13 Oct, 2010
A mediocre critical reception of EA’s next chapter in the ‘Medal of Honor’ franchise has seen shares in the company drop in value approximately 6%, according a report by the Los Angeles Times. CVG reported that the game received an average score in the 70% range on Metacritic for all formats, with the Playstation 3 version rated worst and the Xbox version the best.
Electronic Art’s have been quick to defend their baby, claiming that reviews for the game are ‘High Subjective’, and sighted that the game had hit record numbers of pre-orders compared to any other game in the franchise. Digital Spy published a statement from the firm on their news page, stating:
“This is an essentially big achievement considering Medal of Honor has been dormant for several years.”
“This is the first year in rebooting the franchise. Medal of Honor is part of a larger EA strategy to take share in the shooter category.”
“This is a marathon not a sprint – today’s Medal of Honor launch represents a step forward in that race.”
A complete breakdown of critical scores can be found at Metacritic, with the lowest score at 60 being awarded by Giant Bomb, while on the flip side Eurogamer Italy gave the game a generous 90. It could be argued almost that Medal of Honor is not necessarily being looked on on it’s own merit, especially when factoring in that the game is due to be the big contender for Activision’s ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops’ which has been met with favourable previews. Almost like every sand box crime caper is inevitably going to be measured against Grand Theft Auto, it seems any and all shooters are going to be held against Call of Duty.
Medal of Honor is due for release on October 15th in Europe on PS3, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
I got the game on Steam, and have to agree with the reviews; the campaign is too short, and the multiplayer isn’t that great either.
A lot of the smaller maps are prone to spawn-camping, making some attack-defend games a guaranteed loss if you get put on the attacking team. One game I played, half of the enemy team was spawning in plain sight on the other side of the map (making them easy pickings for my sniper rifle).