AbleGamers Inspects Medal of Honor

{sidebar id=1}The last 12 months have offered a gaming bonanza for fans of first-person shooters in contemporary settings. From the release of Modern Warfare 2 last November to the release of Bad Company 2 in March of this year, it’s been a busy few months for itchy trigger fingers.

Now, Electronic Arts has rebooted and revived Medal Of Honor, a franchise which once set the standard for military combat games but faced significant competition not only in the recent past, but faces stiff competition in the next month with Call Of Duty: Black Ops slated for release in November.

With that in mind, let’s break down the gameplay and accessibility in the newest game in the Medal of Honor series.

First, Medal of Honor is a game for adults – it is violent and contains profane language. Second, and likely of greater concern to gamers, features a comparatively short single-player campaign – short even by recent FPS standards – which can last as little as five hours.

While some game publishers have recently argued that the length of a game should be irrelevant and that the story in the game should be the focus, Medal of Honor doesn’t offer a particularly compelling plot; in essence, the player assumes the role of one of a handful of highly trained and experienced military operatives and participates in covert operations and full-scale military engagements.

The thin story swiftly places the focus right back on the game’s length and, as a result, exposes its lack of depth when compared to other similar titles, which in some cases have also drawn criticism for relatively short single-player campaigns.

In fairness, Medal of Honor also features a set of single-player challenge missions called Tier 1 Mode, which requires players to complete game levels in a certain amount of time with bonuses awarded for certain activities or milestones (i.e. head shots, melee kills, kill streaks, etc.).

The challenges are similar to the Spec Ops mode in Modern Warfare 2, but don’t include the cooperative play that the Spec Ops mode offers, and in some cases requires.

Considering how cooperative play made the Spec Ops mode both entertaining and challenging, “Tier 1” mode suffers by comparison due to redundant timed runs through levels that the player has already completed - they just aren’t particularly satisfying.

As a result, Medal of Honor largely depends on the relative strengths and weaknesses of its multiplayer, which was developed by DICE, whose best known for the Battlefield series of games, which includes Bad Company and Bad Company 2.

Although the multiplayer action is as frantic and rapid as in Modern Warfare 2, it isn’t as rich. Modern Warfare 2 provides a seemingly endless number of rewards and perks for playing online and leveling up, but Medal of Honor has a leveling system more consistent with the multiplayer in Bad Company 2, meaning that there are fewer levels, fewer rewards and somewhat less customization than Modern Warfare 2 offers, which only raises questions.

Why, for example, do gamers need two separate FPS titles (this one and Bad Company 2) in the same year from the same publisher, both of which feature substantially similar multiplayer features and game types?

Furthermore, considering that Bad Company 2 has an upcoming expansion pack and Call of Duty: Black Ops is slated for release in less than a month, how does Medal of Honor differentiate itself from the competition … even from the competition created by one of the game’s own developers?

The simple answer, unfortunately, is that it does not distinguish itself through gameplay or unique mechanics.

Returning to the overall assessment of the game’s relative value to gamers with disabilities, the single-player campaign feels woefully short. The tasks and missions are consistent with other FPS games released in the last 12 months such as shooting targets during quick-time events, guiding bombs to targets, painting targets for air strikes and strafing runs, driving vehicles, shooting from moving vehicles at moving targets.

The Tier 1 mode seems to exist largely to squeeze more content out of the single-player campaign without requiring additional development work by recycling content with time restrictions placed on gamers – gamers with precision or motor function concerns are particularly likely to find this frustrating but gamers with other forms of disabilities may also experience difficulties.

Considering that multiplayer is often the most frustrating mode for gamers with disabilities due to the precision and reflexes required to successfully compete (or even to have fun trying to compete), and that multiplayer is the most substantial part of the new Medal of Honor experience (even if that part feels very similar to Bad Company 2), it seems unlikely that this game will provide a fulfilling gaming experience for the disabled gaming community due to the brevity of the single-player campaign.

All of this is especially unfortunate, because Medal of Honor - more than any other FPS war game released this year to date – is absolutely filled with respect for the soldiers who bravely serve in the Armed Forces and utter reverence for those who sacrificed their lives in the line of duty.

However, the simple fact of the matter is that the Modern Warfare games set the new standard for first-person shooters, the Bad Company games responded with sarcasm and commentary on Modern Warfare and created highly destructible environments, which required constantly shifting tactics, while Medal Of Honor, has done little to distinguish itself from either of its primary competitors besides displaying the utmost gratitude to troops.

With that said, let’s move on to specific accessibility concerns in our Accessible Review of Medal of Honor.