Medal Of Honor: Warfighter - Xbox 360

A Medal Of Awful

2012-10-25T20:50:00Z

In a bid to keep pace with Activision’s front-running Call of Duty, competitor EA devised a two-tiered approach: Give its star first-person shooter franchise, Battlefield, the stage every other year, and alternate it with Medal of Honor, a once-glorious series that has struggled to match the quality and excitement of its early World War II games. The studio tasked with this revival, Danger Close, was given many of the necessary tools to compete on this hyper-competitive genre: two years of development, a decent marketing budget to drive awareness, and the keys to the powerful Frostbite 2 engine. Even with all of these advantages, Medal of Honor: Warfighter more resembles an untrained insurgent trying to figure out a state-of-the-art rocket launcher than a Tier 1 soldier.

Given the relatively short campaigns of modern shooters (this one clocks in at around six hours), multiplayer often makes or breaks these games. Warfighter tries to carve a niche in the overcrowded market by hedging its bet between the fast-paced, lone-wolf action of Call of Duty and the team-oriented approach of Battlefield. With a healthy assortment of unlockable weapon attachments, comprehensive stat tracking, player progression, and five game modes, Warfighter checks off all the multiplayer boxes. Danger Close just forgot to bring the gameplay.

The setup is promising. Players choose between six classes – sniper, spec ops, point man, heavy gunner, demolitions, and assaulter. Classes are distinguished by their class abilities and support actions (kill streaks). Once you choose your class, you are paired up with another person to form a two-man Fireteam. The ability to resupply and heal your teammate encourages pairs to work closely together, and when your partner is gunned down, his killer appears with a red halo around him so you can exact revenge.

The Fireteam construct is a great building block, but with inconsistent hit detection, sluggish movement, and a confusing user interface that obfuscates what new weapons or attachments you’ve unlocked, the multiplayer has its share of problems. Danger Close even bungles the basics, like respawn locations and terrain navigation. The game allows you to spawn next to your fellow fireteam member when he or she isn’t engaged in direct combat, but when playing modes like Hotspot (which charges you with attacking or defending various locations), choosing the “fall back” option occasionally respawns you directly into the line of mortar fire or right next to an enemy.

Outside of the occasional chopper appearances that become available as high-tier support actions, the concentrated maps keep the focus on infantry battles. Some maps give the appearance of being open, but thanks to invisible barriers that prevent you from leaping over certain fences or taking cover in patch of grass on the other side of a short embankment, they largely play as a network of corridors.

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Most of the objective based game modes stress strategy and cooperation, and Danger Close includes a hardcore modifier called Real Ops that allows you to experience two of the modes with the HUD elements pared down and friendly fire turned on. I thought my favorite mode was going to be Combat Mission, which operates like a streamlined rush mode with only three M-com stations to destroy, but the boundaries that prevent the defending team from venturing too close to the attacking team’s respawn camp are ill-defined and located way too close to the control point. My preferred mode is the sport-like Home Run, a 10-round competition where teams alternate defending two flags. Each player is only given one life per round, so the stakes are high.

Like the multiplayer, the single-player mode botches most of its mission objectives. Danger Close includes all the ingredients of the blockbuster shooter recipe – explosive set pieces, cinematic cutscenes, and a replayable tutorial mission ripped straight out of Call of Duty 4 – but the lack of creativity, sloppy execution, and a jingoistic narrative derail the experience. The only redeeming feature Warfighter brings is the slick secondary scope mechanic that allows you to switch between two different magnified scopes on the same rifle, which is great for alternating between close and ranged combat.

The globetrotting campaign tours terrorist hot spots like Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and the Philippines, but the weak narrative thread barely holds these disparate missions together. To help deliver authenticity to the experience, Danger Close enlisted real Tier 1 soldiers to write the story, but rather than give us insight into moral, emotional, and physical tolls combat takes on soldiers and their families, the game falls back on heavy-handed tropes that paint war in the most simplistic hues.

