The Medal Of Honor franchise has been one of my favorites for a very long time. It has brought forth many great games for the PC and consoles over its lifespan. Now with the new iteration of Medal of Honor comes a preview for its multi-player beta exclusively for those who have pre-ordered, or those who had the chance to get the free beta keys given away here. The new Medal Of Honor is a reboot for the franchise in the opposite direction of its many WWII games.
After receiving my free beta key, for those who have not been able to grab one, I have put together a few screenshots and in-game video for your enjoyment. The multi-player beta gives you the ability to browse the game servers, match-make, and configure your buttons, video, and audio options.
It seems that through both free beta keys, and pre-orders, the game has taken off considerably. There are many servers that are hosting at least 24/24 players (12 vs. 12), and people are definitely playing enough to outfit their three characters with different weaponry. The visuals so far a good enough for a beta, and perhaps may be finely-tuned before its official release in 10/12/2010. The audio for both in-game and music is quite good, and the hit-detection suffers some registration issues. The detections seems to have a problem where several bullets will need to land before a kill will be registered. The PS3 version has had the same problem as the PC. As before, I am sure this will be taken care of because I would believe that DICE will want the game to have a similar detection as BC2. Please remember that the Unreal Engine 3 will be the engine for Single-Player Only.
The few problems with the beta (that I have noticed the most) seem to be when trying to configure your controls, it does not seem to let you back out of the menu or assign some of the keys. Also, the ESC key does not seem to work so you cannot disconnect from servers, or exit back to the main menu.
Otherwise, it seems like the game is promising and should provide a multi-player on par with Bad Company 2 (BC2), but in a smaller environment. The game looks good and sounds great. I believe fans of BC2 and FPS games, overall, will definitely grab this game. Also, most of the Mash Those Buttons (MTB) team will be picking this game up as well.
My personal feeling is that the game will be a big hit and may even grab some online-gamers from some recent FPS games such as Left 4 Dead 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and perhaps even Battlefield: Bad Company 2. If you can pre-order Medal Of Honor, I would definitely do so to partake in the multi-player beta.
