E3 2010: Medal of Honor Multiplayer Preview !

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Though EALA is doing the single-player for Medal of Honor, it's DICE (makers of Battlefield: Bad Company 2) handling the multiplayer component. While the expectation may be for DICE to offer up Battlefield's multiplayer with a different coat of paint, that's not the case at all. Medal of Honor's multiplayer certainly has elements of DICE's design heritage, but it's more about ground infantry combat. The battles, 12-on-12 online matches featuring special forces versus insurgents, are intense and brutal. You die quickly thanks to "faster bullets" as DICE describes it, and a lack of health packs. This is war. Good luck surviving.

You begin your online career as a U.S. Army Ranger, but progress up levels, unlocking new items on your way to becoming a Tier 1 Operator. And you definitely want to become Tier 1 -- that's when you unlock a beard. The beard doesn't kill, it just looks bad ass. On the way to unlocking a beard, you'll be opening up new modifications for your weapons. Weapons can support three mods, which can be switched out between rounds. DICE promises hundreds of combinations. Weapons will become one of the biggest variables in Medal of Honor, far more so than in more first-person shooters.

Experience is earned for completing mission objectives and for kills. There are bonuses for certain types of kills, as well as score chains. It's not just about getting a bunch of kills in a match, but in getting quick batches of kills.

Medal of Honor at IGN.com

Score chains unlock Tactical Support Actions. These are similar to Killstreak Rewards in Modern Warfare 2, but have some notable differences. The biggest difference is that you always have the choice between offensive or defensive support actions. Do you want to give your teammates armor or buffed health? Or would you rather call in a mortar strike? The decision could be tactical or selfish, depending on your point of view and the choice that's made. But it can certainly turn the tide of battle. And it's great to have a way to better your team rather than earn a couple of extra quick kills.

There are two modes available in Medal of Honor multiplayer, spread out over eight maps. Combat Mission takes you to the Helmand Valley, an actual location in Afghanistan. This is a series of objective-based missions. The one I was shown had us playing as U.S. soldiers attempting to destroy a large weapons cache. Our opponents played as Taliban insurgents hell-bent on stopping us.

The mission has five objectives. Your ultimate goal is to call in your F-15s to blow up the weapons cache. But you need to first take out some anti-aircraft guns. To get to these, you'll need to guide a Bradley tank past some obstructions. This includes a few roadblocks along the way. As with Bad Company 2, you can hop into the Bradley and have some fun destroying enemies. But Medal of Honor isn't really about large-scale vehicle combat. Don't expect to be flying helicopters everywhere or driving an army of tanks. This mission has a single tank, which your ground troops must protect.

The insurgents will have the upper hand in many areas. There are some places where they have the high ground and can dig in to protect their territory. Death will come quickly, but respawns are plentiful. Currently, there's no kill cam or way to see who killed you, which needs to be addressed before Medal of Honor ships in October. There is minor environmental destruction, so you can bomb out a house where a sniper is camping, but you might have to die three times in a row to figure out which house he's in.

In true DICE fashion, Combat Mission requires teamwork if you hope to beat down the insurgents and take out the weapons cache. Everyone can run around like independent jerks, which is exactly what happens when you get a dozen journalists in a room, but once this game is out, working as a team can only help.

The other mode is Team Assault, which takes place in the ruins of Kabul (at least for the E3 demo map). This is Team Deathmatch in the city slums, where players push to win a certain set of points on the map. The emphasis is on knowing the map and keeping on the move. There's a lot of vertical gameplay in this one, with two- and three-story buildings. As I said earlier, combat can be pretty unforgiving. But the reward for sticking with it is readily apparent. The better you get, the more easily you can unlock the Tactical Support Actions. These are a lot of fun and since you aren't tied to a specific set, feel more versatile than Modern Warfare 2.

Leveling up wasn't part of the E3 experience, but my sense is that unlocking weapon parts is going to become addictive. If there really are as many possibilities as DICE promises, we should see hundreds of different weapons on the field of battle.

Medal of Honor seems to be the perfect combination of Call of Duty and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. You no longer have to fight over which game is better, because Medal of Honor offers the best of both. If the full game is as good as the E3 demo, then this may just be the multiplayer game of the year.

lol !! every single game for the Pc will be a port nower days so no point in moaning about ports ! moan if it is a poor port tho !!

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