Overlooked and Underappreciated
This game is still locked on the 7th Gen Consoles <– (You Can buy A PS3 on Amazon for pretty cheap here)
Before we had the CoD juggernaut spewing title-after-title, we had the one, the only Medal of Honor. Years before Infinity Ward was even an idea, there were Electronic Arts and Dreamworks games. Steven Speilberg was a huge fan of gaming and wanted to bring the epic tale of WW2 to consoles. In 1999, believe it or not, this was considered a fresh and new idea. As time went on, more titles, more battles, you know the drill. The market soon became flooded with WW2 games and the market was way oversaturated.
MOH’s biggest competition decided to change gear, with the revolutionary installment of COD4: Modern Warfare. This changed gaming forever and there was no looking back ( well except for WAW and COD:WW2). MOH took a look at this and figured it would try it’s hand at this new direction and see where it could take the franchise. Surprisingly, they did a pretty solid job.
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What made it stand out?
One huge thing that helped this game standout from the competition was the rather controversial decision of the game’s setting. Unlike COD or Battlefield that used fictional stand-ins or vague look-alikes, MOH actually takes place in Afghanistan. While it’s understandable why this could be divisive, I dare say it was a bold and admirable move on the developer’s end. The locations and environments of this game are stunning. The sad contrast of such a brutal war with the backdrop of a gorgeous mountain view.
The game is very grim and serious, you will not see any nukes going off from a space station here. While the real world setting and tone is a very nice breath of fresh air, the campaign itself is really nothing special. The characters, dialogue, set pieces, are fairly forgettable. I honestly couldn’t tell you a single line or character’s name. The campaign isn’t terrible, just pretty standard.
While the servers are now long gone, the multiplayer was the definite highlight and was a blast. You could level up and unlock new weapons and attachments for your guns, simple and standard stuff like a scope for your rifle or extended magazines. It had 3 class types, Riflemen, Spec-ops, and Sniper, your close, mid, and long range operators. While it’s not as intuitive and is limited compared to the other shooters, it makes players develop a play style and adapt to what they had.
In Conclusion:
Sadly, the only playable aspect of the game is its campaign. I would certainly say a remake or at least a re-release would be in order. This game took risks that not many for the time would. Setting it in a realistic, gritty and grim warzone with fighting actual terrorists was unheard of, and for the most part still isn’t the norm in industry even today. Hopefully someday we can get mature, grounded, and respectful portrayals of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in gaming. Until then, I guess we will have to make due with what we have.
Verdict: 8/10