Updated Preview: Medal of Honour
So you’ve heard me give my opinion about the MoH beta, well I was lucky enough to attend a top-secret preview event featuring a very much more advanced code base for the game!
For obvious Tier 1 type reasons, there is much I’m not allowed to tell you. Not that that is going to stop me! 
The evening kicked off with a rendezvous in the dilapidated basement of an anonymous central London location. After descending the stairs into the dark, cavernous, empty andrun-down underground bunker and huddling round some rusty oil barrels for a few minutes, we were ushered into long, bare room, supported by interspersed girders, and gathered round a particularly large flat screen featuring the awesome, all be it blurred, image of … wait for it… a large goat.
We did not have to wait long for things to get started, as the musty air permeated our outwardly calm exteriors. Before we could grow agitated Peter O’Reilly, of EA’s sports division (Yes it’s official, war is now a sport…), appeared out of the gloom before us and proceeded to explain what we would see. We immediately leapt into the first part of a “Sledgehammer vs Scalpel” demo, with Peter ably leading his 3 AI squad mates (the Scalpel) up a cold and winding mountain pass, dealing with any foes they encountered swiftly, brutally and satisfyingly, whilst being treated to excellent graphics, sound and atmosphere, with a few excellent set pieces along the way to lend weight to the immersion.
The franchise's reboot is visually stunning
Having literally raced up the mountain over around 20 minutes he immediately transitioned to the Sledgehammer part of the demo and we found ourselves in an Apache gunship for the next 25 minutes as he moved from one strategic target to another, dispatching each with equally satisfying and impressive rocket and gun attacks. “Shock and Awe” indeed! One of the most impressive aspects of this part of the demo was the superb quality of both foreground textures and lighting effects, both pulled off beautifully by the engine without the merest hint of a flicker or judder.
How could they top that demo, as we waited eagerly to gain access to the 16 PS3s which awaited in an adjacent room? Well, we didn’t have to wait long as Peter explained that we were party to an exciting franchise announcement. Without further ado he turned to a far corner of the room from whence came striding the instantly recognisable figure of none other than… Chris Ryan! Yes, not some lightweight pop star or Z-list celebrity, no, only the best was good enough for MoH, and we got it!
After the initial, very respectful, murmur of excitement died down most expected a few words from the great man about how the game was great and very accurate but two things very quickly made us all sit up and pay attention.
First Mr Ryan (as as shall call him, for my own safety! 
) said that having been walked through the game by developers not only did he believe it was very clear that Tier 1 operators had been consulted during development, but that at a number of points he was reminded… wait for it… of exactly how it felt to be in the field with his SAS squad mates! Crikey. An audible shiver spread through the room. What higher endorsement could a military FPS ask for!
Medal of Honour will undoubtedly one of the more authentic FPS experiences
No sooner had we drawn collective breath again he hit us with the second salvo of news. He Chris Ryan, ex-SAS and global best seller has written a book, about the characters in the single player MoH entitled, you guessed it, “Medal of Honor”! Wow, we all thought, this could be the end of sub-par video game novel tie ins!
Before we could recover the ability to speak Mr Ryan was gone, back into the darkness from whence he had emerged, and none in the room were brave enough to follow him through it.
So it was left to us to dive into the experience Mr Ryan had praised so highly, and dive we did. With both the single player Apache mission “Gunfighters” and the mountain top based multi-player map “Shahikot” available, we all got stuck in immediately.
I managed to get my hands on an Apache helicopter based singleplayer mission as well as some multiplayer
Having played for around one and a half hours, I am very happy to report that everything is very much shipshape and ready for duty. All the major concerns I had with the beta are resolved and many new improvements were evident.
1. Grenades are back, in a big way, no more ignoring them and that’s for sure!
2. Hit detections are considerably more natural and feel spot-on in terms of both accuracy and delay.
3. Snipers are more playable, but still certainly not overpowered.
4. The area defence / attack game mode played more fluidly and viscerally, with spawns being adjusted well as the game progressed.
5. Spawn camping appeared greatly reduced.
6. Graphics were vastly improved as were atmospheric effects (Snow blowing across the mountain before you and sun blinding you)
7. Sound was improved considerably with some excellent, authentic sounding radio chatter. A real winner.
8. Sniping for non-sniping classes is now much harder. Weapon accuracy seems to scale logically with distance.
So, improvements across the board, and no steps back that I could see. All signs are that this is shaping up to be an excellent single and multi-player experience for all MFPS fans!
Medal of Honour's latest reboot looks set to "blow" gamers away
- Richard Burley
