Medal Of Honor: Warfighter

Blog Post: Medal of Honor: Warfighter Review- As generic as its title implies

Andrew Marcos — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 07:22:00 GMT

After the stellar success of Medal of Honor: Frontline and Allied Assault, the series went on a downward spiral. There were some decent titles, but overall it never achieved the greatness it used to have. With games like Battlefield and Call of Duty moving from WWII to the modern age, EA decided to reboot the series, which brings us to Medal of Honor: Warfighter, the sequel to 2010’s Medal of Honor. You might expect developer Danger Close to learn from the mistakes of the first game and craft a much improved sequel to compete against Call of Duty now that they have full control. You might expect that, but you’d be wrong.

From the start, the game seems destined to push gamers away, right down to the menu design. It is the most confusing and unintuitive menu I’ve ever seen, hiding basic features in other hidden menus within the menu and forcing players to solve it like some very boring puzzle. Getting into the single player isn’t too bad, but trying to find how to customize your weapons, or even how to restart the checkpoint and not accidentally restart the entire level is such a basic requirement I don’t know how Danger Close messed it up.

The campaign is a slog from beginning to end, with an oddly placed tutorial right after a prologue level and ending with another linear shooting gallery. The whole game consists of bland and grimy environments, with set pieces lifted straight from previous Call of Duty and Battlefield games (with even worse handling here somehow), but if you force yourself to go through the game it’s only around 4-5 hours or so. The AI is incredibly stupid (often standing right in the open while firing at you), the levels funnel you through linearly from fight to fight, the weapon selection doesn’t even allow you to replace what you start with for different gear and even the destruction capabilities of the Frostbite Engine are completely ignored for even the most basic materials.

At several points in the game you get to drive a vehicle, and one mission in particular had a highly intriguing mix of stealth and speed that I’ve never really seen in a game. I also admit, even though the story was incredibly simple and boring, Danger Close does seem to try and show genuine respect for military veterans and an air of authenticity that other shooters eschew. Of course the main problem is that the reason authenticity is ignored in other titles is for the sake of fun, while Medal of Honor doesn’t even bother trying to justify it in the way ARMA and Operation Flashpoint do with the focus on realism, instead opting for the same regenerating health and explosion filled levels that make the “authentic” argument fall flat. It’s even worse when the cutscenes just seem to show how truly unreal the women character models are, and when it’s obvious the writers are trying hard to garner our sympathy. The game's few good ideas (like the dual sight system) just fall flat with the issues on display.

The multiplayer is a better experience over the single player, but it’s still generic as a mix of Battlefield team tactics and Call of Duty run and gun that don’t do much different from what you’d expect. The last Medal of Honor game had the benefit of having DICE at the helm of the multiplayer, which ended up making it fun, if lacking in content when compared to other shooters. This time if you can find your way through the terrible menu (which is so bad it should be mentioned twice), there are a lot of weapons, classes and options for you to use. That is, if you’re willing to play the game long enough to unlock even the most basic gear.

The game makes a big deal of having you play as different nations vying to win, but oddly this gives the game the exact opposite problem the previous Medal of Honor had. Now the game feels cheap and fake, with Americans, Canadians and Englishmen all shooting each other to death and making the multiplayer feel overly gamey. Even worse is the fact that this makes it even harder to discern who your enemy is and who is your ally if you aren’t paying close attention. If you even want to select which nationality you want, that’s also something you’ll have to earn as various classes are stuck with certain characters until you rank up.

The actual gameplay plays like any other shooter on the market, to the point that you shouldn’t have trouble jumping in and shooting things. The map design isn’t amazing, but it’s improved from the unbalanced maps of the last game, while the weapons are all balanced and satisfying to fire. The game modes are mostly standard fare, but they get the job done. Even when the gameplay here actually manages to be mostly fun and get the basics, the horrible spawn problems absolutely take me out of the experience and often result in various cheap deaths and kills that make you succeed through luck more than skill at its worst. The squad spawning system is an interesting improvement on Battlefield’s system (since you can’t spawn when your buddy is taking fire), but the buddy system at play limits you to one other person, which limits team tactics. Of course with the aforementioned spawn issues, it’s often better to try and spawn at a random location so you could surprise kill some unfortunate players or be in a position to better take an objective.

Overall, Medal of Honor: Warfighter isn’t so bad as to be offensive. It has the basics down (mostly), it looks pretty, guns feel great and the multiplayer tries to offer plenty to players, but it just fails to do anything notable and is brought even further down by the various issues regarding AI, spawning and menu navigation. If you’re looking for a good shooter to play with friends, I’d look elsewhere, especially in a genre with many alternatives to choose from.

Forum Post: Re: Medal of Honor is better

X-Man2032 — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 04:38:00 GMT

I am sorry to say this, I really am. I wanted this game to be better than Call of Duty so that maybe I could start shifting away from the series. Nope, this game was a disappoint. I don't go saying I'm bad at it cause I went through the campaign and a good portion of multiplayer. Honestly, this game is broken. The game engine is ridiculously inconsistent, too many glitches to count in single and multiplayer, cutscenes and in-game graphics are horribly inconsistent, and don't even get me started on the story. For those of you who like this game, please tell.... what is the plot?!? It makes no sense, jumping around plot points and characters more than a Michael Bay movie. The only credit I can give to Warfighter is that the gameplay has some good ideas like sliding into cover and peeking around corners, OH WAIT KILLZONE 3 DID THAT ALREADY, and actually did it well. The only thing I took away from this game was a depressing ending, crap multiplayer, and the bad cluster f*** of a lot things I have seen in COD, Killzone, Battlefield, and Warfighter's prequel that did not work here.

Blog Post: [Xbox 360 Review] Medal of Honor: Warfighter - One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

virtual is life — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 04:34:00 GMT

Medal of Honor: Warfighter is a complete disappointment.

Not a very flattering way to start a review, huh? I just wanted to state the truth that I wish I had been told leading up to this game’s October 23, 2012 release. Instead of flashy Photoshopped trailers of shaky-cam multiplayer footage, I wish EA would have shown me videos of sloppily designed maps and numerous game-breaking bugs. Instead of highlighting how many different special operatives I could unlock, I wish EA would have highlighted Warfighter’s terribly unintuitive menu system. Instead of touting how realistic and heartfelt the campaign’s narrative would be, I wish EA would have provided a flowchart of the game’s many confusing timeline jumps. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The point is, Danger Close and EA were given the perfect opportunity to improve upon the franchise’s 2010 reboot, and they dropped the ball: the few genuinely exciting new features Warfighter introduces are completely overshadowed by the same technical problems and lack of polish that irked me two years ago combined with a slew of new bugs that take the experience from bad to worse. It’s a shame: instead of standing out as a competent competitor to Call of Duty, Medal of Honor: Warfighter joins the long list of failed shooter franchises that were smothered by their own design mistakes.

Warfighter’s solo campaign brings back the core squad from MoH 2010 to stop a global terrorist network (led by a thinly veiled caricature of Osama bin Laden) from supplying pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN, to various terrorist groups around the globe. Players switch off between Preacher, a former US Navy SEAL struggling to save his rocky marriage from his frequent clandestine absences, and Stump, the shlubby guy who isn’t Preacher. Seriously, that’s as far as Stump’s character development goes: that one guy you switch off to because this is a military shooter released after Modern Warfare and Danger Close needed to switch to someone. Although the core plot is fairly straightforward, its execution is clumsy thanks to frequent timeline changes and loads of dense military jargon. There are even a few missions that serve no purpose whatsoever: one mission comprises of waiting on a boat and taking a single sniper shot, lasting all of two minutes and having exactly zero impact on the PETN plot. The pre-mission info text assures me that these missions are “based on true events”, and while I appreciate this attempt at realism it just results in a jumbled, forgettable mess that doesn’t do justice to either Preacher’s personal struggles or the gravity of global terrorism.

Thankfully the actual gameplay segments of the campaign are much more competent than its plot, breaking up the standard “neutralize enemy wave and move forward” shooter segments with vehicle chases, drone escorts and stealth sections. I particularly liked the “Finding Faraz” mission which has Preacher sprinting to catch the titular fugitive amidst a constant stream of enemies. There is a neat peek-and-lean feature that allows the use of cover in the game’s various firefights and the Battlefield 3 inspired control scheme works well despite being slightly floaty/imprecise. DICE’s Frosbite 2 engine is used to full effect in the game’s multiple setpiece explosions, showering the battlefield with dust and debris. The one sore point in the campaign’s gameplay is wonky support AI. Your squad will fire at random walls or refuse to shoot at all, leaving you to deal with enemy waves alone; it’s annoying but tolerable. Overall the campaign is rough-yet-enjoyable and is the high point of Warfighter, but given the ample supply of amazing campaigns in other modern shooters, it probably isn’t worth your time.

The multiplayer side of Warfighter shows the most improvement over MoH 2010 but still lacks many of the basic features of other modern shooters. Players can choose one of twelve different operators in six different classes for a total of 72 different operator choices, each with his own separate weapon unlocks. This sounds impressive on paper, but most of these unlocks are entirely cosmetic and add nothing to the gameplay. That’s right: even the weapon unlocks mostly just change how your gun looks instead of how it performs. Nothing is more frustrating than finally unlocking that fancy ammo clip only to find out that it’s exactly the same as the one you have now with a strip of decorative tape slapped on the side (a crime given that there’s a magazine capacity rating for weapons). Furthermore, although the six classes feature unique abilities and equipment, you can’t customize any of them. If you want your Spec Ops soldier to have a trip mine instead of a frag grenade or your Sniper to use the Sensor Scan ability, tough ***: you’re stuck with the default abilities and equipment for that class. This is inexcusable given that every single modern shooter, from Homefront to Black Ops II to Halo 4 to Warfighter’s brother-in-arms Battlefield 3, let you customize these options. It takes away the ability to create new class strategies and reduces one-on-one skirmishes to a gritty version of rock-paper-scissors.

Despite the lame unlocks, each class plays relatively well and offers a tactical advantage when uses in the right situation. The controls handle exactly like the main campaign, giving the game a slower but more tactical pace than other shooters. Point streaks will award deployable bonus actions such as targeted missile strikes and helicopter drops, and allows you to pick between an offensive and defensive option. This lets players use these actions much more effectively and precisely than the blanket killstreaks in Call of Duty. All of the standard FPS game modes are featured, including team deathmatch, capture the flag, domination, king of the hill, and objective; they all play exactly as you’d expect them to and do nothing to stand out from the crowd (except for Combat Mission’s objective randomization for the attackers, which is pretty sweet). The one unique game mode that Warfighter offers is also its best: Home Run mode. This hybrid game mode features best-out-of-10 rounds of an attacking team trying to capture one of the defending team’s two flags and return it to a home area for two points, while either team can score a point for wiping out the other. There is a twist though: there are no respawns, which means players have to wait until the next round to play if they get killed. This forces a more tactical style of play that I haven’t experienced since SOCOM II on the PlayStation 2 and is a total blast when played with a skilled group of players. Still, one game mode does not make a complete package, and when saddled with the terrible unlock system it can’t save Warfighter’s multiplayer offering from a level far below the bar set by other modern shooters.

The social aspect of Warfighter’s multiplayer is by far its most innovative feature, offering full Battlelog support ala Battlefield 3 and the excellent Fireteam party system. A Fireteam is a party of two players that can group up for multiple matches and work together for a tactical advantage. Players can choose to spawn on their Fireteam buddy in a safe area, can give each other ammo, and can get bonus experience for performing various actions together. It’s a vast improvement over the party system of any other console shooter and sets the standard for playing online with a friend; the only problem is finding a friend who will put up with Warfighter’s horrible glitchiness.

This is by far Warfighter’s biggest sin: a complete lack of polish and attention to detail. In no particular order, I encountered the following bugs in the three days of playing this game before I wrote this review:

Upon loading my campaign save, my Xbox 360 would completely lock up; I had to go through the menus and restart the current mission for it to load
Enemies stuck through a wooden door, firing into the wall behind it
Weapons magically floating through the air after the enemy holding it was killed
Clipping completely through bystanders in the car chase segment because they weren’t programmed with collision detection
In a forced stealth segment the enemy magically became alerted to my presence and started shooting at me; I was without a weapon and unable to melee, forcing a checkpoint restart
Picking up a pistol and witnessing Preacher fire off 6 rounds in a cutscene and then transitions to my control with the gun fully loaded with infinite ammo; enemy guns you pick up in the game are missing the rounds the enemy fired with it
Unskippable cutscenes, even if I had viewed them before
Upon selecting a weapon in the multiplayer My Gun menu, I was booted back to the main menu
Weapon skins I selected in My Gun would only load sporadically
A match that supposedly had 49 ping was a complete slideshow, and upon quitting my Xbox 360 completely locked up
No sound in a multiplayer match other than the end-of-round fanfare
An enemy that was stuck in place and invincible, forcing my team to time the round out since he was the last enemy in a round of Home Run
Any explosives I deployed that explode after I died had no effect on the enemy, even if it would have killed them
Quitting a match booted me all the way back to the title screen, forcing me to re-login with Origin and reload the main menu
Selecting a point streak item and then dying before I could use it removed the item upon respawn
After selecting the option to view the server browser the cursor is placed at the options below the displayed matches, forcing me to scroll up through all of them to get to the populated servers at the top.
Promotional DLC won’t show up on my hard drive or in game, despite multiple redownloads

…and those are just the ones I can remember. Keep in mind this is after a public beta, two massive patches, a DLC map pack and four months of being on the market. It’s pretty obvious that Danger Close just didn’t have either the talent or the time to iron these issues out and were forced to put Warfighter on the market anyway for deadline reasons. Unfortunately EA recently put the entire franchise on ice, so it looks like they never will.

The huge amount of fatal glitches coupled with some pretty basic design mistakes drowned out any of the enjoyment I gleaned from Warfighter’s high points. You may play it and you may even enjoy parts of it like I did, but at the end of the day Medal of Honor: Warfighter is a step backwards for the series and pales in comparison to its peers.

C-

Originally posted at virtualislife.blogspot.com

Blog Post: MOH Warfigher is improved, but not fixed

Juanolo — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 14:26:00 GMT

I was getting really excited for this game. It looked really good, and was so pumped to play it. I got it still hearing about the review thing, and the day one patch. Still, I must say, this is pretty good. It's not brillant or original, but then again what shooters our original now these days? Anyways, MOH Warfighter is a pretty good game.

The graphics are great. Everything in this game looks great. Controls are pretty good. Story is well the story. It's not amazing, and it's not entirely that bad. Music though is good. Can be pretty good. Thanks linkin park.

If you're not the fan of story, then try the multiplayer. To tell you the truth, I'd didn't like the 1st one multiplayer, but I sure do like the 2nd's multiplayer. It's alot like most FPS shooter multiplayer, but I'd just had a blast playing it. Be warned though. There are a few glitches.

Overall, I like Warfighter. In my opinion, better then the first. Does it have problems? Yes. Does it have some Glithches? Yes. Still, you should ask can they be fixed? YES. Give warfighter a try. Story night not be for everyone, but you should like the multiplayer. Anyways, I would give Medal of Honor: Warfighter a

8.5 out of 10

Blog Post: medal of honor warfighter reveiw ps3 edition

GONE — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 17:46:00 GMT

well EA and Danger close make this game it is now 30$ at gamestop and walmart.

the campian is excellent the story is very in depth EA and Danger Close did an excellent job on the story. now to move on to the graphics the graphics felt like your were whaching a movie they were so good. the gamplay is excelllent. i havent played the multiplayer yet but i give the game a 8.75 rating because the graphics the campain and the gameplay and the legnth of the game the game is pretty short it has like about 7 hours of gamplay on it. and thats my reveiw it was an excelent game to me i just wish it was longeer but at the price now you sould pick the game up

Blog Post: Saint's Spoiler Free Review Of MoH: Warfighter...

Saint — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 02:04:00 GMT

It's been a long time since I've submitted a user review, but I chose to review this particular game because of the stark contrast between my perception of the game and the official review posted by Game Informer and many of the other professional reviewers and media pundits. While there are certainly a number of fellow gamers who criticized the game, the majority of responses and subsequent user reviews still seem to question how and why the game scored as low as it did (I posted a blog about it here). In the end, the score stands and I'm relegated to providing an opposing perspective.

Medal Of Honor Warfighter

Game Informer Score: 5 / 10

Reviewed By: Matt Bertz

Read the Game Informer review here.

What follows is my review of Medal of Honor Warfighter. I played the game on the Playstation 3 with the day 1 patch installed. I completed the single player campaign in roughly six hours. I did not play the multiplayer component of the game and therefore will not discuss that in this review. Besides the score and tone of my review, you might also notice it differs from most of the other mainstream reviews in that it is more of a personal narrative instead of an objective report. My goal with approaching it in this manner is so it's clear the following comments are my own personal views and opinions of the game while trying not to be representative of the greater community.

Concept:

There have been more than a dozen games in the Medal of Honor series, but Warfighter is only the second one that focuses on the modern era of military combat while the others are predominantly set in the World War II timeframe. The last Medal of Honor focused on Tier 1 operators and special operations and was released back in 2010. Medal of Honor and its sequel (Warfighter) are often compared to its closest rivals like Battlefield and Call of Duty. While they are certainly similar, I'd say the two Medal of Honor games focus a lot more on realism, both in the types of missions you experience and in the virtual representation of combat. This can be a positive or negative result depending on what you're looking for out of the experience - if you want a game that simulates a day in the life of the Navy SEALS, play Warfighter; if you want Hollywood's interpretation of a day in the life of the Navy SEALS, play Call of Duty.

Graphics:

The game uses the powerful Frostbite 2 engine which is the powerhouse behind other noteworthy games including Battlefield 3, Need for Speed and rumor has it...the next Mass Effect. Most will agree that none of the complaints or bad reviews were because of the graphics. I thought the visuals were stunning, crisp and sharp. The character models are extremely detailed and life like, really demonstrating the horsepower of the PS3. In one particular level, you find yourself in a flood ravaged city with rising water and in another racing down the streets of Karachi; both are visually stunning. Regardless of what you're looking at, weapons, character models, scenery...it's all beautifully created and rendered resulting in a visually satisfying experience that assist with immersing you into the story.

Sound:

I'm not really a music person, so I never really take the sound tracks into consideration when playing a game. From what I recall, the music was sufficient, but not necessarily memorable. I'm not going to be humming any of the tunes like I did with Portal's Still Alive, but that's true of most games for me. Where Medal of Honor Warfighter excels is the voice acting. You won't find a more accurate and convincing cast of voice actors than what is present in Warfighter. The voices of the Tier 1 operators, especially the characters of Mother and Dusty, are every bit as tough and gritty as you would expect from hardened combat veterans whose only easy day was yesterday. The terminology they use is accurate and precise...or more appropriately - spot on. Besides the voice acting though, the special effects are just as real. The weapons sound like their real world equivalents and the combat sequences are tense, partly because of the sounds of incoming rounds and small explosions. As someone who works in military communications, I have to say the dialogue and radio chatter is quite convincing. Quite!

Playability:

I don't know about you, but I define playability as "does the game work". You put it in and it runs without crashing. The controls move your guy around and you shoot when you pull the trigger...the bullet goes where the cross hair is aiming. Overall, the game was stable and balanced. The objectives are clear and you don't wander around trying to figure out where to go or what to do. Playability also means the bad guys shoot back and do what bad guys do - run and hide; try and jump out and scare you; call you mean names. The A.I. controlled players might not operate with the precision and accuracy of actual Tier 1 operators, but I didn't noticed any glaringly obvious deficiencies like non-player characters stacking up on doors or dropping grenades in the punchbowl. This was an area that seemed to take a few shots from the professional reviewers, so I'm left wondering if they experienced the game pre or post the hefty patch that is said to have fixed a number of significant issues. All I can tell you is my own personal experience, and that my friends was this is a solid game with zero major issues and no real minor annoyances to speak of. No graphics tearing, no bad voice acting or distorted audio, no stability issues or problems with saving the game...no issues at all. Heck, the ending even makes sense. Start to finish, the game was rock solid and ran fine. For me...anyway.

Entertainment:

I look at the "entertainment" category as kind of a free for all field where there is no right or wrong answer because really there is no way to quantify or prove entertainment value. I might think that Farmville is boring and a complete waste of time, but there are thousands (or millions?) of people on Facebook who would argue with me. I can prove (or at least defend) the other categories, but I can't tell somebody they had fun (or didn't have fun) when they played a particular game. Most of the negative reviews cited the story and the missions as the culprit for the poor scores. I think it would be imprudent to quote reviews and go into specifics...you can find and read the reviews if you're so inclined.

So the question is obvious...is the game entertaining?

Of course I can only tell you what I think, and I think it was a compelling story accurately portraying a number of real world mission scenarios while injecting a degree of the human element and emotional strain into the story. Was it as sensational as Call of Duty...no, probably not. But it didn't try to be. It focuses more on realism. It would be like reading a history book and putting it down and saying, "Wow, that was a boring story. They used muskets instead of AK-47s. The story would've been better if they used AK-47s."

I enjoyed Medal of Honor Warfighter. I wouldn't classify it as "fun" based on the subject matter (in fact there was a rather emotional bit that tugged at my heartstrings) but I would say it was enjoyable and that I was entertained with it. It's only the second game in the modern era of the series, so claims of it being "more of the same" are unfounded and unfair, unless of course the game isn't evaluated on its own merits and instead grouped into the collective Call of Duty clone category. But if that's the case, then why does each chapter in the Halo series tend to be successful - aren't they essentially more of the same? The other danger with comparing a game to others in the same genre - what about gamers who might be new to gaming, new to the genre or haven't played that many other games...what would they think about this game if they haven't played 20 or 30 similar titles like it before? Would it be good then?

According to the Game Informer review chart, a score of 5 suggests the game is flawed. Evaluating the Warfighter as a standalone product without being rated against its predecessor or similarly themed games, there is no way you can convince me it is "flawed", certainly not with the patches installed. Some might not have been entertained by it, but there are plenty of others who are/were, including yours truly. It's far from flawed.

Replay:

As previously noted, I didn't play the multiplayer mode, so any replay value would in all probability would come from playing this element of the game. Once you finish the single player campaign, I'd say the replay value is fairly low, unless of course you like breaching doors, because you certainly get to do that a bunch. Medal of Honor Warfighter is like a good movie - you watch it once and you're satisfied with the experience...but it's not one of the classics you'll bust out every year, blow the dust off and play again just to remember the good old days.

HIGHS:

Genre Blurring - I am a huge fan of genre blurring and even mentioned it as a concept I hope to see further explored in future generations of gaming. Genre blurring is a generic term that can encompass a number of different combinations, but Warfighter implements it by merging the traditional First Person Shooter (FPS) with a couple segments that are more akin to driving simulators or racing games. I know some gamers who didn't like this feature, but I thought the scenes were brilliant. In one instance you're driving an old beat up pick-up truck trying to chase down a contact of interest. As you careen around corners, take to pedestrian pathways and send the residents of this densely populated town dodging for cover, I actually felt the stress of the moment; in another very similar scenario, but this time you're behind the wheel of a sports car, you're trying to outrun a number of other cars filled with goons pursuing you to eliminate you. You get to zoom through parking garages and busy highways trying to elude capture...it reminded me of a few scenes from the Transporter. Again, I realize not everybody will like this feature, but I thought it was creative and original...and I really enjoyed it. Definitely a change of pace for the traditional military FPS.

Military Tribute - One of the things I loved most about the last Medal of Honor game was the tribute to the military at the end of game during the scroll of the credits. Well, Warfighter's tribute is broader and bolder this time around, and once again I appreciate Danger Close and Electronic Arts for including it in the game. If we're being honest here, I think it's slightly irritating when some developers who aren't necessarily supporters of the military have no problem profiting off of games that recreate war and this experience (they know who they are). Warfighter even takes it one step further with showing the personal life of one of the characters and the strain it has on the relationship with his family, and also recreates a military funeral procession that includes the memorable folding of the flag observance before it is presented to the family. I attended a memorial service at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Hawaii) in 2005 for a group of SEALS who were killed in Afghanistan that included Medal of Honor recipient LT Murphy. It was a somber and solemn experience...one that I will never forget...one that a video game could never truly recreate, but one that Medal of Honor Warfighter gets as close to the real thing as you're ever going to experience from a video game.

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYYdOQ8RvM]

LOWS:

Day 1 Patch - The whole release and patch concept is becoming fairly common. For example, I picked up Halo 4 and Black Ops II at the midnight release, ran home and went to play them...but only after waiting for the games to auto update. Granted, their patches might not have been as extensive as the one for Warfighter was, but condemning a game because it released a major patch the same day the game releases seems kind of spiteful. It doesn't seem like all that long ago we got mad when games released and were full of bugs and it took months to get a patch on the street. Now we're mad because it ships without all the newest changes and fixes? I dunno...obviously I can't defend this practice, but I'm certainly not going to miss out on a decent game in protest of games that require a day of release patch.

Length - Because of the negative reviews and the fact the game had a fairly short campaign I initially opted out of buying the game and decided to rent it from the Redbox instead. True to the claims of a six hour campaign, I finished it over the course of roughly 3 days. For games that only feature a single player mode, or games where you have no intention of playing the multiplayer mode, $60 bucks seems like an awful lot to ask regardless of how good (or bad) the game is. Many gamers who did buy this game might be disheartened with it when they learn how short it is. Me, on the other hand...since I only paid $6 to rent it...I thought it was the perfect length. Like I said, it's like watching a good movie...you don't want it to last forever. I played the story, it ended...I was content. Any shorter, I might have felt cheated, but any longer and I could have gotten bored. I was okay with the length.

Conclusion:

Despite the outpouring of negative reviews, just remember there are a number of other gamers who thought the game offered more than what the industry reviews and Metacritic score indicate. Ultimately you have to make the decision yourself whether you want to try it or not. Me? I'd give it a respectable 8.5 - 9.0'ish...somewhere in there. Chances are it's the closest you're ever going to get to the real thing.

Blog Post: Saint's Spoiler Free Review Of Medal Of Honor Warfighter…

Saint — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 04:00:00 GMT

It's been a long time since I've submitted a user review, but I chose to review this particular game because of the stark contrast between my perception of the game and the official review posted by Game Informer and many of the other professional reviewers and media pundits. While there are certainly a number of fellow gamers who criticized the game, the majority of responses and subsequent user reviews still seem to question how and why the game scored as low as it did (I posted a blog about it here *coming tomorrow*). In the end, the score stands and I'm relegated to providing an opposing perspective.

Medal Of Honor Warfighter

Game Informer Score: 5 / 10

Reviewed By: Matt Bertz

Read the Game Informer review here.

Concept:

Graphics:

Sound:

Playability:

Entertainment:

So the question is obvious...is the game entertaining?

Replay:

HIGHS:

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYYdOQ8RvM]

LOWS:

Conclusion:

Blog Post: Medal of Honor Warfighter - Getting Back In The Fight

markus1142 — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:24:00 GMT

Medal of Honor: Warfighter follows in the footsteps of its predecessor, delivering a short, mostly excellent single player experience, and a somewhat average multiplayer.

Concept: Follow up the recent Medal of Honor reboot by providing another campaign full of missions inspired by real-world events and military operations.

Graphics: Like Battlefield 3, you'll be prompted to install an optional HD texture pack. The results are gorgeous, particularly in the single player where you'll have the opportunity to appreciate things like water and lighting effects. The cinematic scenes are some of the best I've seen.

Sound: Solid voice acting and realistic gunfire and explosions keep the player immersed in the game.

Controls: Mostly standard FPS fare, the LB now acts as a peek-out-of-cover button, and can take some getting used to.

Innovation: Despite largely using the template of the previous Medal of Honor, Danger Close continues to deliver some of the best single player FPS campaigns available today. Some missions - such as stopping a small boat with three pirates aboard - are pulled straight from modern day headlines.

Replayability: There's a multiplayer component here with some new concepts, such as two-man fireteams and a variety of game modes, but poor spawn mechanics and cramped map design lend themselves to chaotic shootouts that overshadow teamwork.

Overall: 8/10

When Medal of Honor was being rebooted recently, and it became known it would be set in current Afghanistan, following a war we were still fighting, I was more than a bit nervous. It sounded like a cheap way to cash in on real-world events that were anything but a game to the men and women involved. Once it was stated that they were working with actual military to ensure that they got the tone and events right, I was a little more at ease. Once I played through the stellar campaign (and later, read about Operation Anaconda, which served as the inspiration for most of the campaign) I was blown away.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter follows suit by drawing inspiration from real-world military events. However, the actions are spread out across several squads around the world, rather than following one extensive operation over several days; combined with the excessive use of flash backs / forwards to tell the story, it sometimes feels like the game jumps around too much.

Travel the world. Meet interesting people. Sneak up on them and melee kill them when prompted to do so

Possibly the worst aspect of Warfighter is the inclusion of two woefully out of place driving missions. The controls feel unresponsive, and they're such a drastic break from the FPS portions that they can completely break your immersion in the game. The later mission involves you evading enemy forces in other vehicles; combat is not an option. I had a genuine sense of tension from having to stay on the run and avoid capture at all costs, but sloppy controls dampened what could have been an enjoyable switch-up to the FPS formula.

The new Need For Speed DLC is a little wierd.

The driving missions aside, the campaign is mostly excellent, even if some missions are ludicrously short. The campaign starts with a short sequence that serves as a sort of tutorial, and kick off a chain of events that lead Tier 1 Operators Dusty, Mother, Preacher, and many others on world-wide chase to stay one step ahead of a terrorist cell, and a plot that becomes increasingly unnerving in scale and design as the curtain is slowly pulled back. Operations will take you to a variety of settings, including the daylight capture of a high value target from a Middle Eastern market, to a nighttime hostage rescue in the Philippines during a tropical storm. The overall plot and sense of connecting the dots feels very close to the film Act of Valor, which was also produced with input from actual Navy SEALs, and the final product is similarly enjoyable.

The cinematics are some of the best parts of the game - when Preacher isn't looking like Droopy Dog, anyway.

The multiplayer component is a different creature altogether, dumping the cinematic qualities of the missions and gameplay in favor of fast-paced gunfights in maps that always felt too small to me. Unlike Battlefield 3's large maps, vehicular combat, and 4-man squads and squad spawning, Warfighter places soldiers in small maps with little open ground, replacing squads with two-man fireteams. New mechanics, like resupplying and healing your buddy with a simple button press, reinforce teamwork; however, the chaotic, cramped environments mean that spawning on your teammate is a total crapshoot. You can either end up backing them up when they need it the most, or you can - as happened to me - spawn right in front of an enemy and easily add to their killstreak.

Maps feel very "square" in shape, and lend themselves more to constant flanking than any sense of attacking/defending territory, even when playing game modes like Hotspot, which are objective in nature. The objective can spawn anywhere on the map, and with no "safe zones" for either team, even spawning with the "fall back" option is no guarantee you won't appear right in someone's sights. The result is a game that tries to combine Call of Duty's twitch reflex shootouts with Battlefield's objective modes, and feels like it gets neither quite right.

It's like the Hunger Games, only in a really tiny area and with automatic weapons, and no Jennifer Lawrence.

Aside from the ability to unlock parts and paintjobs for your guns, one of the bright spots of the multiplayer is the varied abilities and killstreak rewards for each available Warfighter. Each has an offensive and defensive ability available at all times, as well as four levels of offensive and defensive killstreaks. Abilities include things like a grenade launcher with limited ammo or a signal scrambler, while killstreak rewards offer things like mortar strikes and calling in attack choppers.

It's tempting to give a game with a campaign that can be completed in a single day (or even a single sitting) a low score, especially when the multiplayer doesn't really do it for me. It would be hard to justify spending $60 on a few hours of gameplay, even if those hours are fantastic. But a game also needs to be judged on whether or not it's enjoyable, not just how long it is or if the multiplayer compares to CoD. I'd compare Warfighter's campaign to Dishonored; very short, but incredibly enjoyable. It may be better as a rental, but it's still worth checking out.

Blog Post: Medal Of Honor Fights Back GI puts it down Harshly

Allen Cole Jr. — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 07:20:00 GMT

I totally disagree with GI on the rating they have given To MoH Warfighter giving it a terrible score even worst than the first one. There a re a couple of things that may be bothersome in the game such as the Menu and the hit placement but to me that's about it Compared to the previous MoH Warfighter delivered Using the Frostbite 2 Engine made it look great the the story was very solid and the multiplayer its awesome I love the buddy system the peek and lean cover is a great use which i think should be in Battlefield The maps and fireteam rewards are very balanced just as good or even better then CoD. MoH Warfighter may not have been the Blockbuster game of the year but it damn sure delivered and is a good game so don't Believe GI on this one

Blog Post: An Underrated Warfighter.

Platinumus Prime — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 20:48:00 GMT

Like most of our troops who return home from a tour or two of defending our freedom, respect from everyday citizens is barely given. I worked for five years at a EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) card distribution center in Downtown Brooklyn, New York and it hurt my heart to see our troops still in their regulation military fatigues come to my window to pick up a 'food stamp card' that I myself wasn't eligible for, even on unemployment because apparently I made too much money. You had to be extremely struggling and even then the system gave you the run around and made you jump through hoops to get a Medicaid/Food Stamp/Welfare card. Here are our troops, the most respectful of all my customers in the entire New York State (we saw over 700 people a day, everyday) asking for a hand out and it depressed me to think "Why should our troops suffer the same frustration that pushed so many U.S. citizens to come to my window and curse me out because of what they had to go through before they even stepped through our doors just to put food on the table and pay for a decent life?" I'd salute them every time, thanking them for their sacrifice with a smile and "Have a blessed day". It was the most depressing job I have ever worked at and I've done most jobs that most people wouldn't want to do. I never served my country in the way our soldiers do so I admire their fortitude in enduring the hardships that everyday citizens take for granted and I dare say that this game has been taken for granted by the gaming community. I'ts easy to be a clone instead of setting yourself apart from others in your class especially when everyone wants you to be a clone that will never get the recognition of the original. Tom Clancey's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier tried to take it up a notch with tactical pacing instead of average run & gun gameplay but received lukewarm ratings. Black Ops 2 seems to be biting GR:FS' visual style but I doubt it will change anything else and risk losing it's fan base. Gamers became bored with WW2 style FPS games and Medal of Honor suffered for it. MOH try's to reconnect with its fan base after the success of Call of Duty and Battlefield by also venturing into the 'Modern Combat' arena. It is poorly received due to comparisons to it's competitors. Here is MOH again being dismissed for being a clone everyone wants but wont allow to have individuality. The storm that just hit our area, 'Sandy' made one campaign mission through the flooded Philippines even more prevalent to today's current events. Warfare doesn't get more 'modern' than that. Most gamers aren't impressed. I bought this game like most games I anticipate highly of, on day one. Played it, loved it, searched for the reviews and was blown away at how so many people hate this game. Bulletstorm garnered great reviews but its online component let me down and it was a far cry from a 'Gears of War' experience. Traded it. Rage garnered great reviews but texture pop-ups annoyed me and the 'Road Rage' matches didn't quite do it for me like Twisted Metal does. Traded it. Brink got lukewarm reviews but also let me down. Traded it. Matt Bertz gave Homefront a 7 out of 10 and though I enjoyed both single player and multiplayer campaigns in Homefont, Medal of Honor: Warfighter in my opinion blows it away. Like a nuclear bomb blew away Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Was it nuclear or atomic? Anyway you get my meaning.) Matt Bertz gave Warfighter a 5 out of 10, making it two points lower than Homefront. Is he serious? I enjoyed Medal of Honor 2010 and think Warfighter is a definite step in the right direction. I admit it had it's flaws like most new games do but I don't think it deserved so many bad reviews and I found a handful of reviewers who feel the same. A lot of gamers complain about glitches and technical issues but I guess I'm one of the lucky one's who hasn't suffered from so many issues as others did. When I see that a game garnered anything below a 6 out of 10 I assume that the game is almost unplayable for seasoned gamers. In layman's terms, the game should suck. In my opinion, this game rocks. Now a days I play COD just to play alongside friends who refuse to give the game a rest. They don't play anything else but COD, it's like a cult. I also love COD but I play so many other games that I tend to get bored after 500+ hours of the same maps and game modes. Now I play just to unlock trophies and achievements. I got Block Ops 2 Care Package already paid for and am so looking forward to it's release so I am in no way bashing COD. I'm an equal opportunity gamer but at the same time I think the gaming community is bashing MOH for not being as good as COD or BF. I was happily surprised to see Halo 4 (which I'll be picking up 'Legendary Edition' this coming Tuesday) got such a high score. Be that as it may I still think Warfighter got the short end of the stick and is being treated like an unwanted stepchild. If gamers enjoyed MOH 2010 then I'd say they just might enjoy if not love Warfighter. If gamers are still mesmerized by COD, then they should keep the blinders on because Warfighter isn't for them. I don't get paid to write my review so excuse me if I don't go into detail over what I like or don't like about this game, just know that I like it or dare say love it. Play it and come to your own conclusion.

Blog Post: Supremely Underrated

Doctor Whovian — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:51:00 GMT

There are certainly some terrible reviews out there, this site included. If you've played the game and didn't like it, then that's fine. Although, I firmly believe that this game wasn't/isn't being given a fair chance. I noticed this months ago when GI was posting very little news on this game, then the articles that were being posted, left out a lot of important information. The biggest issue is that there's nothing innovative or genre enhancing features. It's more of the same, but it's the same done very well.

Even though I completely disagree with the review given on this site, and a few others, we're all entitled to our own opinions. My suggestion is that everyone play the game for themselves before making a decision. It's easy to fall in line and assume that you won't like the game, based on others' opinions.

While waiting for my copy to arrive in the mail, I was very disheartened to read the review on here. I thought I'd made a mistake in buying it. It wasn't until I started the game up for myself that I realized how wrong I had been for making assumptions.

The game has it's cons, of course, but there are many redeeming qualities. The Frostbite 2 engine has never looked better. The environments are fantastically detailed, even if the lighting can sometimes present inconsistancy. The audio is superior, by far, to any other military shooter on the market. The story is emotional and engaging, even if it s shorter than I expected. Your ally AI is quick and responsive. I'm also impressed with the gameplay mechanics. Everything was tight, including the hit detection.

As far as the multiplayer goes, there are still some spawn issues, but the option to spawn on your Fireteam buddy has dealt with much of it. I'm not a fan of the multiplayer menu layout either, but to me, that's made up for by the sheer amount of customization options available. There's a total of 71 soldiers to choose from, spanning 6 classes. There are over 70 weapons to choose from, not counting the many weapon mods. My biggest problem with the multiplayer is that the graphics aren't as good as they are in the campaign. It just seems rougher, or less refined.

You get the point. Of course, this is only one man's opinion. Overall, this game isn't even close to deserving the amount of critisism that it's been receiving. Love it, hate it, feel however you want about it. None of that matters to me. I just want the game to be given the chance that it deserves. If you're already going in with a biased opinion, you certainly aren't doing yourself any favors.

Blog Post: Medal of Honor: Warfighter - PC Review

Jockayethenow — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 19:24:00 GMT

Story
The story is your generic world police event where tier one American forces fight across the world to stop a group of bland and unimaginative terrorists. It jumps between two different stories, the main plot and the sub plot of the main character trying to save his marriage. Which is trying to get across the more human side of a soldier.
    Characters such as Preacher, Mother, Voodoo and Dusty return from the previous game. Though their characters aren’t really built upon apart from Preacher. Other characters are added to the mix but the game doesn’t do anything to make them stand out and you just end up feeling like your any other soldier.
    As for the villains of the game they are just as generic as the new soldiers you play as, they aren’t given any depth or your not given any reasons for their motivations. Overall i felt that the story was very half hearted, having some very good parts that were moving but just didn’t try hard enough to save it as a whole.

Design
Just as the previous medal of honor the game is an a to b linear shooter that keeps you on a narrow path, presenting you with enemies to kill before progressing onwards. Each area feeling like a shooting gallery where you cant progress until the enemy is wiped out, your team mates not willing to move up and help you. I found this to be a problem as sometimes the game just would not progress as it would get stuck on a certain aspect. Such as not being able to open a door or not being able to move on to the next part of an on rails segment.
    During most of the shooting sequences there are few and in my opinion sometimes too many breaching segments that have a strange mechanic added on. You are presented with a wheel of different ways of breaching, more are unlocked from head shots you make over time. This mechanic seems very unnecessary, different animations for each breach would of been fine and i don’t think this added anything to the dynamic of it all.
    These shooting parts are broken up by on rails sections and strangely enough driving sections which were surprisingly enjoyable. The game even includes a car stealth segment where you have to escape and park in certain areas to remain undetected.
    The multi-player is much better this time around. Not feeling completely unbalanced like the previous where you were constantly killed by call ins. Also this time around its a lot less controversial US against the Taliban and is replaced with a multi national spec ops approach. Letting you back your favourite unit.
    Most of the game modes are standard fare though the home run mode is a little different as it is like a search and destroy or counter strike version of capture the flag.     A new mechanic is adding to the multi-player where you have a fire-team partner. This person is able to replenish your ammo and heal you if you are wounded. They also act as a spawn point for you. This encourages teamwork but isn’t anything new as it acts like any sort of squad system from other games. It can also be extremely frustrating if your stuck with someone that doesn’t have the faintest idea of team play.

Gameplay
Medal of honors controls work fairly well, they are pretty much standard to most other shooters with days with a few added features. Such as if you hit crouch as your running you can slide into cover on your knees or prone. There is also a leaning mechanic that feels a little clumsy and didn’t really need to be there. Sight swapping seems to be a mechanic that is cropping up in shooters lately and this one is no different. Allowing you to swap to different magnifications or to different sights. Making using the same weapon in different situations easier.
    The game has a nice variation of different environments from mountainsides to water logged cities and really does give you the impression that you are fighting in different areas across the world though most battles still play out the same way.
    I did notice that in certain segments that the difficulty would spike for no reason either leaving you not knowing what to do or leaving you in the open with no where to go and getting shot to death. This isn’t helped by an AI that more often than not likes to rush into melee with you, so when your trying to recover from being shot you dont get the chance.

Presentation
The game has nice visuals for the engine that it is running on though they appear bland in some places like the weapons. Environments and in game character models are well detailed and hold up well in the in game cut scenes though some of the animations for breaching tend to not match the audio.
    The CG cut-scenes feel a bit out of place compared to the in game cut scenes and some of the characters look really ugly, especially Preachers wife and child. During these cut-scenes a lot of screen tearing would happen and also the sound would hang and repeat until it became unstuck. Other problems that came up was that whenever the game loaded up any of the driving levels it would change resolution and then revert back when it was finished.
    More often than not elements of the hud or hints tend to get in the way of what your meant to be looking at, for example when in one mission your are sniping and all you can see across your screen is the hint for holding your breath. Intrusive and not needed.

Summary
Overall this game tries to improve on the previous game and does in some aspects but it lacks in others. This game is trying too hard to be something that it is not and
ends up leaving you with a lacklustre story that isn’t really worth following after the first one. I would only recommend picking this game up if you have some brand loyalty or just want a generic shooter to play through as this is what this is, nothing more, nothing less.

Blog Post: Meh

Aragon 057 — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 19:44:00 GMT

It is a little better than what GI made it out to be, but I was greatly disapointed. I bought this for an more emotional experience, but it is just an addition to a huge crowd of underperforming shooters.

Blog Post: G.I. strikes again

General Obi — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 22:33:00 GMT

would of received a 8 in my book due to the vast improvements to the first title that was released, however the massive patch goes to show how much lack of polish this title had on release. I agree with most of the review up above in terms of glitches and quality, which most where fixed with the patch, however a few other points like "boring story" "bad voice acting" etc... i would have to say that the reviewer(s) had to dig deep to truly hate this game, those points are valued but when those exact same problems appear in another title, well lets just say call of duty, that's just okay. The problem with the game is the review itself, when u are being reviewed by a publication that is very protective of their favorite first person shooter (we all know G.I. go to shooter is) any title dare attempt to match it will be shot down quickly and label "awful".

Blog Post: Supremely Underrated

Doctor Whovian — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 21:02:00 GMT

There are certainly some terrible reviews out there, this site included. If you've played the game and didn't like it, then that's fine. Although, I firmly believe that this game wasn't/isn't being given a fair chance. I noticed this months ago when GI was posting very little news on this game, then the articles that were being posted, left out a lot of important information. The biggest issue is that there's nothing innovative and doesn't present any genre-enhancing features. It's more of the same, but it's the same done very well.

Blog Post: Great Game

Eric — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 19:35:00 GMT

I will never understand how this game got a lower rating that the previous Medal of Honor game that was released. This one is so much better. Great game, terrible review.

Blog Post: (Short) Medal of Honor Warfighter Review

BULLETSnZOMBIES — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 22:21:00 GMT

IGN giving this game a 4.0 rating is really pathetic, honestly. This game may not revolutionize it's genre but I does offer the player a lot of fun. The game is well-balanced and is easy to pick up and play. ...I guess that's not something they're interested in. The single player campaigns are kind of dull, no real emotion is captured, but the story is really good. The cut-scenes are enjoyable. I really like "Preacher" and his comrades. I feel for his family. I see their pain. I like that about the story.

(Single player) The AI is dumb, which is something that throws it off. The enemy is attracted to the player far too often for my liking. Teammates don't take down their targets as well as they should, being elite soldiers and such...

The multi-player doesn't do anything extravagant; it doesn't need to; it's pretty solid. Yes, the hit-detection may be off slightly but that can be fixed. It's not broken. Not even slightly. The classes are enjoyable, balanced. The maps are not unforgettable. They're on par with CoD, in my opinion. They're not BF3 big, by any means, but it's also not that type of FPS. Fire teams is clearly the best thing about this game. Playing with a buddy never felt so cohesive.

The menus could be more streamlined. Navigating the menus is slow and clunky. Selecting your class and load outs is sometimes a pain, often sending you back to the MP menu. Battlefield's menus are no picnic, either. They're slightly worse than BF3's, in my honest opinion.

PROS:

Balanced Multi-player

Story (How it's captured)

Fireteam

Graphics

Kill-streak Rewards

Small Learning Curve

CONS:

Hit-detection

Short, linear missions

Bad Menu Layout

Overall: 8.3

Blog Post: Much to my amazement.

tribeKreaTIV — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 17:01:00 GMT

Well, I knew this game wouldn't really live up to the expectations of some people. Everyone expected this game to be so much more and it's sad that it did fail on some levels of design. Overall I believe this game, even in the finished state that it is in, has the potential to be so much more. Single player is good. I do like how they humanize "Preacher". He is a "man" after all with family. But this review is more for the multiplayer. Fast paced, team-oriented objectives are what drive this game to be great. There are some hickups but considering that this game will only have a cult following, they will be overlooked. I love the weapon customization. Game types are fresh and entertaining. So maps have your usual choke points but it call for people to become strategic and find a way through! So if you enjoy something fresh and new you will enjoy this game. If you enjoy the same old formula that has become stale and redundant, I would suggest that you stick to COD.

Blog Post: Warfighter: Underrated, but still Shines

Eagle Six — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 23:59:00 GMT

So, we've all read the GameInformer review. But is it really all that fair?

First of all, let's start with Multiplayer. Now, I haven't had a terribly large amount of time in on this, but what I have played, it stands out from Call of Duty and Battlefield. The game allows you to play as several classes, each one with their own role, and each with several fully customisable weapons at their disposal (please pardon any and all grammar and spelling errors, as for some reason I cannot fix them while using the GameInformer.com post-creating system). While none of the Special Forces you can play as have unique weapons, they all have unique sounds, appearances, and let you represent your country with pride. Like Call of Duty, there are no vehicles, but there is a score-chain system that allows you to use one-off items like UAVs, Jammers, and Apache helicopters. Unlike Call of Duty, however, every class has unique score-chain unlocks. Like Battlefield, however, players are focused on teamwork both inside of two-man "fireteams" and the entire group.

The fire-team system is, in of itself, something unique to video games. While Ghost Recon: Future Soldier did have a buddy system, it was poorly implemented and your squadmate was practically useless unless you had VIOP coordination, and even then he couldn't do much without the right equipment. In Warfighter, not only do you have eyes on your partner at all times (unless playing hardcore mode, which disables the HUD and several other things), but you are also able to be healed and resupplied at your partner, while doing the same thing to him. To also encourage teamwork, squadmates instantly respawn (this is a tad bugged at this point) to your side if you kill the one who kills them under a time-limit of about five-ten seconds.

The game-modes are pretty standard fare for a wargame, to be honest. However, where it stands out is its "Combat Mission". Like the 2010 release, the Combat Mission gameplay tells a story-one side is attacking three objectives, and the other is defending. Unlike Rush, however, in the background you can hear radio transmissions and such that detail why you are on the ground, and what the objective is (while also subtly hinting at new routes in or weaknesses in the enemy's defensive line). Here we see the gameplay working about as smoothly as Battlefield 3's. It's crisp, clean, and effective. There is some minor hit-boxing errors, but that is mostly due to server-side or client-side lag, not so much because of errors in programming. Snipers are slightly over-powered at this point of release given their powerful full-automatic side arm (note that all sidearms have infinite reload ammo), a full automatic G18 pistol. Also note the Spec Ops being a tad over-powered as well, given their deadly Remington 870 shotgun backup. Speaking of classes, each one has its own special ability. These are typically balanced and short lived, which will force the player to use them sparingly and wisely, often times to the benefit of the team than of the one.

Now we move on to the beef of the game, the story. Unlike what GameInformer says, I feel that the campaign shines. While the story-line is a tad convulted at the very beginning, it begins to become clear by the end of it. Without as much spoilers as possible, the story-line features the characters from the 2010 reboot back again for another tour. Uncovering a new Jihadist weapon (props to the Danger Close team to actually calling them Jihadists rather than "icky Middle Eastern baddies" or the Russians), the team must hunt down what is going on. However, something goes sour and one of the two main characters, Preacher, is wounded. While the game does go over the effects of war on families, its one weakness is that it doesn't do it strongly enough. It does, if you're the kind of person who gets into the game at an emotional level, do a pretty fair job of making you feel bad for the wives of both Preacher and his SEAL buddy, Mother. The story takes you to several hot spots, allows you to play modified versions of real-life special forces operations, and gives you a solid six-to-eight hours of campaign fun featuring solid game play and incredibly addictive driving levels.

Finally, we hit graphics and bugs. Like GameInformer said, this area is spot on. Frostbite 2 is back, and is even better than it is in Battlefield 3. Bugs, however, are troublesome, but they are fixable and in no-way game-breaking, but rather just annoying. I'd like to remind everyone that is not fair to a game to review it at the beginning of its lifespan and then write it off because they didn't do enough to fix it. For instance, Battlefield 3 was exceptional, but had dozens of glitches and fixes worth working on. Over time, it has become the PC gamer's juggernaut. The same will happen with Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

So, I say give Warfighter a try yourself before damning it. It may turn out to be your shooter of the year. It is for me, and no matter how good Zombies is in Black Ops II, I will not rate it below.

Blog Post: Great single player makes up for bad multiplayer

offbtdrummr — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 19:58:00 GMT

As a person who plays the single player part of a game first, I thought that MoH: Warfighter was rather good. I have no real complaints about the games single player. The story was just as good as any other modern FPS. I personally think that it was better than Battlefield 3. However, once I started playing multiplayer, i found the setup rather confusing. For some reason, the graphics on multiplayer are alot worse than the singleplayer modes graphics. It almost seems like Frostbite 2 wasnt even used for the multiplayer. To sum it up, if your going to get MoH: Warfighter, get it for the singleplayer campaign, not for the multiplayer.