Medal of Honor Allied Assault was a great breakthrough, sadly, this is a big step backwards. Talibans should sue EA.
Note that I used mutations, because that's what this games are: a weird hybrid born to be raised in a console, but sadly it ends also in a PC. Sometimes I wish consoles and computers become off the sudden completely incompatible, so that the PC gaming community is safe from this "creature" games.
With that off my system, I'll review this thing.
Aside from history, Medal of Honor was born in a World War II environment and it kept there in the following games, PC and Playstation. They were doing well, "Allied Assault" was a great game on PC, it even had a great acceptance in multiplayer mode. Now they tried to "jump the gap" and tag along the new philosophy in games: "get in the skin of the player".
Sadly for the Electronic Arts and "Danger" Close people, sometimes to honor realism and truth, you can't build this kind of games on a console platform. I think that anyone that ain't American plays this game and somehow gets the feeling that USA is fighting against the Nazis. This war has nothing exiting, nothing delightful, nothing to be proud of, so I wonder, what's the point of this game? Exalting power abusing nations that enter a poor country and try to conquer it on a lame excuse? I guess that's why we don't see this kind of games in the Russian side, they just accept what they did in Afghanistan and leave it there.
America however, as they always do, takes things a little further. They have to be heroes, they need that feeling in their veins that weirdly speaks to them saying: "you are making the difference, keep up the good work soldier". I wonder, are the rest of the armies of the world just dumb? Are they capable of destroying everything in their paths? The answer came in the form of 4 defeats in a row: no. Lets make our numbers: Vietnam, Gulf War I, Afghanistan, Gulf War II. I know some of you will say that they won Gulf War I and the rest of the wars, I just call you to reconsider and truly think, read history, don't fall in this cheap version of a complex war.
I understand that this is a game, but I'm so tired of reading about realism in this game. At least 60% of the reviews talk about "realism, feeling, authentic". I also read about "great graphics"… that's quite a rip off, truly, to those that think that the game has a great graphics engine, what kind of PC do you have? After playing Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead, after delighting my eyes with the perfect Metro 2033, or the great ambient creating games S.T.A.L.K.E.R., do you really think that this console mutant can be to the height of a high end PC?
Graphics are just lame, washed up textures, scenery looks like the ones we used in Medal of Honor in Playstation one, aside some sunlight effects, the rest looks pretty regular, simple and consoly (low end graphics). Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the people that enjoy playing their consoles, I really think that if they are happy with that, its great, but let the games of a console and their crappy graphics stay there, that's where they belong. Actually it's a pretty big insult to a PC player having to pay to play this game. I know that they placed their best in doing this game for XBOX 360 and PS3 , but selling it also on PC is way beyond marketing, it's a rip-off.
Now to the war part of the game (my favorite part of games): As a military journalist, I think I'm more than qualified to tell you this: this game is nothing like a war.
To begin with, soldiers get hurt, bleed and die. I mean, all the soldiers, not just our enemies. In war a person gets to feel the greatest loses in life, actually one can say that war strips people of whatever they may got to get there with them. People loose friends, faith, will, strength, hope, fate. Desiderius Erasmus, the wise Erasmus said: "War is delightful to those who have not experienced it". And let me say more, "War is always harder to those gathering funds", maybe Medal of Honor is another "recruit me" games. That's the feeling I got left. Immortal Rangers, Seals, if you get to see 4 or 5 US soldiers dead its luck.
Now talking specifics, weapons don't shoot like that, actually there's a lot more involved in ballistics that isn't included in the game. I don't really know what did the "military sources" charged EA for, I have two theories, one: they said what they should do with the game, it was to complex to do in a console therefore EA ignored their advice. Two: They wanted to let us know that American weapons are best and forced us to shoot a perfect M4 or M82A1, with human satchels soldiers carrying out tons of ammo for us, but when we ask for 7,62 x 39mm, they answer: "sorry brother I have another weapon". Except the shotgun, the rest of the weapons sound like recorded in my tapecorder.
About physics, I have to reconsider what happens in the real world, because if this is realism… omg. Some stones fly like in a cheap war movie, like if they were made out of goose feathers. Talking about flying, did anyone play the AH-64 mision? Wow! I'm also a pilot, and after this I'll have to read again my aerodynamics books. By the way, didn't the military experts told EA that a "Hydra" pod shoots straight only? Somehow the "Apache" now has a device that "twists" the pods to shoot in angles away from the nose of the chopper. Knowing a little history I had a great time playing that mission: The Taliban was supplied by the CIA of the FIM-92 "Stinger" missile, for those of you that don't know it, it's a surface to air man portable missile, capable of engaging targets in a 3 miles radius and about 7000 feet altitude. If only the MOH talibans had one of those…
I would keep writing about this game, but well, it would be wasting more of my time, here are some final thoughts.
Graphics: 2 (Awful) // Logic: Note to Electronic Arts: Its 2010, now PCs can reach high end graphics. If you program a console game, don't try to sell it on PC also, doesn't work.
Gameplay: 2 (Awful) // Logic: Controls are transformed from a gamepad to mouse and keyboard. AI is simply dumb, typical of console FPS. No freedom of movement, characters are very limited soldiers and humans. Boring story, boring multiplayer, lame representation of war, no realism at all.
Story: 2 (Awful) // Logic: Just a 2 for effort, they tried hard. Nobody survives fire like US rangers and marines HUA!
Feeling: 1 (Absent) // Logic: Were did it go that feeling of danger, courage under fire? Even in an ambush I feel that the Taliban can't do anything to me.
Overall: 2 (Awful) // Logic: Read above.