Multiplayer

Afterthought

The one sad thing about MOHAA is that multiplayer seems to have been very much an afterthought. Four standard game types are included – Free For All, Team Deathmatch, Round-based match, and Objective-based match. Objective-based Match is MOHAA’s answer to RTCW’s heralded multiplayer objective-based games, but it’s not done as well. The maps are generally large, affording a good amount of room for maneuvering, and hiding, but the problem is that deaths are permanent. There’s no periodic respawn as in RTCW or medics to revive you. What this means is that almost all matches degenerate into team DM. The objectives hardly ever get completed before one of the teams gets wiped out and the other wins by default.

Danke Shoen

Arc welders make good money

I see you...

Perhaps the most irritating thing is that MOHAA shipped without an in-game server browser. Version 1.1 added it, but it operates like a hastily cobbled hack, with few useful features. There’s no way to set favorites, or filter out servers that are full/empty, or that ping too high. This is rather inexcusable for a top rate FPS these days, and players have a right to expect better from within the game without having to resort to using external Gamespy or some other utility. As it stands, not everyone has patched to 1.1, and the two builds are incompatible for multiplayer. Guess what? There’s no way to discern which servers are 1.0 and which are 1.1. Try to join a server on the old build? The browser kicks you back to the main menu, and you’re forced to refresh the server list again. ARGH!

Weapon Balance

Unlike the single player game, multi MOHAA only allows players to carry one primary weapon, and a pistol. You can choose any weapon to spawn with, depending on your side. Allied get the M1 Garand, 1903 sniper rifle, Thompson, BAR, Bazooka, or Shotgun. Axis get the Mauser, Mauser Kar98, MP40, Sturmgewehr, Panzerschreck, or Shotgun.

One of the more dominant weapons in multiplayer is the shotgun. Skilled players need only close the distance on opponents, before they pump usually just one load of buckshot into their victim for a quick kill. Submachine guns seem pointless, as the BAR and Sturmgewehr also offer rapid fire with better long range accuracy. The sniper rifles are great for use on MOHAA’s large outdoor maps, but the regular American rifle, the M1 Garand, has its use as well b/c of its semi automatic nature and larger 8 bullet clip. As one player said, “it’s like a rapid fire railgun.” The non-sniper variant of the German Mauser seems to be the odd one out. It doesn’t feature any zoom, and is single shot, bolt action, a distinct disadvantage to the M1 Garand.

Death from above

MP40 power

Oww oww...

Other notes

One thing that’s worth noting is that every dead player in MOHAA multi drops 50 health. If you’re skilled (and lucky), it’s possible to go on huge killing sprees without dying by simply picking up the many health packs lying around. However, death quite often comes instantaneously. It only takes a few bullets from any gun to bring you down, and in the case of the sniper rifle or shotgun, maybe only one shot. A well placed grenade can often kill three and four men at a time. That brings us to another point – every player spawns with six grenades. These are powerful and can be thrown good distances, making grenade spamming quite a common tactic in team play.