Medal of Honor Beta First Look

On June 17th, 2010 Electronic Arts, commonly referred to as EA, released a closed beta test of their upcoming first-person shooter Medal of Honor. This Medal of Honor Beta has been made available to members of the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 VIP club who also pre-ordered Medal of Honor. The closed Beta test will be expanded starting Monday, June 21st to all people who pre-order Medal of Honor.

The following is a first look at the Medal of Honor Beta.

Forces and Weapons

In each game you play as either a Coalition Force or an Insurgent. The weapons differ depending on which team you're fighting for and which class you choose; Rifleman, Speacial, or Sniper.

Each class comes equipped with grenades and the standard combat knife, although the Coalition gets two grenades while the Insurgents only get one.

Coalition

Rifleman: The Coalition Rifleman carries a fully automatic M16 equipped with two 40mm grenades.

Upgrade: M249 SAW Heavy Machine Gun

Special Ops: The Coalition Special Operations Soldier comes equipped with a standard M4 Close Quarters Combat Rifle. He also carries an Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher with two rockets.

Upgrade: Pump-Action Shotgun

Sniper: Finally, the Coalition Sniper carries an M21 Semi-Automatic rifle with a red-dot site standard. Also, he has one satchel of C4 plastic explosive.

Upgrade: M21 Bolt-Action Rifle(You can also upgrade to an ACOG 4x scope and eventually a high powered combat scope)

Insurgents

Rifleman: The insurgent rifleman carries an AK-47 fully-automatic assault rifle with two 40mm grenades.

Upgrade: PKM Heavy Machine Gun

Special Ops: Insurgent Special Operations soldiers carry an AKS 74U fully automatic and an RPG.

Upgrade: Pump-Action Shotgun

Sniper: Lastly, the insurgent sniper carries an SVD semi-auto sniper rifle with a red dot site attached. He also has four IEDs (much like C4) at his disposal.

Upgrade: Bolt-Action Sniper Rifle

Scorechains or Killstreaks

Medal of Honor includes Scorechains which are very similar to killstreaks with a few notable differences.

They are Scorechains so they are awarded based on the points you earn. For example, a kill that is a head shot and revenge kill will award you with 20 points instead of the typical 10 for a kill. This will count more toward your scorechain.

Your are given a choice between an offensive support action and a defensive support action.

Medal of Honor Scorechains (Don't hold me to these)

Tier 1: 40pts

Offensive: Mortar Strike

Defensive: UAV

Tier 2: 100pts

Offensive: Rocket Strike

Defensive: Team Resupply

Tier 3: 160pts

Offensive: Cruise Missile, Similar to the predator missile except you mark where you want it to fire before guiding it.

Defensive: Team Flak Vests. Increases the amount of damage your team can take.

Tier 4: 230pts

Offensive: Airstrike

Defensive: Team FMJ ammo

I don't think these are all of the Medal of Honor Scorechains. I see that there is a ribbon you can get for reaching the 7th scorechain so I believe there are many more.

Game Modes

The Medal of Honor Beta includes two game modes, Team Assault and Combat Mission.

Team Assault: Team Assault is basically Team Deathmatch where each team fights to be the first to reach a certain number of kills or points.

Combat Mission: Combat Mission is an objective based game mode where Coalition forces are tasked to clear five consecutive objectives and the Insurgents must stop them from progressing.

Maps

Each game mode comes with it's own unique map. The maps are Helmand Valley and Kabul City Ruins. The maps are very big and have a ton of area to be explored, leading to a different kind of fight every time.

Kabul City Ruins: Team Assault is played in Kabul City Ruins. This map is a war ravaged city filled with multiple layers of combat, somewhat like the popular "Favela".

Helmand Valley: Helmand Valley is where you play Combat Mission. As the Coalition, your task is to fight your way up a dessert valley securing five separate locations. Each location will range from a roadblock you must break through to AA guns that must be destroyed. As the Insurgents your job would be to hold the coalition back until they retreat.

Glitches and Problems

As expected in any beta, there are a few glitches that come with the Medal of Honor Beta.

Freezing: There has been a widespread case of many player's games freezing during the middle of a match. You would then have to turn your entire console off and restart the game to continue playing. This would be very aggravating, especially considering it would happen every game or so for some players.

I was lucky and, while my game did freeze many times, it didn't freeze very often and the problem has now almost been fixed completely.

Getting Stuck: DICE has actually done a very good job making this game flow more smoothly than Battlefield: BC2. You will hardly ever find yourself stuck on a rock or tree.

The problem I'm referring to here, and it's only happened to me once, is getting stuck with nothing blocking you. I was near the edge of the map(which is an invisible wall) when all of a sudden I was stuck in an invisible closet. It would literally only let me walk forward and backwards five feet until I was stopped by some invisible force that was all around me. Don't really know what the problem was, but it will not happen often, if ever, and you can always kill yourself.

Spawn Camping: I'm not sure if DICE just hasn't considered this problem or what, but there is ample opportunity for spawn camping in this game. Especially when you are playing Combat Mission, the enemy can actually come to your side of the map and stand right in front of the exact spot where players spawn. They can literally be face to face with you with a shotgun as soon as you respawn if they know what they're doing.

Kill Assist Points: Not a huge problem, but there are times that I shoot someone and my hit indicator goes off but someone else kills them shortly after and I'm not awarded Kill Assist points.

Red Dot Sites and Scopes: The red dot site attachment for your weapon is a good idea and should be included in any modern first person shooter. The problem with the red dot site in Medal of Honor is that the dot is so small that it is almost impossible to see on an HDTV, much less in Standard Definition, and this turns into a much bigger problem than expected. The first unlockable sniper scopes and ACOGs are the same way.

The other glitches are small and random, including being able to still fire your shotgun straight even through you're reloading and the gun is pointed up in the air. Also, sometimes your own grenades and other explosives will hurt you and sometimes they won't.