Review: Medal of Honor

Snapshot:

A long time World War II FPS stalwart, Medal of Honor tries to join the movement of present-day, military shooters. With the Call of Duty games selling in record-shattering numbers, one can hardly blame folks for trying to hop on the bandwagon. What you can blame a developer for is a game that is released lacking polish and novelty. Medal of Honor tries so hard to join the pack that, aside from the mind-numbing linear-nature and boneheaded friendly and enemy AI, a player would be hard-pressed to distinguish Medal of Honor from the games that it tries to emulate. 

Medal of Honor is not all bad, however. For some reason, there is a strong dichotomy present in many aspects of the game. It can be both riveting and dull, beautiful and murky, have great sound and terrible writing. This could possibly be explained by the presence of two different developers (Danger Close is responsible for the campaign, while Dice, of Battlefield-fame, crafted the multiplayer experience), except that all of these issues are present in both play modes. 

Medal of Honor is a great example of what could have been.

Review:

Gameplay: If you've played Call of Duty, you've played Medal of Honor. MoH "borrows" the button layout exactly from today's FPS juggernaut which makes jumping in and playing it a walk in the park. Which brings us to the next point: Medal of Honor is a walk in the park. Even on the hardest difficulty, players with some FPS experience will be able to breeze through the campaign in 5-6 hours with hardly a death. At times, you almost want to stand in the open to give the enemy a chance, something the enemy will oblige you with routinely. AI in this game is abysmal. Enemies will take cover occasionally and at this point you start playing whack-a-mole with them when they pop their head out. Making things even easier is the generous auto-aim in the campaign. Friendlies will actually support you with wiping out enemies, but they do so with such efficiency that many times the player is left with nothing to do. This isn't to say that friendly AI is brilliant because there will be times that while the game is funneling you from experience to experience, that the friendlies are tasked with triggering something (ranging from opening a door to planting tracking devices) so that you can advance. Unfortunately, your comrades will not always remember to do so, forcing you to reload the previous checkpoint. Checkpoints are another issue, not always placed at the smartest moments, forcing you to re-watch long set-pieces from time to time. Multiplayer offers more thrills and unique features. Standard modes like Territories and Deathmatch are here, but intricate level design with a good sense of verticality steal the show. Maps are smartly balanced with many option for snipers and more adventurous soldiers alike. Pointstreak rewards are also smartly included, with points for objectives and assists counting towards your streaks along with kills. Once players achieve the necessary points, they are presented with a choice between an offensive and defensive option to help their team as they see fit, rather than being forced to use a pre-determined perk. These rewards can change the tide of a battle and your actions have a distinct feeling of influence in matches. The player will always feel like their actions have an important impact on the outcome of games. 

Plot: Medal of Honor relies heavily on the respect we ought to show veterans of war. It also requires the implied disdain of the Taliban. Taking place in modern day Afghanistan, Medal of Honor focuses on a very specific skirmish. A greater sense of turmoil or urgency is never realized because you never really see your enemies carry out any evils. Set piece moments fill this void, but there isn't a face that connects with the these acts. There are a few genuinely emotional moments throughout the campaign, but most should be seen a mile away by today's FPS connoisseurs.   

Graphics: In motion, the game looks phenomenal, in particular the cutscenes. On closer inspection, players will discover extreme pixelization, blurred textures, and somewhat rampant pop-in issues. This is definitely a game that should be viewed as a whole, rather than a sum of its parts. These issues present a problem with playability in the multiplayer, where faraway enemies could blend into the environment and be almost invisible if not being played on a large television. 

Audio: Guns and ambient noise are believable and powerful, and voice acting keeps pace. Unfortunately the writing does not do the actors justice. Music is also dramatic and strong, underscoring the action during pivotal moments in the campaign. 

The Experience: Medal of Honor has some serious potential. The multiplayer portion of the game is fun and engaging, but feels skeleton-like when compared to its main contemporaries. The campaign can be emotional and dramatic, feeling wholly cohesive, but is completely linear, right down to weapon choice. Medal of Honor feels like it could have been great if it spent just a little bit more time in the cooker, but ultimately settles on being just good enough to warrant a look. 