Outside of a few thrilling (but out-of-place) car chase sequences that would feel more at home in a James Bond or Jason Bourne game, Warfighter brings nothing new to the table. The level design is painfully linear, and Danger Close puts a strange over-emphasis on breaching techniques. The laughable enemy AI is prone to taking cover from grenades in the middle of the street, and your oblivious squad members set up shop in your line of sight or even push you out of cover because they are scripted to position themselves in that spot. The occasional audio glitches, ugly building textures, and awkward lighting choices prove Danger Close isn’t comfortable controlling the powerful Frostbite 2 engine, as well. I even experienced a checkpoint bug that forced me to restart an entire level.

The uninspired single-player campaign, uneven multiplayer execution, and rampant presence of glitches undermine Medal of Honor: Warfighter’s efforts to join the Tier 1 of military shooters. If Danger Close keeps executing this poorly, this once-loved series may be dangerously close to being put in a casket.

EA Drops A Few Multiplayer Beta Screens

2012-10-11T14:58:00Z

Medal of Honor: Warfighter's beta has been available since last weekend, but time is running out. The Xbox-360 exclusive is live until the clock strikes 11:59 p.m. Pacific. EA and Danger Close have released a few new screens from the beta, in case you don't know what to expect from the military shooter.

The beta includes the Hotspot mode, which is basically an attack and defend game split across points in the Sarajevo Stadium map. You can choose to play as one of a dozen different units, from the complete game's roster of 72 different types.

Medal Of Honor Warfighter Trailer Highlights Tale Of Sacrifice, Explosions

2012-08-01T15:38:00Z

Medal of Honor Warfighter's hero, Preacher, has endured a lot as a tier-1 operative. Judging from this new trailer, it looks as though thing aren't going to be changing for him anytime soon.

The new installment in the series aims to tell a story based on actual events while remaining fun to play. It's a difficult balance, and we'll have to wait and see if developer Danger Close pulls it off.

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Look for the game on PlayStation 3, PC, and Xbox 360 on October 23. In the meantime, check out our multiplayer hands-on impressions.

Medal Of Honor Warfighter Multiplayer Trailer

2012-07-10T19:59:00Z

A new trailer for Medal of Honor Warfighter highlights the game's multiplayer component. The video shows off the new map Tungawan Jungle. Medal of Honor Warfighter is out October 23 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

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Hands On With Medal of Honor: Warfighter Multiplayer

2012-06-06T22:45:00Z

Here is the intel I received from sitting down for a round of Sector Control (Medal of Honor's version of conquest or demolition):

Teams are broken into fire teams composed of two special operators. Once you choose a buddy to fight alongside, his position will always be visible on the battlefield.
You and your fellow fire team member can respawn behind each other if you're out of the line of fire, or you can respawn at the fall back point. If your buddy is downed and you shoot his killer, he can automatically respawn instead of waiting for the countdown.
Before the match starts, you can choose between several special operators from the various international Tier 1 groups.
Thus far, Warfighter has six types of soldier classes: Demolitions, Assaulter, Sniper, Point Man, Heavy Gunner, and Spec Ops
Each operator fits under one of these classes and each has unique weapons and special abilities. For instance, the Polish GROM are equipped with an assault rifle that has a grenade launcher undersling, and the Canadian JTF2 rock an M249 with suppression capabilities. The varied special abilities include calling in mortar rounds, using armor piercing rounds that do 20-percent more damage, a UAV for spotting soldiers, and a mobile spawn point.
EA says there are 72 operators to unlock. For the purpose of the demo, we could choose between six.
The game has a wealth of unlockables and customization options, including optics, stocks, underbarrels, and camo.
As the second shooter to use the Frostbite 2 engine, Warfighter looks just as good (if not better) than Battlefield 3.
The PC controls were very smooth and responsive, as you would expect from a modern multiplayer game using such a high-end engine.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter is coming to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC on October 23. To learn more about the single-player campaign, read our earlier preview.

New Medal Of Honor: Warfighter Trailer Shows Off Gameplay

2012-04-12T14:55:55Z

Here's an exciting new look at gameplay footage from Electronic Arts' Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

The new trailer shows off footage of a rescue operation of some foreign aid workers. The action itself, however, is much more intense than it sounds, with plenty of destruction, bullets flying, and a rail-shooting sequence.

