Medal of Honor (2010) Review - What happened to the series?

By Sam Coles:

Medal of Honor! Now there is a title that has dropped off the radar over the years as Call of Duty has consumed its soul. Back in 2010 they rebooted the series and set it in the modern day instead of it being in World War II and a lot of people were not impressed with it and I don’t know why. I thought the campaign was tense, dark and gritty with a good multiplayer which was developed by DICE.

The campaign takes place during the war in Afghanistan and you’re trying to find a prisoner who has some vital information about the enemy who then find out the name about the enemy who are the Taliban. They’re described as this secret entity who live in the mountain tops where they use sneaky guerrilla tactics which they do. The game is the standard story with the modern war genre but it’s the relationship between the unit you’re with throughout as you’re a first time recruit in the Tier 1 unit and then you prove yourself as you sacrifice yourself to save everyone.

Gameplay is radically different in the singleplayer and multiplayer as they were made by two different studios. The singleplayer feels slower paced as you’re slogging your way through frost laden mountains to the harsh and dry deserts where the enemy hides behind the dust. There are some massive open battles but you’ll mostly be fixing things behind the scenes as you’re a Tier 1 operator. Multiplayer is extremely fast paced as to be expected with the Battlefield devs the gameplay and controls are very familiar if you’ve played Battlefield Bad Company 2.

Multiplayer is your standard fair where you have capture the flag, domination and team deathmatch it has that DICE feel with loud screams and great sound design. The multiplayer was fun but it did lack content as you could only unlock a handful of guns compared to the battlefield series and I think that DICE were focusing on their Battlefield 3 project more during that period.

The presentation is great with good looking environments especially during the later stages where you’re going through the mountains. The singleplayer campaign is extremely graphic with blood flying everywhere and heads exploding if you head shot enemies with shotguns and high powered sniper rifles. Sound design like the other games in the series is great with distant crackles of gunfire to the loud thump of explosions.  

The only problem I have with this game is that the visual ques are really bad in terms of telling when you’re about the die and you won’t know until your character hits the ground.

Medal of Honor (2010) is a decent action game did it deserve the all the negativity it got? No, but it’s not a ground breaking game however it’s fun and functional. If you haven’t played it give it a go it’s super cheap these days I think I found it for £1 in my local CEX so you have excuse!