Review: Batman: Arkham City

Welcome once again friends!


Today, we at Games of All Names are proud to present to you our first game review. The piece that we've chosen to focus on for this review is Rocksteady's high-anticipated sequel to the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City.


Our video game reviews will follow a similar structure to other gaming sites, discussing a game's gameplay, plot, graphics, and audio. However, we will also try to pass the overall experience of the game to the reader. In addition, we will always have a thorough written review for those who would like a more detailed critique, but also preface this longer review with a bite-sized mini review; a snapshot of a game. Finally, as often as we can, we will have Asian correspondent, Trisha Takinawa (not really Ms. Takinawa, but actually from South Korea) give his two cents for a second opinion, and vice versa. As a total departure from the norm, we will not be providing games with overall scores. We will share our objective findings with you and let readers decide the scores, rather than tarnishing a reader's opinion with a totally subjective numeric score. Our "scores" will be expressed more meaningfully through our Snapshots. Enjoy!


Snapshot:


Batman: Arkham City is an homage to the Batman experience. Whether you are a longtime fan of the comics, remember watching Batman, The Animated Series as a youngster, or are a more recent fan of the Caped Crusader based on Nolan's films, this game will enthrall and captivate you. Playing very similarly to the first Arkham game, Arkham City is easy to grasp, but difficult to master. The game is more polished than it's predecessor despite being vastly larger, eclipsing the original in terms of scale, gameplay depth, and unlockables. Fear no more Dark Knight fans, superhero games no longer suck. 


Review:


Gameplay: Few games mix stealth and combat as well as Batman: Arkham City. Combat is fast and stylish and the kicks and punches feel devastating. It's quite easy to believe that the thugs you routinely knock to the floor will not be getting up any time soon. Controlling these action sequences is smooth as butter thanks to the game's Freeflow combat style. Striking is as easy as pointing the left thumbstick in the direction of a bad guy and pressing the strike button. There are times when you can surrounded by as many 25 enemies but the game still manages to pick the targets of your assaults intuitively, rarely choosing the wrong enemy to obliterate. Combat can be as simple as strikes and counters, but this will get you only so far. Thankfully, the game lets you unlock a series of takedowns, stuns, evasive maneuvers, and quickfire gadgets as well to throw into combat. Using all of these moves and gadgets (and more which we won't spoil) are pivotal in the later stages of the game. Only on the rarest occasion will the game miss a target counter or perform a takedown on the wrong enemy, but these such minor concerns that they can easily be overlooked. More often than not, failure will be your fault, and not the game's; the mark of a well-crafted and well-balanced game. 
Predator mode shakes things up by allowing players to take out throngs of enemies stealthily. These sequences often get the heart racing with tense showdowns between the Bat and armed, armored, and gadget-laden baddies arranged in ways that will require your entire arsenal and your wits to overcome. Equipped with Detective Mode, a vision filter that tracks your foes through walls and floors will become your best friend here as you take henchmen down, one-by-one. As their compatriots disappear, your remaining foes will become ever more jumpy only adding to the tension of the sequence. With careful planning and precise execution, it is possible to clear encounters without ever being noticed. These sequences make you feel most like the Dark Knight.
The Riddler also returns, hiding a staggering 440 riddles throughout Arkham City. These range from the hidden trophies and wordplay riddles from the first games, to more devious, puzzle-type riddles that require Batman to perform a number of actions in a certain order to complete them. Locating this seemingly overwhelming number of riddles is made easier by giving the player the chance to interrogate the Riddler's henchman (instead of knocking them out) to reveal the locations of some of his riddles in a certain part of the map. The player also has the ability to scan temporarily inaccessible trophies. Doing so places a question mark on the player's map permanently so they can return, Metroid-style, later in the game when they have the proper gadgetry. 
The best of the combat and predator sequences can be revisited at any time once they have been unlocked in the challenge rooms, dubbed Riddler's Revenge. These challenges offer benchmarks for points in the combat rooms and specific ways of finishing off enemies in the predator rooms. New to the game are Campaign Challenges, that string together sequences of a combination of 3 of the challenge rooms, but also add modifiers that must be used by the end of 3 rooms in order to successfully complete the Campaign. These modifiers range from adding time limits, disabling silent takedowns, and giving thugs access to guns, to more helpful ones such as allowing you to move more quickly or allowing quickfire gadgets to instantly knock out enemies.