The game comes out for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC on October 23.

For more, take a look at Bertz's previous preview.

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Medal of Honor: Warfighter Emerges From The Shadows

2012-03-07T08:09:00Z

Announced by OXM two weeks ago, Electronic Arts introduced the latest Medal of Honor to the rest of the game industry at a special event during the Game Developer's Conference tonight.

When conceptualizing the sequel to the 2010 reboot of the popular Medal of Honor series, executive producer Greg Goodrich stumbled on a secret weapon. Why dream up imaginary military campaign when you can consult directly with Tier 1 operators who lived through it? When two former special forces soldiers offered a manuscript of their "vent book" -- a collection of musings about their fellow soldiers, the missions they participated in across the globe, and the strategies they would employ to fight terrorism if they could remove all the bureaucracy hindering their work -- Goodrich jumped at the chance to use it as the basis for Warfighter.

The vent book served as a starting point for the game. From there, Danger Close extracted intelligence from their missions and synthesized the events into the lives of Preacher, Mother, and Voodoo -- the characters introduced in the last game. The result is a game that puts its fictitious characters into recreations of real-world events pulled right out of the headlines, like the confrontation with Somali pirates and hostage recovery missions in the Philippines.

In the demo that we saw, the trio teams up with an elite Philippine military unit to free some civilians the extremist Islamic group Abu Sayyaf took hostage when storming the capital building in Isabela City, one of the poorest cities in the country. Making matters worse, they must perform the mission in the middle of a typhoon. As the group approaches the building, it's clear the storm has taken its toll. The outside windows are shattered and water is pouring into the building, flooding the lower floors in the process.

After breaching through the front door, the team systematically neutralizes threats while moving into the upper levels. When the bullets are flying, the power of the Frostbite 2 engine is in full effect. Facades aren't being ripped down due to explosions like in Battlefield, but the stray bullets chew up the interior of the building and grenade explosions send chandeliers spinning out of control. Danger Close says players can expect to see a lot of this style of micro destruction throughout the game.

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Once the team hits a choke point, the player flanks the enemies by going through another set of rooms and inevitably takes out the unassuming baddies. When the Tier 1 team approaches the final door, an option to breach it appears and the sterotypical slow motion clearance of all the enemies on the other side of the door ensues.

With the hostages secured, the team begins the extraction sequence, which involves hopping on board a boat and manning the turret while the driver speeds through the flooded streets and falling trees. All the while, the player takes out enemies positioned on rooftops and billboards -- your standard first-person shooter fare. Once the city is cleared, they attach the boats to chinooks and fly into the sunset.

Rather than handing off the multiplayer to DICE like it did last time, Danger Close is handling the duties this time around. As Goodrich pointed out during his presentation, most kids who grow up in Poland don't dream of being U.S. Navy SEALs, so in an effort to internationalize the brand EA is taking a page out of the Rainbow Six playbook and integrating 11 other Tier 1 units like the British SAS, Australian SASR, and Polish GROM into the experience. For the multiplayer, rather than having one team take the roll of real-world rivals like the Taliban (a circumstance that got Medal of Honor into a lot of trouble last time), Warfighter pits the best spec ops groups in the world against one another in fictitious "blue vs. blue" battles. Goodrich cited the FIFA series as an example of a competitive online game that gives players a sense of national pride, and Danger Close wants to bring a similar feeling to Medal of Honor.

We couldn't extract any more information out of Danger Close regarding the multiplayer, but since Medal of Honor: Warfighter is scheduled to ship on October 23 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, we expect to hear more about it soon. If you want a glimpse of the game, check out the debut trailer.

Medal Of Honor: Warfighter Has A Trailer And A Release Date

2012-03-06T21:32:02Z

We learned about the existence of a new entry in the Medal of Honor series last month, and now we have a little bit more to go on.

The trailer for the game, which recently appeared on a Medal of Honor YouTube page, says the game will release on October 23. The trailer also seems to hint at more stealth focused gameplay with soldiers sneaking around at night, in the mud, and in the shadows. Check out the trailer below.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter will be available on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, and people who pre-order will get a free upgrade to a limited edition.

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