goes live in two days, DICE will get onto it and fix a bunch of problems that I have mentioned, as well as other problems that thousands of players will be likely to find.

love the game, nuff said.

Monday

unfortunately the game wont last

Is Perhaps Subconsciously Racist?:

""Racism is the belief that race is a primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."

When compared, the US Rangers and Taliban soldiers in Medal of Honor have the same three classes. An Assault class, Spec-Ops and Sniper class. The Assault class for the US Rangers has an M16 whilst the Taliban have an AK-47. The M16 fires a 5.56mm round, the AK-47 a 7.62mm round. In a real world firefight the AK-47 has more punch and stopping power, yet for some reason in the game the M16 is amazingly stronger, and more prone to causing death to the person on the point-to-kill end.

The same is true to both sides Sniper rifles, with the US one being stronger yet firing a weaker round compared to its enemy counterpart. I understand this is a game, but something like that is noticeable and unexplainably stupid. I've personally fired both weapons, as well as Bolt action rifles with more power and kick than a 5.56/7.62 round and it doesn't add up.