The past generation has not had the opportunity to host a new chapter of the Medal of Honor, saga edited by Electronic Arts which seemed now over with the last episode of 2012. However, the company has decided to try again, to offer a new vision of war different from the universes of Battlefield e Titanfall that already takes care, which this time is detached from the consoles to arrive on a new platform. What better place for a big comeback, if not virtual reality? Potentially the best place to start over, creating a solid foundation that detaches from the past to immediately land in the future. And that's how it is Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond arrived on the screens of our viewers, being developed by Respawn Entertainment exclusively for the family Oculus Rift, with the guest of honor Peter Hirschmann, author of the very first chapter of Medal of Honor (born in 1999).
The developer has now created a well-deserved reputation for creating first-person shooters, but here the battlefield is quite different. With a lot of curiosity we therefore wore a Oculus Rift S to try the game, which is proposed right from the start with exorbitant requirements. A i7-9700K, 16GB RAM e 170GB of space they are in fact requested, without forgetting the need for one GeForce RTX 2080 (or better) to play. We can at least confirm that with this setting it is possible to live the experience without experiencing any type of lag. So let's find out how our experience turned out, guns in hand, with Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond. 
At war with Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond
After a rather lengthy introductory phase, which however leads the player to familiarize himself with the controls and correctly set the game settings, the story of Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond finally begins. It takes little for the immersion work of the viewer to work, all the actions to be performed are as intuitive as they are realistic for the context, and in no time the player will be on the field fighting the Nazis during the Second War World. Unfortunately the game is not localized, but the story still knows how to be appreciated, thanks to an ironic background that manages to not make the setting particularly weigh on the player's shoulders, except for a few more profound moments that successfully breaks this not serious atmosphere. . However, an exception must be made for the Gallery, a mode in its own right that offers real witnesses of war, hard and crude, proposing itself as a really important and quality didactic content. Unfortunately, however, this will hardly be appreciated at best, as it is actually out of context and certainly deserves a more appropriate space.
The gameplay of Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is solid and fun
The campaign will keep you busy for about ten hours, which obviously vary according to the difficulty and abilities of the users. However, this offers a rather unripe narrative solution, which sees interludes formed by dialogues and novelties on the plot field well different from the gameplay, which is used in most cases to put the pieces of the puzzle together, without adding anything to these. Definitely a pity, also considering that - although not particularly revolutionary - the game campaign offers intriguing narrative ideas, which manage to intrigue and give the desire to continue, together with the hilarious gunplay patented by Respawn Entertainment. During this huge war the player finds himself facing many hordes of enemies, which must be defeated with all the classic means of the guerrillas, always made available without too many problems. Many weapons, grenades, and even some other peculiarities such as knives, all of which is made spectacular by the need to actually simulate the fights with the controllers of Facebook.
Each gun offers different feedback; the peculiarities of each weapon come out of the viewers screen and allow the player to impersonate a real soldier, who must be careful with ammunition and his arsenal. Not all weapons load the same way, and being able to simulate everything quickly during the firefights is really adrenaline and fun, not to mention the need to juggle with grenades and inject a healing syringe into the chest. You will need a good amount of space to play, but we can assure you that the developer has managed to bring his mastery to shooters even in Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, this time focusing on the immersion factor. The amount of content is also improved by the multiplayer sector, not particularly deep, but perfect to let some friends try the potential of Oculus Rift or for some sporadic game, which always manages to entertain successfully. We find in this section the classic game modes of shooters, with over a dozen maps and predefined loadouts to take; obviously to make everything magical is the ability to play with other users who use virtual reality, in servers that currently fortunately do not take long to fill up, with the help of some relatively discreet artificial intelligence bots.
Jammed in the middle of the magazine
The game has several technical uncertainties
The narrative sector presents some uncertainty, which is quickly medicated by the gameplay, even if unfortunately the problems of the work do not end there. Unfortunately, in fact, apart from one's own paraphernalia and some collectible objects that can be observed more closely, the interaction with the game world is almost absent. All obstacles are the same and it is not possible to really “touch” anything, which is a real shame considering the potential that this device offers in other experiences. The biggest problem, however, lies in the technical side, due to a graphic impact that is certainly not bad, but far from in line with the technical requirements imposed in order to play.
Facial expressions are bordering on caricature, especially with regard to the enemies, even if the models are overall very successful. The landscapes are quite varied and beautiful at a glance, but approaching a bit of all models you run into low-definition textures and various details that point out a lack of care in this area. At present, VR games are mature enough to offer a visual impact that is anything but negligible, and with the raising of the qualitative bar it becomes necessary to insert an additional gear in this area.