Plot: Following the events of Arkham
Compared to the plot of it's predecessor, Arkham City's is convoluted and intricate, with many more characters (villains) making appearances, hoping to thwart the Dark Knights progress. While still interesting and engaging, the plot seems disjointed, lacking the cohesiveness that Arkham Asylum nailed. In this case, less fan service may have led to a more fleshed out story. A lot happens in a very short time. The story feels more like a large story arc from the comics than a single night in the life of Gotham's protector. The game's pacing will keep you wondering what will happen regardless. 


Graphics: You would think that a bleak, quarantined, prison-city would be a bummer to look at, but Rocksteady's trademark, comic book aesthetic makes this decrepit, crime-ridden facility a pleasure to view. The sharp, vibrant colors coupled with the games stellar engine make for a visually stunning experience. Animations are believable, and slow-mo finishing punches are brutal. 


Audio: Voice acting here is top notch. Many of the voices from the Animated Series reprise their roles here including Mark Hamill as the Joker (the standout as usual), Kevin Conroy as Batman, and my personal favorite, Arleen Sorkin as the notoriously Brooklyn, Harley Quinn. The soundtrack is intense and pounding when it needs to be and subdued when appropriate but, unfortunately because it's stellar, can easily be overshadowed by the voice work. Even minute details like the sound of a punch connecting with a jaw, the brutal snap of a leg, the muffled screech of the line-launcher, or the distinct metallic *clink* of a batarang sounds sharp and believable. Hopefully the audio folks at Rocksteady weren't actually breaking the legs and arms of inmates...


The Experience: This one's easy: I'm Batman.

*BREAKING NEWS*

Things don't always go the way one plans. We had said that our first real post would be a review of Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham City, however big news from Europe necessitates another piece be written first.

A credible source has confirmed that the next Xbox and PS4 will both be presented at this year's E3 conference. No details as yet as to the nature of the reveal - be it just an announcement or actual presentation of the hardware - but the mere inclusion of these highly-anticipated machines alongside the expected presentation of the Wii U could make this an E3 to remember.

There are several interesting points to consider with this news. This announcement, coupled with a not-so-distant release date could be both strategically savvy and self-deprecating for Sony. Announcing and releasing the PS4 side-by-side with Microsoft's machine would nullify the head start that the Xbox 360 enjoyed at the beginning of this generation. At the same time though, releasing the PS4 soon could contradict Sony's 10 year plan of console support that included the PS2.

Nintendo has a lot on the line. With it's console just stepping into the HD generation, Nintendo was probably hoping to be up to par as far as hardware is concerned for a bit before the next generation of consoles began to show their faces. No doubt, this was the driving motivation for both Microsoft and Sony to wheel out their new hardware.

Microsoft might have the most interesting part to play in this production. Despite coming off their biggest sales week in November, it is telling that Microsoft is still worried about losing its footing; still not being entirely confident in their place in the gaming market. Set to likely finish third in the overall console sales race for this generation despite its head start, and facing a relative dearth of first party exclusives in the next year apart from 343 Studios experimental foray into the Halo universe, Microsoft has a lot to lose. The new kid on the console block has garnered a lot of support through just one and a half console life cycles but the launch of its next console could prove to be a pivotal juncture in Microsoft's gaming excursion.

However this plays out, we'll be here to keep you up to date.

Special thanks to ign.com.

Cheers!

Inaugural Post!

Welcome friends!


This is the first post of a new blog dedicated to helping gamers on a budget decide which exciting gaming outlets are worth their time and hard-earned money. We will be reviewing everything from video games to sporting events and other related media such as movies and comic books.


Look for our first review (Batman: Arkham City) in the coming days!


Cheers!