Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond - Review
When it was announced that a new Medal of Honor game was coming, I was very sceptical, especially given how the last two were received. Then it was announced that Respawn Entertainment were creating it, so my scepticism lowered a fair amount, but then it was revealed to be a VR only title, so it was back up. The question was, how could a series, with such a long and moderately successful history, in the hands of a venerable studio survive after a lengthy absence and a complete perspective shift?
Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is very much a traditional entry in the series, at least as far as story goes, you are a newly recruited member of the OSS, Office of Strategic Services and your mission is to head into Nazi occupied France to assist with the French Resistance. There is a nugget of truth to the base story, but for the most part it is there to explain why one single squad, or at least the three men in it, would be bouncing around all over Europe. You are joined by a Sargent who is a no-nonsense bloke and a private, who despite only being 16 and lying to get into the Army, somehow understands German flawlessly. That is your base squad and each mission is mixed up with various locales and varying skill levels, to help you achieve your overall objective, it is a pretty small cast in the end and is all the better for it.
The problem is that the story isn’t one you can invest in, because you are not able to influence it in anyway, the game does a somewhat clever thing by stating that your voice was damaged in the opening moments of the prologue, which explains your inability to speak. The problem with that is when people are talking about missions, making decisions and such, you are generally left to just stand there and do nothing, which is honestly annoying. Each time there was a briefing or update being made, or a very long cutscene, I would spend my time shooting people with finger guns, because it gave me something to do. It is not to say that the story is dry, it is a fun adventure when all is said and done, the problem is there is just nothing to draw you in and hold you there.
One thing that does hold you is the game and it is not a good thing, there are only a handful of missions, each with their own theme and main objective, which is fine, the catch is that each is broken up into smaller chunks. This makes sense from a game development point of view, given that creating a world that is open world, or at least very large scale, would be a massive drain on any platform it was running on. My issue with this is that sometimes, these chunks are barely a minute or two in length and given that the load times are quite long, more on that later, you can feel like you are spending more time doing very little. There is a mission early on, where you have to help derail a train, which is an explosive sequence, pun intended and after the open gunfight, which was the first time I could explore and shoot on my own, the game directed me to rendezvous with the squad. The issue was that as I was approaching, it warped me there and took a moment to load it up, now I don’t know if that was meant to happen when I was close, or if I was taking to long so it just moved me, but the result was that, again, I felt like the game was pulling me through the experience.
When the game actually lets you do things, there is a lot to enjoy, the shooting, once you master it, can be really great fun, being able to line up a shot on a Nazi as they attempt to flank you is great. But more than that, having to watch the corners, check doors and rooms for any potential ambush is wonderful and is really brought to life by the VR immersion. There are some light puzzles elements, some construction events and even some hiding in plain sight tasks, the latter of which tend to suck a lot, but more on that in a bit. For the most part, when you are not shooting, you are often just looking around the world and letting things happen, the few times when you have to pay attention to things are when you are either solving the aforementioned puzzles or waiting in ambush for enemies. The catch there though is that in order to lie in wait successfully, you have physically have to get down and if you’re someone like myself who is tall, getting down can often mean almost lying down. While that might add to the immersion factor, having to belly crawl around the place, it does not do the game any favours, especially if you are playing whilst seated. When you get spotted, which you will, the game will tell you that you failed and reload, sometimes these loads are quick, within just a few seconds other times the loading can exceed 15 or more and while it isn’t a great amount of time, it is a concern.
The reason why it is a concern is that with the load times, they are all over the place, getting into the game often took me minutes to load in and then I would have to wait for the level to load and if I was unlucky, it would give only a minute of ‘gameplay’, before it had to load again. This highlights the games biggest problem, there is not enough meat for your time and while the length of it is quite a lot longer than I thought, because its broken up into chunks, the end result is that it feels less like a game and more like a first-person movie.
This not really a concern when you boot into the games multiplayer, however as the action is a lot more fast paced and consistent, there is an issue with motion sickness. While I do suffer from it, after a few rounds, most of which were against bots, I would remove the headset and feel some discomfort, usually with a sense of spinning. It wouldn’t last, but it did make me hesitant to jump back into more matches and again, while the bulk of the ones that I played were against bots, they were pretty useless in aiming, so I can only imagine how it must feel after many games with actual human opponents. If you are going to get the game for its multiplayer, then you had best be ready, there is enough here for a good amount of replay, but it is not as rewarding as Respawn’s main multiplayer shooter.
One particular aspect of the game that I liked, but wasn’t enamoured with, was the presentation, there is nothing inherently bad about it, there is just some issues with it overall. The biggest problem is that you can’t customise the level of visual fidelity that you have on screen, you can opt for the pre-set and you will see a big difference in them, but you can’t tweak settings as you see fit. The problem with this is that the game has a load of visual issues and being able to drop shadows, or lower grass texture quality, might improve the overall experience, but as you are stuck with their pre-sets there are going to be many moments of frustration. The other issue with the presentation is with the amount of objects in the scene that you can interact with, I say interact, but the reality is that most of these are dressing and should be things you can touch. The reason why this is a problem is that there were many times when I was attempting to reload, or grab an item from the world, but if something else was nearby, the game would not be able to detect the exact item I was aiming for, which in firefights was a pain.
The audio side fairs a lot better, there are some really wonderful effects happening, when the game goes boom in a mission, to the quiet moments when people are talking. Keeping with the vocals, there are some really decent voice performances and while there are a number of characters that tend to sound land more on the typical accent, the ones that nail it, help provide a sense of realism the world. The guns sound decent but can easily be lost in the heat of battles, but when you can hear that iconic ping of the M1 Garand ready to be reloaded, the problems fade away. The games score evokes feelings of the original titles from the turn of the century and excluding the main theme, once again composed by Michael Giacchino, they don’t have the same level of gravitas, however they are also being used very different contexts. While there are larger battles, when they stand out, a lot of the moments are solitary or require a stealth element, so having a score that reflects that, helps greatly.
Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is an interesting game, there is a lot of elements brought into it and as a whole, none of them work together. When the game lets you shoot enemies, in larger spaces, it becomes a real blast, the problem is that there is so much extra content, that by the time you get to them, your enthusiasm may wain considerably. The game also suffers from long load times and significant pacing issues, that make your time with the game feel way more drawn out that it needs to be. A very nice saving grace is the extra gallery mode, where you can learn some stories from those who were in the middle of the war and while it currently unlocks as you play, the content is moving enough, that it could have been its own release, celebrating these men and telling their stories.
The Score
7.0
Review code provided by Electronic Arts
The Pros
+The gunplay, when allowed is great fun and something you can really get into
+This new viewpoint on something that many gamers have played before, is unique
+The stories told by veterans are amazing and worth watching
The Cons
-The worlds are littered with way to many things and can become a pain when you only need one item
-Some missions are frustrating as they require you to lie down, pick things up off the ground and more
-The load times are so annoying that most of the game feels like loading screens, broken up by some gameplay
