By Peter Nelis
25 October, 2012
Dishonorable Discharge...
Publisher: Electronic Arts Developer: Danger Close Release Date: 23-Oct-2012 Platform(s): XBox 360, PS3, PC Genre: First Person Shooter Age Rating:
There’s certainly no shortage of first person shooters around these days, but nevertheless there’s something of an established hierarchy towards the top end of the genre. As of April 2012, the top ten best selling FPS titles of all time comprised of just four series’. Activision’s Call of Duty franchise dominates the list, occupying the entirety of the top five, while three Halo titles, Battlefield 3 and Medal of Honor: Frontline make up the remainder of the ten. Nothing else gets a look in.
So given the fact that MoH is one of the few series’ in any way comparable with CoD’s success, there’s a lot of weight being placed upon the shoulders of developers Danger Close to deliver – and given the fact that it’s being released in such close proximity to both Black Ops II and Halo 4, the quality of the final product will be instrumental in deciding whether or not players will be willing to make the jump to the series, freshly rebooted in 2010.
While that particular title didn’t exactly blow everyone away, it certainly showed signs that EA might be on the right track as it seeks to deliver a real CoD killer. The general consensus was that with a few tweaks and some serious work on the single player campaign, MoH may well be a franchise worth keeping an eye on, even if it did find itself behind EA’s other FPS, Battlefield, in the opinions of most.
Enter Medal of Honor: Warfighter. Billed as bigger, badder, more realistic and with much more to it than its predecessor, there’s been quite a level of expectation surrounding it. EA has been teasing the public with regular trailers, developer diaries and discussions with real front line Tier 1 operatives, around whose stories the game is based, trying its best to drum up excitement pre-release, and to an extent that has worked, but the game is finally here and the time for talking on EA’s behalf has passed.
We’ll start with the technical stuff. MoH:W runs on the increasingly impressive Frostbite 2 engine, and features some noticeable improvements since Battlefield 3 to make the experience both smoother and more destructive than ever – even if you’re going to have to pay for those improvements with slightly reduced texture fidelity. It still doesn’t manage to reach the 60FPS frame rate that CoD boasts so proudly about, but it’s far from a sluggish experience, and few users will notice much of a difference.
As you would expect from a big name, big budget title, the controls are flawless. The action is responsive and the gunplay tight. The only real issue, technically, is that the whole thing feels a little pedestrian compared to its biggest rivals. Obviously Danger Here is focusing on reality, and that’s fine, but seasoned FPS players may be surprised with how slow things feel in places.
The major gripes with the last game was the fact that the campaign failed on so many levels; it was too short, it lacked any satisfying narrative and the characters failed to strike a chord. None of these issues have been addressed here, unfortunately, and to make things worse, there seems to have been a decision made to pull back on the realism a touch, instead offering slightly far-fetched set pieces and combat situations. There’s definitely a more concerted attempt to offer insight into the lives of the main characters, but it falls flat and we never make any meaningful connection to them. The cut scenes do look incredibly accomplished though, if that’s your kind of thing.
For a title that’s chasing Call of Duty so desperately, you’d have thought that Danger Close would have opted to take the occasional chance to shake up the status quo. Perhaps some groundbreaking new approach to gameplay, or never-before-seen level design that offers something new. Instead they have played it painfully safe. There’s nothing, and we mean absolutely nothing, here that hasn’t been done before, and better.
The only feather that MoH:W’s cap boasts is the fact that the multiplayer experience is pretty solid. Given the poor AI in the campaign, this is certainly welcome news. With players in cooperative game modes paired up in Fire Team Duos, there’s a lot more communication required here than in most action-oriented shooters, and the inclusion of some pretty interesting game modes like Home Run, a capture the flag style mode with no respawns, certainly bump up the overall quality of the title somewhat.
Unfortunately, this still only manages to propel Medal of Honor: Warfighter into the category of being “okay”. If you’re looking for a single player experience, there’s simply no point in bothering, while those of you who like to play as a lone soldier, running headlong into your multiplayer battles with no consideration for your teammates, will find the lack of pace and reliance on cooperation jarring. The silver lining is that players who are desperate for a shooter, but can’t face up to the legions of squeaky voiced kids spouting expletives over their microphones in Black Ops II or Halo 4 will actually have an alternative now. The only issue for EA is that those gamers don’t carry enough clout to make Warfighter the commercial success they are so desperately craving. Perhaps it’s best they just stick to Battlefield…
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