When I heard EA was going to be present at Play Expo, a part of me got excited. I mean Medal of Honor Warfighter would be there right?
So I'm not the biggest fan of modern shooters anymore. I didn't fancy Battlefield 3, and I've played all the previous Call of Duty titles, but the Medal of Honor reboot/modernisation back in 2010 stuck with me.
I think it was mainly the fact that it was a lot closer to operations in Afghanistan than it was about you being some unstoppable one man army. I mean sure, it's still there in Medal of Honor, but it seemed a lot more personal, and just gelled with me more than say Modern Warfare 2.
The Single Player was something i marvelled at for its gritty realism and emotion, but enough of that, I was playing the anticipated sequel, Medal of Honor Warfighter. So lets get to it.
Now my background really lies in PC Games, so having to get to grips with the 360 controller took a bit of getting used to, but after a couple of minutes of throwing grenades at my allies and accidentally shooting one in the head, (Auto-Aim, what's that?) I got down to business.
The demo level I played was set in a dark, destroyed urban environment at night, during a heavy rainfall. Immediately the first thing I noticed was that even though this installment of Medal of Honor was in the Frostbite 2 engine, nothing was visually amazing. There was no impressive lighting, no impressive shadowing, fire effects were pretty run of the mill, and most importantly, I didn't even realise that the ground was waterlogged up to about shin height due to the heavy downpour until a stray bullet kicked up a spray.
I shrugged this off though, as it's the gameplay that's most important right? Perhaps it was running off an old build, or the setup wasn't correctly calibrated in the booth. Regardless I soldiered on through the gameplay, and met up with the rest of my squad to do some good ol' fashioned enemy hunting.
The gameplay to Medal of Honor was what you would expect from a first-person military shooter. You and your squad move checkpoint to checkpoint clearing out all enemies in your way until you reach your overall objective. The controls were quite responsive, it didn't take long before i was lining up long range headshots to take out those pesky soldiers. Speaking of which, the AI took good use of cover, and took opportunities to flank you, or even grenade you out of your own hidey hole, so that was some good, but irritating news.
Finishing off the ground battling segment, my squad holes up in a building and we have to paint a target to call in a strafing run to get rid of the remnants of the enemy. Shortly after this the game takes you to the perspective of a helicopter gunner and you mow down the stragglers, ensuring the squad inside the building is all safe. Pretty standard stuff really, and I think that is where the problem lies.
After I put the controller down and left the booth, I had a reflection on what I played, and I can't really say I was all that impressed. Visually the game was lacklustre (though i imagine the actual game won't) and the gameplay nothing out of the ordinary. However, the controls were responsive and the AI had more intelligence than a sack of potatoes, but there was nothing there that really stuck with me. The 2010 Medal of Honor stuck with me because of the tension and the realism, the demo I played for Medal of Honor Warfighter just felt like another "Generic Modern-Day FPS", which I feel let the game down for me.
Now maybe the game does still have the personal moments like the one before it, I hear preacher from the 2010 installment is in it, and there is suppose to be some back story there, so I still have some hope that Medal of Honor Warfighter is going to deliver a more emotional and gripping story than what the demo I got to play at Play.Expo did.
Medal of Honor Warfighter launches in the U.S on the 23rd October 2012 and in the UK on the 26th October, it will be available on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.
For more information check out their official website here
