Medal of Honor Warfighter review (Xbox 360)

Reviews

November 9, 2012

Danger Close Games, formerly known as EA Los Angeles (2002 -2010), which was founded as DreamWorks Interactive LLC in 1995, have been making Medal of Honor titles since 1999.

Over that period of time they have produced some classic titles as well as some real bad ones. Medal of Honor WarFighter (MOHWF) falls somewhere in the middle.

The secret to their success has always been that nearly all of the missions are based on some kind of historical fact. Whilst this always brings a degree of originality and authenticity it does leave little wiggle room to be overly creative and it could lead to stale storylines. This is where MOHWF finds itself.

If you are a fan of the FPS war-sim genre, you have undoubtedly played through the same setting before. Danger Close Studios realised this and have taken a risk by deciding to take a different approach which appeals to the player’s human side.

You follow Tom “Preacher”; a DEVGRU chief petty officer who is going through some heavy personal issues. You gain some first-hand experience of the extreme effects and strain that a Special Forces team member’s personal life suffers as they fight for our freedom. You get exposed to the nasty side of the secret missions and how they can really rip apart a happy family. Danger Close Games really emphasised the “untold story” of the army wives and their families.

Medal of Honor Warfighter

In my opinion it really has paid off; it’s rather refreshing to see the tormented hero at home and to watch him suffer through the game’s different twists and turns. The story truly is fantastic and as a whole it is riveting.

Unfortunately whilst playing the game, the mechanics really feel as though they are the same as they have been for the past decade. Most of the missions involve you creeping around, shooting enemies who are not facing you, or breaching a room.

Breaching is a novel idea that wears off really quickly. It involves you kicking down the door and throwing a flash bang into the room. Once this takes place you have a 5-to-10 second slow motion window where you get to take down the enemies in the room. You gain experience by taking down enemies with headshots in breach mode, which allows you to unlock further breaching modes. Besides the odd chase or sniping cut-aways, it’s pretty much rinse and repeat from there.

To make matters worse, you are always stormed by enemies from the front, in narrow corridors which leaves you mindlessly firing you weapons with little to no strategy ever being required. The chase scenes do bring in the element of action, and are adrenaline fuelled. They are not as easy as you would think, and I did get the feeling that they carried on for too long.

Medal of Honor Warfighter

Check your sights

MOHWF is a really pretty game. The levels are huge and are meticulously detailed. This is particularly highlighted in the first chase scene through a city into a dilapidated shanty town. Streets are filled with contextually accurate debris; rubbish bins, bicycles, an outdoor restaurant table – they are exceptionally well detailed and look even more realistic as they smash against your vehicle at high speed.

The cutscenes are simply breath-taking. Do yourself a favour and YouTube some in-game footage and some of the cutscenes. One really feels that Danger Close Games let the Frostbite 2 engine out of its cage in some segments.

This is what I am expecting from next-gen visuals. The facial expressions really convey the dull depressing tones, and highlight the joy and relief that the story takes you through. The weapons have also been given a nice lick of paint.

Sadly, the visuals are far from flawless; there are times where players you are following randomly disappear and reappear; the same goes for enemies and for some rather large buildings or parts of the map.

Sounds of war

MOHWF really needs to be played at loud volumes on decent headphones to appreciate the effort which has gone into the game sound. Whilst the music in-game and in cutscenes does add to the grungy effect atmosphere of war, there is nothing that really comes close to the sound of a tropical storm hitting a swampy marsh at midnight as you rip into the unsuspecting enemy.

Medal of Honor Warfighter

Multiplayer = Multiplied frustration

In my opinion MOHWF really falls apart when it comes to the multiplayer.

As always, you are constantly surrounded by a whole bunch of noobs; in this case I was the king of the noobs, running around in circles trying to figure out where the hotspots are on each map. The maps are huge, beautifully detailed, and well-rendered; vast landscapes that are almost lag free. Unfortunately, my first three maps had me stuck jumping out of a chopper or spawning right in front of some ranked-up tool who evidently only got to his higher rank by effectively harvesting freshly spawned noobs. I hope that this can be fixed by having decent admins on hand or an anti-tool update.

Weapons and rank can be upgraded and modified through experience points gained by completing the objective in the respective modes in which you are playing; i.e. plant the bomb /protect the bomb site, or through kills.

Unlike the AI enemies, killing or even hitting your online counterparts would appear to be a work of pure voodoo artistry. I was honestly confused, as there were times where I would take out three guys in a row without really aiming, yet when I aimed at an enemy they suddenly developed Matrix-like dodging skills, which only escalates frustration levels.

Even more frustrating is the pixelated mess that are enemies at range. The models used are sometimes so hard to make out at range that you get the impression the walls are attacking you. To make it even worse, you often fail to see enemies due to non-existent lighting or overly elaborate interactive environments. However, up close the same pixelated messes are beautifully rendered.

Medal of Honor Warfighter

Conclusion

MOHWF truly could have been another Danger Close classic, but sadly it feels like a rushed annual cash-in that falls short due to rushed production and poor testing.

I do however really have to give Danger Close Games a ‘thumbs up’ for trying to do something a bit different and partially succeeding with a decent storyline. Sadly this innovative step is crushed by the lack of adequate focus on core gaming mechanics and the lack of proper multiplayer testing.