
Halfway through the fight, you’re up in an Apache helicopter using the Target Acquisition and Designation Sights system. It’s hard to shake the feeling that the new war game is a missed opportunity to go a little deeper. There’s something exhilarating about being in a situation where people say “oh-600” when they mean “6 o’clock” and “6 o’clock” when they mean “behind you.”īut this is the solitary thrill of Medal of Honor ‘s campaign, a cheapo little adrenaline rush. It was hard for me to keep from grinning involuntarily every time I brought down another tango. Medal of Honor: Warfighter gives you the chance to step into the shoes of special operatives from all over the world -from the US Navy Seals to the Russian Spetnaz.This includes a lot of us. Perhaps Medal of Honor will conquer that challenge and regain its place as the third pillar of modern military first-person shooters after another iteration or two, but Warfighter shows that it still has a way to go to do so.
#MEDAL OF HONOR 2010 GAME MOVIE SERIES#
It can hang with the big boys graphically, but it still represents a series that is obviously playing a game of catch-up.

And that’s really the story of Medal of Honor: Warfighter: It's a title that’s merely decent while it attempts to compete with two of the most popular and well-executed shooter franchises in modern gaming. EA’s Battlelog system also makes it easy to keep track of your platoon’s progress and check out how your playing history compares to that of your friends.Īlthough the multiplayer is competent, it’s still not going to bowl over anyone who’s sunk hundreds of hours into the latest Call of Duty or Battlefield.

While it might not make up for the lack of any kind of co-op campaign play, it does manage to engender a small sense of camaraderie even in pickup games, and makes it easier to stick close to your friends in chaotic matches. Both sides in a multiplayer round are automatically split up into two-man fireteams, and sticking with your partner nets both of you a number of co-op-oriented bonuses. The neatest inclusion, though, is the simple-but-fun fireteam mechanic.

Each class gets its own unique set of tiered killstreak support actions, and there’s also the requisite hundreds of unlockables, mostly consisting of various gun parts, as well as a bevy of different nationalities for each class. The Assaulter can whip out the ever-popular underslung grenade launcher, for instance, while the Point Man actually utilizes a surprisingly well-balanced wall hack that will let you see enemies through obstacles. While none of the game modes will wow anyone looking for innovation, Danger Close did double Warfighter’s class system, giving each a special ability to draw from in combat. The multiplayer, thankfully, is quite a bit more fleshed out and enjoyable. The military-focused side of the story fares little better, as the bulk of those cutscenes involve watching the back of a man’s head as he uses his computer and exchanges copious amounts of unexplained military jargon to unseen characters over the phone. Further, the poorly-rendered CGI cutscenes somehow manage to wind up looking far worse than the in-game visuals.

Unfortunately, the script is on the level of a Lifetime Original Movie, and the characters barely register as human beings, let alone people with complex emotional lives. The game seems to realize that you’ve seen all this before, and thus introduces a subplot involving the failing marriage of Preacher, one of its lead characters. You’ll wind up effecting hostage rescues and sniping Somali pirates without any clue as to how those objectives have anything to do with the global terror plot you’re supposedly focused on. The story takes a while to cohere, and features a number of early-game missions that appear to have only tenuous connections to Warfighter’s main plotline. Using some of the same characters from its predecessor, Warfighter spins another tale of hard men doing hard tasks while speaking tersely and sporting only the grizzliest of beards.
