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dkirschner's Medal of Honor (2010) (PC)

[June 9, 2016 03:44:58 PM]

This was short and sweet. It feels almost exactly like Battlefield 3, except in Afghanistan instead of Eastern Europe* (*I have no idea what terrorist stronghold BF3 was actually in; they all meld together). You play as several different soldiers fighting the Taliban (usually referred to simply as "the bad guys"). I've read about this and the devs came under a lot of pressure not to use the name "Taliban" in multiplayer. It seems that carried over somewhat to single player as the use of "bad guys" is forced and cheesy. "More bad guys over there!" "Watch out, this place is crawling with bad guys!" Yes friends, there are good guys and bad guys. The world is a black and white place. I'd read that this ideological pressure was from a place where people were disgusted that the devs would put people in the role of the Taliban. "The Taliban killed Americans!" Yes, well people the world over are role-playing as Americans in all these war games, and Americans have ruined a lot more lives. I'm sure this game is banned in Afghanistan though. I don't even know if people play video games in Afghanistan...maybe rich people.

Although I agree that soldiers often do heroic deeds, the extent to which these games portray the whole institution of military and war as heroic is disturbing. And playing Medal of Honor, I'm not not sure exactly what the soldiers are protecting us from, or even Afghan people. I hope that's a subtle point of the game, that war is meaningless. The events of the game are set off by the Taliban killing a contact that your team was going to meet up with for some reason (intel probably). And that's it. That's all they did. They killed someone who they were understandably pissed at for providing information to the enemy. They weren't killing civilians. They were just attacking the American military, who attacked them first anyway. I guess you have to buy into the context of 9/11 and Middle Eastern/Muslim terrorism (religion is never mentioned in the game, as if it plays no part in terrorism) to understand the justification for the war. None of that context is given in the game. I wonder what it would be like for someone born 20 years from now to play this game, after 9/11 is a generation behind us. I think they would find the conflict, as I thought, meaningless.

Anyway, the gameplay is incredibly simple. You point and shoot for 4.5 hours. The whole thing is on rails. Control is constantly taken away from you. Squad mates tell you exactly what to do all the time and objectives, key enemies, etc. are always highlighted on your HUD. I always wish that these military FPS games would unfold more like a sci-fi one, where you get tougher and tougher enemies, maybe get some upgrades or abilities. Not a lot of RPG mind you, just a little bit! Because you just shoot the same soldiers the entire time and there's nothing different about it except whether you're in a city or on a mountain. And can we please stop with the computer targeting from the plan segments?! Those are so boring! Let me actually fly the helicopter and shoot things, or let me actually aim the turret. Don't just put a screen in front of me with a target and ask me to "press F to fire missile."

You're constantly in a squad in Medal of Honor. Although the individual soldiers have no identities of their own, I think the squads as a whole do. There were several situations where I felt a little emotional about what was going on in the game because the soldiers are always chattering, a constant presence, and you really do have a lot of close (scripted) calls. A couple times I was convinced that characters were going to die and the way the game builds up these moments is pretty intense. There is one firefight at a landing zone where you get ambushed that had me nearly in despair for the thought of all this being for naught if the Taliban killed the four of us. But of course, the military is heroic, and heroes don't die (unless it's doing something heroic), and you do get saved in the nick of time (which is heroic, and said savior could have died then and it would have been okay).

Also, your character is jumping impaired. Other characters can jump up and climb walls, but you always need a "buddy lift." It's stupid.

So all in all, this was pretty fun, if bland. I have no idea why in the world it was in my Steam account. Humble Bundle? 20 best shooters of all time list? Random gift from friend? Well it's there, I didn't spend long with Counter-Strike this week, and XCOM left me with a hankering for more military combat; therefore, Medal of Honor. There are much better shooters out there though, but if you want a few hours of dumb duck shooting, go for it.