Medal of Honor multiplayer beta report

From the Forum: Read up on how Medal of Honor's latest beta phase is shaping up, and whether or not this is going to be the game we're all hoping for.

Medal of Honor is a classic gaming franchise, but the road to the latest iteration has been a somewhat rocky one.

Not only has the whole Taliban issue given the game some awkward press, but there's also a distinct feeling that gamers may well be getting a little tired of military-shooter after military-shooter. On top of that, it's a crowded market out there, so Medal of Honor's got a lot of work ahead of it to differentiate itself from every other mil-spec shooter on the market.

Thankfully, one of our forum regulars, funky_munky, has shared with us his views on the latest phase of the game's beta process, and it's a read worthy of sharing. If you're at all curious about the game, then you owe yourself a read:

The gameplay is interesting. It has the feel of COD but the online play that we love from DICE. the comment "its like cod meets BF" is somewhat true but not exactly. once you spawn into the game, the first thing you are doing is looking around like a mad man making sure no one is behind you. This is because the spawns are bad. This, mixed with small maps and powerful guns means that you always have to be on the lookout. as there is normally no chance of running away. To survive you really have to crawl your way around the map. there is no other way. this is made easier by the fact that you can sprint for almost as long as you want. The hud is nice and isn't in your face (which I love) and displays what you need and nothing more. Global\team chat is displayed but is removed really fast, making quick work of the guy that cracks that smart remark about pwning you. the thing I love the most? load times.. or lack of. I have not had a multiplayer game in any recent era that has loaded so fast. from opening the game, to joining off a friend and already running around the map playing? around 15 seconds from application launch. this time also counts while logging into the EA servers. I am impressed. changing maps takes about 3 seconds. by the time you click through your stats, you are already being hounded to join a team.

Follow the link for the full write-up and community discussion.

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14 Comments

xBomx Oct 7, 2010 12:39 PM	yaay, everyone do the Funky_Munky!!!
GeekyTalon Oct 7, 2010 4:39 PM	Thats what Ive been looking forward to hear :)
jdog Oct 8, 2010 12:26 PM	looking good...i may have to get this...
sirtrancealot Oct 8, 2010 12:32 PM	think i'll hold out for BF3
Martyr Oct 8, 2010 7:13 PM	cant wait for the next battlefield, in the meantime i'm not sure i'll get this one
singo79 Oct 9, 2010 10:09 AM	funky_munky does raise some good points, but he fails to address all things bad, or maybe I just haven't seen his entire post. It has been quickly realised from the recent beta that there are still bugs, especially the fact that you will crash back to the desktop after 3 - 4 rounds in a row. I initially thought it was just me, but after doing some searching and posting I discovered that it was a common occurrence. It is hard to tell whether or not this was because it was simply a beta and not the final polished product, or whether it was an underlining issue that Dice/EA had failed to address. Regardless of what beta source you used (Steam or direct download) there were many people experiencing this particular issue. This was very frustrating for it would only happen after the new map had loaded and during the first 10 seconds of the game, it would crash back to the desktop. You then had to relaunch the game again and despite funky_munky's experience, it would take a good 30+ seconds to get into the game after waiting for all of the splash screens to disappear. I tried both the Steam and direct download versions on two separate machines and experienced this issue on both in both versions of the beta. Again, I cannot put the reason for this happening to any specific incident and maybe it could have been as a result of being a beta, but only time will tell, given that the launch is set down for the week of 18 October in Australia. Though I know I will not be impressed if it transpires that I need to download a patch immediately before getting to play the multiplayer online, which happens to be a common occurrence with games being released of late. Though funky_munky's observation of cod mixed with bf is on the money and you can often forget what title you are actually playing. It does appear that all of the military shooters of late are all starting to merge with each other and begs the question, are they really worth your hard earned money? Given the fact that all of the shooters are looking so similar, what chance does BF3 really have? It is really going to have to pull out something special to break away from the current mould and deliver something new and exciting. Though I will confirm that the sound of the weapons in game are spot on and truly offer the most realistic sound to date.
xBomx Oct 9, 2010 5:45 PM	looks like Singo79 has set a new benchmark for doing the Funky Munky. And the Funky Munky award goes to.... We do all the talking and making suggestions for improvements and in the end of the day Atomic gets all the cake. and thats life, everyone keep doing the Funky Munky, its our games at the least.
funky_monkey Oct 9, 2010 8:30 PM	I can't comment on the crashing, hence why I didn't include it. I downloaded the game from steam, and didn't have one issue with it crashing. Load times were fast, I did what was asked and updated all drivers. Most people I played with were really happy with the load times as well? Thanks for the input though
xBomx Oct 9, 2010 11:14 PM	and yet again the man with a few words has exceeded his reputation and has once again taken the lead of his own award. looks like Atomic owns him a piece of their cake, but hey give us a fair go mate, the award should be partitioned between funky munky and singo79, will done muppets the slice of heavens yours for the taken :D
Hawkeye Oct 11, 2010 8:29 AM	"We do all the talking and making suggestions for improvements and in the end of the day Atomic gets all the cake." What the fuck are you on about now?
funky_monkey Oct 11, 2010 8:39 AM	@Hawkeye: I can only assume that the cake he is eating, has been mixed with a plant of some sort.
dsagill Oct 11, 2010 12:29 PM	I only saw the beta on the second last day but it seemed pretty damn decent to me. You die a lot (well OK - I die a lot), although as I started getting used to it my K/D ratio did improve. It seemed to be sharp, fast and well executed to me. Fast load, only a couple of times where the enemy used quantum physics to appear 50 feet closer and the gun play and sound effects are brilliant. Like when you are deafened by a nearby shell. It has some awesome potential - I'll be interested to see how the full release is.
Camotec Oct 12, 2010 5:15 PM	I had the lucky extension of gods hand of being home when the beta was released. I can second most of what Funky_Monkey has already said, I could get into a game very quickly and unlike some games, you can ESC out of the intro screens to get to the guts of it. The EA login and server connection is a hell of a lot quicker than Bad Company 2 in its current state. And it I also found myself being asked to join the next match before I had finished checking out how badly I did in the round before. I really like the fast play and the sound is so crisp and you will be jumping in just to put your friends in the middle of a warzone (with the speakers cranked). Another thing I really enjoyed which added to the game alot was the fluid animation of the player models, enviromental/man-made effects that DICE have put in which make it a much more realistic and emmersive experience. And I also did not have any crashing issues, played a couple of hours straight at times and that is a fair few games. If the Beta (cutdown client to test the dedicated servers) is that good, the retail release is on my shopping list for sure.
Metasynaptic Oct 13, 2010 10:35 AM	I think most of that 'fast join' comes from the fact you weren't dumping memory for the new maps, given most rotations were of the same map multiple times. Not knocking it exactly, fast load is good load, but will be interesting to see in anger.

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