Click READ MORE below to read our article on comparing Medal of Honor to Call of Duty Black Ops

MoH vs CoD: BO

by Jessie Indracusin

Medal of Honor leave WWII in the past!

Anyone who has been a big fan of the Medal of Honor series, this is the franchises first break from the World War II shooters that have seen a dwindling sales trend as gamers have reached the point of “Enough of the World War II Games Already!”.  The risk was a big one, but it definitely paid off. The game was designed with Former Special Operations member’s input.  The accuracy of this game is really beyond anything we have seen in a commercial title. A lot of bitching I have done about video games for years are addressed in this game. 

The story lines are taken directly out of the headlines with the War in Afghanistan.  Yes, Afghanistan.  Not some break away republic in Southern Russia named Karsblecistan or any other bull shit named country that doesn’t exist so we don’t offend anyone.  This is a game that is not based around being politically correct and obviously will not make any sales in the Middle East, but then who cares.  The environmental effects are great and the dust storms and particle effects in some areas, really look wonderful. 

Let’s talk Weapons and Optics!  Damn near perfect!  Very few things blatantly wrong here.  After being an Eotech Distributor and Aimpoint High Volume Dealer, trust me, I know what optics should look like and these are the closest to the real thing I have seen in a game.  These are not Generic looking optics. They all look incredibly accurate and this is really about that.  I wish they would have added removable 3x Magnifiers that you could put on and off your gun, but hey, this is pretty good.

 

As far as weapons mechanics, the game fixes my biggest obvious complaint.  If you are doing a wet reload, it leaves the round in your chamber and you add the clip to you gun.  This means a gun that has 30 round magazines have 31 rounds in the gun when you do this (which is correct).  Also, performing a wet reload only replaces the magazine in the gun, you do not have the person manipulating the charging handle in the game.  This is what drives me nuts in movies seeing people cocking a gun or manipulating a charging handle when there is no reason to.

The story line of the single player campaign is engaging and incredibly fun.  It is a very enjoyable experience, interesting story line and you don’t want to throw your controller at the TV over some horribly coded choke point you just can’t get past for running the difficulty up on the game.  All in all, an excellent game.

The downside to this game is the multiplayer.  Although this is as much fun as pretty much any other Multiplayer, team death match style game, there just isn’t enough there to make it very innovative.  It’s almost a kind of been there, did that sort of feeling.  The community of players I played with online were fun and the general groups you run into tend to be more mature, you just can’t find anything that really sticks out as pushing the envelope.  I would have really liked to have played the entire Campaign online in Multiplayer mode or split screen.  This feature REALLY sucks me in to replaying it over and over again.  I can think of a few games that I played the Campaign split screens a few times through, since playing with your friends and not having to deal with a bunch of screaming kids calling each other “Noobs”, “Campers”, “Cheaters” and every four letter word, really takes away from the gaming experience.

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Here a new installment of the de-facto standard for shooters has arrived.  There is no question that this game will most likely break all previous records with the wonderful online options!  The graphics are eye popping HD and most in game play looks like other games cut scene videos.  The look and feel, does not follow accuracy by any means, there is a lot of first person shooting fun in this game.  Everything I mentioned about Medal of Honor and the element of realism is lost in this game.  Everything about Black Ops is wrong…but hell, wrong never felt this good.  The single player story has a lot of twists and turns and probably the only way your average teenager these days learns anything about history.  It kind of reminds me of my girlfriend’s generation gap with her younger brother.  He was playing the World War II Call of Duty for years (probably well over 100 hours of time on the original XBOX). Then I asked him a question of who were the Axis Powers in World War II, he replied with France and Russia. I really wanted to beat him over the head with the XBOX that day…okay, I digress.

The optics are all generic and have a fairly poor representation of the accurate.  You can customize the hell out of your gun in this game, to the point of rediculous.  Anyone who thinkgs that you put an underbody flame thrower on a Galil needs to join my girlfriend’s little brother in going back to remedial  history.  But like I said before -it sure is wrong but it sure is fun roasting some bad guys with the flame thrower under an Assault Rifle. 

The online maps are all put together really well.  It is difficult to find any spot that doesn’t have three ways in out and to get some serious FUBAR.  Beyond the basic multiplayer components, there are a few new ones.  One is a wager system that you can put your virtual dollars were your mouth is and gamble your way to extra money.  Although this is interesting, my favorite is Training Mode.

At the surface, Training Mode sounds like something you would never play.  Boy are you wrong if you skip this option.  You can build a 12 room match where everyone else in the room are computer controlled bots.  You can replace any of the 12 with real people.  This is great for times when you have some friends that want to just do some online gaming and shield themselves from all the kids who have nothing better to do with their lives then play video games all day, who think just because they can kill a guy at a 100 yards with a Desert Eagle, they can’t hit a paper target with a real gun at 25 yards, taking 10 seconds per shot.  I play this more than any other mode in the game.

Speaking of guns, I want to really rip a new one of every developer in the world over the FAMAS.  Just because some French Canadians who work for a large gaming company had a major hard on for this stupid French gun, does not mean it is the most accurate rifle in the world (they started this trend in video games and everyone followed suit thinking these guys actually knew something about guns).  The truth is, the gun has a mediocre track record in real life.  No one has ever purposely adopted this gun unless they were forced too or were stuck speaking French.  Maybe because the owners manuals were in French they bought this thing.  Pretty much the only groups in the world to ever use the gun were either prior French Colonies or militaries too stupid to find a better weapon (No one really considers the UAE a real army anyways versus being considered a bunch of rent-a-cop Body Guards protecting Oil Baron’s Bentleys from being touched by poor poverty stricken populations in the country).

Zombie’s Return! Yes, the famous World at War Zombie mode is back!  How many levels can you hold out against endless waves of Zombies?  A great recreational way of playing the game.

Final Verdict?

Buy both if you can afford them.  They are both wonderful titles and have there merits.  I still like Medal of Honor single player story better than Call of Duty, but Call of Duty wins out big time on the Multiplayer.

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