And I thought the walk to the Wikipad demo was bad… getting to this meeting felt like I had to walk to nearly the Space Needle. All to take a look at the single player campaign portion of the upcoming Medal of Honor: Warfighter. At least the path I took to get to the hotel where I was going to get to play some of the single player campaign of MOH took me past a McDonalds. That Big Mac tasted amazing. As un-interesting as my eating habits are, I know you’re reading this to find more about the game. So let’s not waste any more time. I got to play a portion of what looked to be an early level in the game and I really, really liked what I saw. Let me tell you why.
The part of the campaign I played had me playing as Preacher as I prepared to infiltrate a compound on foot with some AI teammates. While the areas weren’t big, they certainly didn’t feel like corridors and were complex enough that there were multiple paths through with lots of opportunities to take cover for firefights. The demo ended with control swapping to another character (Stump who is new to the franchise) where I manned a gun turret in a chopper and provided aerial support to soften up the troop defenses in the aforementioned compound.
I didn’t play the last Medal of Honor game but I have watched our Editor-In-Chief play the last game on his far too big screen projector in his home theater. Obviously the very first thing I noticed was the graphics. Warfighter now uses the same Frostbite 2 engine used in Battlefield 3, a game that was lauded for its visuals. Warfighter looks sharp. Since the environments are presented on a smaller scale than Battlefield it has allowed the developers to increase the amount of local damage and particle effects. The resulting visuals are impressive.   I should also mention just how amazing this game sounds. Even on a 2.1 speaker setup, the sound in this game sparkles with crispness and detail.
I realize these things aren’t new to this game but I was also really impressed with how you can rotate how you are holding your weapon to change from using a scope to iron sights. The lean mechanics in this game are also worth noting. If you are new to this series as I am there is no snap-to cover like you may remember from Rainbow Six or Gears. The way Danger Close has implemented feels like a very good alternative to attaching to cover and forcing a departure from that first person viewpoint. There is a definite focus on authenticity here.  You’re not going to be able to unload full clips into bad guys without having to deal with crazy amounts of recoil.
In summary, Warfighter doesn’t appear to play all that differently than other shooters. So don’t expect a revolution in terms of the gameplay. The pacing isn’t as deliberate as a Ghost Recon or Rainbox Six. Rather it feels more like Call of Duty. The biggest differentiator seems to be the focus on the narrative and sense of drama that is present. The cut scenes that I saw are well acted and really convey a sense of cinematic drama. Presentation has always been a strong point of EA games and it really shows.
MOH: Warfighter ships strategically on October 23rd and I think I’m more pumped for this one than Black Ops 2.
