Off the List: Medal of Honor

I picked up Medal of Honor on sale for $5 from Direct2Drive a while back and just finished it recently. It's a good, solid military shooter. The plot jumps from a SEAL team to some Rangers to some Tier 1 operators and back several times and even to some Apache pilots. The story is solid and appropriately both grim and believable. There's no invasion of mainland America, no superweapons, nothing like that at all, just a bunch of vicious Taliban fighters and some Chechens backing them up. That leaves basically just the plot, which, as I mentioned, is fine, and the shooting, which is a fair bit better than fine. Without any fantastic elements, the game feels very grounded, and that made it very enjoyable. I don't think I'd have paid $50 for this, but it was certainly $5 well spent.

RPG notes: There's not too much here to point to for tabletop gaming, but there are a few things. First, the interwoven stories that affect each other in the same area were kind of cool. That's in no way unique to this game, but it was well-executed. Second, the game serves as a good reminder that one doesn't always need fantastic or speculative elements to make for a good story. Shooting it out on a mountain in Afghanistan was plenty fun. I didn't feel deprived for want of energy weapons, magic, or zombies. Finally, there were some great examples of just how much timing and stealth can change a situation in the game. Anybody playing a sneaky character should take particular note of the Tier 1 operator sections.