So I’ve been playing a lot of MoHAB and the game is equally great and flawed. The missions are fun to play and the AI is good but at the same time almost worthless at times. I’m about complete with the game in about 12 hours of casually playing (reloading to grab some screenshots & videos) and in that time I’ve found that when it comes to larger objectives you’re nearly on your own. Starting out it seems that everyone is out for the same goal but as you progress it seems that your AI team is there to clean up bad guys leading up to objectives. When it comes to objectives you’re on your own such as planting explosives in a tank factory or taking on the bad ass SS soldiers. Early on they’re by your side but the further you progress, you find you’re more and more on your own. Part of the problem I’m sure is my patience but most of it is a short game made to last longer by throwing you out on your own, even with your AI mates beside you. I think the SP is 100x better than Call of Duty, where it appeared it was a walk through the park and it does force you to use health which is better than the rediculous scheme they used in Call of Duty 2 of just hiding. Both fail terribly though from the overabundance of console play in the games.

The save system isn’t even up to current standards on consoles. While I hate the fact that games have saved checkpoints rather than normal saves, this game goes a step further in stupidity. I’ve started to accept the fact they want to keep you from finishing a game in a day or 2 (which I know is why they have save points rather than allowing you to save) but this game goes a step further where you don’t even get to load a save point from your mission. It saves your last save point and that’s it. If you want to go back to play the previous check point, too bad you can’t. You have 1 save game through the entire game and if you go to something else in the campaign, too bad you lose current progress. This is also like Gears of War on the Xbox 360 (an incredible game that has the same issue…yes I call it an issue, it can’t be an oversight). So if I have completed a mission, why the hell can’t I play it again without losing where I’m at now? As I said I finally started to accept the load checkpoint game play and now they’ve decided to take it a step further and make it completely retarded.

Don’t get me wrong the game is fun if you like the WWII shooters as I do but poor interface control makes great titles fall on their face. As I said I can’t help but think back to the original MoHAA. I may have to pull that back out and run through it again just for a comparison point. Even with it’s dating it’s still one of the best games in this genre I’ve played and probably among my favorite FPS titles.
I’m still working on a game rating system but so far it’s a draw on this title. It’s an awesome game that they kill by constraints of taking the time to make a title that lasts. Even Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault had a better interface and, for me, gets a better rating than Call of Duty 2 for that reason. The game got repetitive and old but was light years ahead of this game outside of a lot of the action.

My final thought… It amazes me that games are costing these astronomical amounts of money to produce (as they advertise) these days and yet they constrain them because they add less content or game play to them.

I think a lot of people can take a lot from the Bioshock cross-platform design even without playing it on Xbox 360. I do intend to rent it after completing it on the PC just to see how it plays out.

For screenshots, take a look here.

Buy it at Amazon: