Despite unique ideas and a better MP, Medal of Honor: Warfighter is the functional shooter we played too many times.
User Rating: 6.5 | Medal of Honor: Warfighter PS3
I will admit that it's hard to carve your identity in a market that not only has the biggest audience in video games, but also make profit from doing so. Last years Call of Duty: MW3 paid the bills and broke records, but was seen as too redundant and more of the same by critics and fans alike, and actually sold less than the last offering because of it. Medal of Honor 2010 was a serviceable, but predictable reboot of the long running World War II series that brought the fight into the current War in Afghanistan, a theatre of war not often touched on in videogames (directly, anyway). Though it was incredibly short, and not too strong on the multiplayer department, it functioned well, and it paid respect to the people it portrayed. I myself am the son of an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran, so I did really appreciate the tone. It took itself very seriously, and didn't throw its characters into completely impossible, Michael Bay, let's-find-the-conveniently-placed-weapon-over-here-and-move-on kind of scenarios. I for one am glad it made enough money for a reboot; EA Los Angeles (now known as Danger Close) is an extremely talented studio and I love what they do. Now how to they serve up the sequel? Make it bland as possible and chase a quick buck. This years sequel Medal of Honor: Warfighter takes place in many other AO's (areas of operations) such as Poland, Somalia, the Phillipines, the Middle East and many others, recreating many terror events that actually have happened in these places. Rather than one unit, you work with other soldiers from many other nations, such as Poland, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, South Korea, Germany, France, Norway, and Russia. All of which you can play as in the multiplayer, but more on that later. The story follows characters from the previous game as well, though it's nothing to write home about no matter how much they make you care (and they try, A LOT), as the dialougue is mundane, dry, and ultimately uninteresting. I appreciate trying to give soldiers that walk through hell on a daily basis some humanity, but they should at least do it in a meaningful and convincing way. The fireteam members in the game are also caricatures of the gruff military war machine, and come off one dimensional as well. Military jargon is all over the place, like in the last game, which is easy to appreciate them getting right, but will ultimately turn off a lot of the audience due to them not really explaining a lot of it. Now to the crux of the problem with this game: the gameplay. It's not a broken game by any means, but it's just. Not. Interesting. Or fun. You go through the same motions time and time again, with one or two breaks from the the redundant shooting every now and again. The driving mechanics are fun and actually the most exciting part of the campaign, though they are few and far between. Which is good because they do the other unique mechanics they have TO DEATH. The breaching mechanic happens more in two levels than in any Call of Duty game to date, slow-mo and all. You can unlock options on different ways to breach, but they only break down the door with those certain object; you still point your big gun at the bad guys until they fall over. 'Murica. AI isn't anything special either. I'm not expecting farmers-turned-freedom fighters to fight like bloodthirsty warriors but at least be smart enough to move from cover now and again. They just sit there. And sit there. And.... sit there until you pop them in the head and slog on the the next shooting gallery. It uses the Frostbite 2 engine from Battlefield 3 this time, and while looks nice, is a waste on the constantly brown color palette of the game, with about zero destruction. Texture pop in, shadow are poorly rendered, and this is when the PS3 version already installs the texture pack FOR YOU. Multiplayer is the biggest focus here and is a bigger improvement on the last. The fireteam mechanic is a feature I'd like to see more of in other shooters, because you actually work as a team, whether you try to or not. Unlocks are everywhere, you gets special points for kill chains, yada yada yada. Nothing new in the customization department we haven't seen before, but it's still some great fun. For those thinking Americans kill too many foreigners, there are 12 different special forces from the countries I said before. From Delta Force, to Spetznas, the SAS to the KSK, there's one for all. So Russians get theirs in for use killing for 5 years in videogames. Overall, the game has potential but has too many missteps and treads over the same water we've sat in for the past five years. The story takes around 5 hours to finish, and nothing other than spectacle happens throughout. We've all gone through the motions of this, and it shows that modern war shooters are starting to overstay its welcome. The multiplayer will hold you over, and the promise of the Battlefield 4 beta will turn some wallets though. I'll be here waiting for when they return to World War II. Huzzah.
