Medal of Honor(2010) Review

I remember playing MoH 2010 back around the time it came out, and I remember liking the multiplayer, well about as close to me liking modern military shooter multiplayers that I can get, the campaign however while I can't recall outright disliking, I couldn't recall remembering for the life of me outside of the fact that it had Catalyst by Linkin Park play in the end credits. I did play MoH Warfighter a few years ago and I have played a bunch of the series since then and after playing this game's campaign, I do think it's better than Warfighter but it isn't saying much, since the latter game was such a low standard to begin with, it's almost amazing how Warfighter can be way worse than this game since what's here in MoH 2010 isn't very good. It goes to really show that MoH as a concept should've just stopped after Rising Sun.

The best way of describing MoH 2010's campaign and I really find this meme super obnoxious but it's basically a, "we got a Call of Duty at home". Everything about MoH 2010 is basically just a Call of Duty Modern Warfare campaign. You got the middle eastern setting, the two weapon limit all though a pistol is own slot in this game even though I never needed to use it, the action movie like story, the scripted set pieces, people yelling you on the radio, on rails turret sections, sending in aircraft strikes, dozens upon dozens of interchangeable hitscan weapons, enemies who can be beaten by ADS and then shooting, get hit and wait for health to regen and how the game is super linear where you can only go one way and any deviations from that is met with invisible walls or game overs. If you played a modern CoD campaign, you already played this.

There's worse design too since you can just request teammates to give you ammo meaning you rarely if ever have to change weapons and the scripting overall isn't very well handled, not as bad as Warfighter but still bad. I'd even argue this game at times can be more scripted than your average CoD campaign, where in those games you will have occasional missions where you are given more freedom on what to do, MoH 2010 is purely scripted all the way through. It's rather funny how CoD WW2 had more of a MoH homage with a stealth section later in that game than anything in MoH 2010.

An example of how much the design frustrated me in MoH 2010 is the 3rd mission, "Running With Wolves". It's essentially a stealth section a seemingly open map but you still got to follow someone and follow the script to the letter or else you won't get anywhere, in a a random CoD game mission and even an ending section of Battlefield 1, this would be an open map with multiple outposts to infiltrate as you put "labels" on the trucks but in MoH 2010, it's either do it the game's way or just keep dying over and over, you even get a vehicle but these are just yet again, follow an npc, even Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy didn't have their dull vehicle sections be glorified cutscenes despite how dull they were in those games.

I also disliked how headshots were basically just a marker instead of just providing a satisfying sound for shooting an enemy in the head like in Resistance 2 and 3 or Killzone 2 and 3. It doesn't make the headshot as rewarding as it could be. Killzone's sound design for weapons also feels a step above games like CoD and the reboot MoH games, since the former sounds very loud and punchy where in the latter, it's just typical video game sounding hitscan guns. 

The easy mode and health system isn't very good either. On easy you can take only 3 shots and then you die, and the feedback for getting hit makes a really grating smack sound and a red scratch effect making it hard to see where directly you got hit from. This once again isn't even handled as well as CoD. It can make deaths feel super random too.

There is admittedly some innovation in MoH 2010 for example, how the MoH games after a certain point would have a leaning mechanic into the games, and it's surprising, this is still prevelant in MoH 2010, except now, you have the ability to go prone like in CoD and there isn't many breaching sequences that aren't scripted meaning that I would forget to use this mechanic. This certainly isn't on SOCOM 3's leaning mechanic since in that game there would lots of walls and corners to ambush enemies in, MoH 2010, every enemy knows where you are the moment a shootout starts. 

Other issues is that for some reason there is no subtitles option I can even find since it's hard for me to hear cutscene dialogue when I'm on PS3 but surprisingly there isn't any.

I will give the game some praise, while the scripted nature and level design isn't "good" by any means, it at least isn't as obnoxiously designed as Warfighter would be where you have that infamous moment with the sniper or having to get into a chase with an npc where enemies are shooting at you from all sides and at every angle. The game checkpoints mostly well for the most part and it's prettys short so it's a game I don't think is good, it's at least a mediocre game I can get to the end of.

The part where you have to hide in a hutt where it's slowly getting picked apart and destroyed untill reinforcements arrive is pretty decently handled since there is some geniune tension with cover being destroyed slowly.

Overall, I get why I thought MoH 2010 was a forgettable game. It's basically a CoD knockoff through and through and nothing MoH 2010 is done better than anything you'd find in a CoD game. If you want to play through a mediocre game to have a better feel for geniunely good games, this game isn't the worst you can go with.