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MoH 2010 PC Beta Impressions

Saturday Jul 17,2010 03:32 AM
By Keen
In Uncategorized

Medal of Honor “2010″ Beta became available for Battlefield Bad Company 2 users today. You can download the client right from steam under your game library and have a key provided to you right as you log in. I’ve been in the beta for a few weeks and I’ve tried the maps and different kits enough that I feel like I can talk about the game authoritatively.

Warning: There will be a lot of comparisons drawn between Modern Warfare 2 and Bad Company 2, especially since DICE was behind the latter as well.

MoH’s biggest criticism so far has been that it is a mix between Modern Warfare 2 and Bad Company 2. Okay… so it’s a mix between two amazing games? I can’t understand that criticism so much as the second complaint which is that it really isn’t anything new. Well, that’s true. MoH has yet to show anything new that isn’t available in other shooting games out there. It has the ranking up component, the objective based maps, the kits, all the guns, bells and whistles, etc.

Graphically the game looks great. It doesn’t have the destructibe environments of BFBC2 but to be honest I’ve grown out of those already and it doesn’t make MoH any worse for not having them in my opinion. There are some movable objectives and semi-destructible objects on the maps though. The maps are all beautiful and have great atmosphere. There’s attention to detail and some respectable cover designs and places to set up as a sniper or create ambushes. On the Kabul City map I got a real CoD4 vibe. Performance is exceptional for what is offered graphically. It runs much better than BFBC2 and looks better and runs just about the same as MW2 for me with many more graphical options.

It’s clearly a port though. The prompt to use a killstreak is a D-Pad and the options menu has a setting to adjust your TV. Even though it’s a port, it has dedicated servers AND matchmaking as well as a functioning friends list. The server browser worked near perfect for me and I was even able to sort by the region where the server is hosted to find the best pings for me. There are obvious bugs in this version ranging from the “join game” button not always being responsive and some graphical hiccups during gameplay like flickering textures. I’ve noticed that sometimes servers will seem to disappear from the browser when you scroll down, but scrolling back up makes them appear again.

The actual gameplay itself is definitely a blend between BFBC2 and MW2. In MW2 it’s more about you as an individual and how you are doing whereas in BFBC2 it’s more of a team game and you could have done terribly where your K/D ratio is concerned yet still have contributed to the team. There are two game types at least in MoH that offer both of these styles. The guns feel odd though. There is very little recoil on some of them which is both a wonderful feeling and a little dumbed down at the same time. BFBC2 has terrible hit detection in my opinion yet MoH seems to have generous hit box sizes that feel much more like the older Battlefield games. I like them. Definitely another indication of it being a console port though.

I don’t quite understand the harsh criticism against the game itself. I think it shows a great deal of promise. DICE (who does MoH’s multiplayer) makes great games and when this one is polished up over the next few months and we get to see the entire game and not just a tip of the console ported iceberg it could be really an outstanding addition to this year’s shooters. It may not bring a whole lot, if anything, new but if that was a prerequisite for something to be “good” or worth playing then we wouldn’t have many good games out there at all. I like it enough to want to play more when there are more maps and polish (to remove console port crap) added. On the consoles, this is probably going to blow BFBC2 and MW2 away.

Below is a quick video of some gameplay footage that I took. The settings are nearly maxed (shadows on medium and HBAO lightning is off) and the game runs at a constant 40fps for me. I have a Nvidia 8800gt 512 and 4gigs of ram on Vista 32bit with a 2.3ghz quad core.