Medal of Honour: Warfighter
Reuters

Key Features:

  • Developer: Danger Close Games
  • Publisher: Electronic Arts
  • Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, PC
  • Release Date: 26 October
  • Price: TBC

Medal of Honour: Warfighter

The 2010 Medal of Honor reboot was no good. Three years after Infinity Ward turned modern warfare sims into the most popular, and profitable game franchise in the world, EA and Danger Close's late-to-the-party cash-in fell, predictably, very flat.

There was a lot of pre-launch noise about authenticity this, and Tier-1 operators, with the promise being that, unlike that other first-person shooter series, Medal of Honor (2010) would be ultra realistic.

That all turned out to be rubbish. Not only did Medal of Honor have you gunning down wave-after-wave-after-wave of enemies, you know, just like real soldiers don't, the game's patriotic backing drama was glaringly schlocky, and false.

As such, Warfighter, Medal of Honor's sequel coming at the end of October, has a lot of making up to do. Can it make amends?

From what I've seen, probably not. The cutscenes are better, definitely; the quick pre-mission cinematic that was on show at Eurogamer, had much less of the flag waving, hand-on-heart jingo-nonsense of the last Medal of Honor. If anything, the characters seemed almost human.

Exchange

A brief and pained exchange between two ex-war buddies came across very well written. On that side of things, Warfighter is a giant step up.

Elsewhere, not so much; it's hard to think of anything that's changed about Medal of Honor's shooting and killing mechanics. Like any FPS, you point your gun, pull the trigger and bad guys die. But Warfighter is somehow less interesting than that.

The bad guys don't use cover as they do in Call of Duty, and the sound design, the weapon noises and the radio chatter, are nowhere as frightening as Battlefield, despite Warfighter using the same Frostbite 2 engine as DICE's game.

My playtime with Warfighter was spent listlessly shooting enemies from the hip; since they clearly couldn't be bothered to fight properly, neither could I. In a game like Bulletstorm, where you have the ability to really mess around with how you kill baddies, suicidal opponents are absolutely a necessity; when you're supposed to be a straight, faithful war shooter, they don't work.

I admire Danger Close for showcasing Warfighter's campaign mode; every other big FPS at Eurogamer 2012 is only open to multiplayer. That much at least suggests a good amount of faith in the single-player, and in today's online climate, that's very refreshing.

Hopeful

Hopefully, if Danger Close is willing to risk bucking the trend like that, it's also taken some bold moves with the rest of Warfighter. If nothing else, it's putting a lot of publicity into what the public may not necessarily want, and at a show like Eurogamer, that takes guts.

Warfighter has earned some of my respect; it'll have the chance to prove itself on 26 October.