OORAH SPEC OPS

by Karissa Barrows, Editor

It should be said, first off, that this review covers only the single player campaign of Medal of Honor: Warfighter.  I’ll be reviewing the multiplayer separately (and later).  Now!  Down to business.  Warfighter was one of the few new games of the release season I was excited enough to preorder.  (Normally I hate preordering games.)  I love military shooters.  As a veteran, I always enjoy putting myself back in that mindset, as it’s one of the times I feel truly in control of what’s going on.  (Which is weird, being that I don’t control when the other guy shoots at me.  But there you go.)  Of all the military shooters I’ve played, however, there were a few things that made MoH:W stand out from the crowd.  Keep reading to find out.

This is from an IN-GAME CINEMATIC. Not even a major one where they spend extra time with them!

Frostbite 2

Holy amazingly realistic gameplay graphics, Batman!  Frostbite 2, which was also used for Battlefield 3 and is serving as the build engine for Dragon Age (III): Inquisition, gives a realism to Warfighter that I haven’t seen done quite as well in previous military shooters.  I mean, BF3 was pretty, but Warfighter was beautiful.  I’ll be the first to admit that the anatomy was a little funky in a lot of the scenes.  (Preacher’s daughter’s head was too big, for example.)  I haven’t seen enough of Frostbite 2 to judge fully, but I’ll blame the funky anatomy on the engine rather than the animators.

Look at my gun. LOOK AT IT.

Research

I’m talking about how much the team clearly put into the weaponry, special operations, tactics, everything.  The credits list all those (except those who couldn’t be named for OPSEC reasons) they consulted to assist with making the game as believable as possible.  There are at least ten weapons companies listed, multiple military consulting outfits… they even had people assigned just for animating hair.  (Which is incredibly smart, considering hair is a bitch to animate.)

In honor of your husband.

Authenticity

The main thing I’m going to point out here that differentiates this section from Research is the fact that the Warfighter team motion-captured a real Honor Guard detail for the final scene of the single player campaign.  You could really tell they did that, too (especially me, as I’ve performed on more than one Honor Guard detail in my time), before I read it in the credits.  (And yes, there were tears during that scene.  And if there weren’t for you, YOU HAVE NO SOUL.)  There were also dialect coaches for all foreign languages used throughout the campaign, which I’m sure most games have, but not all have listed in the credits.  Which leads me to…

Giving Credit Where It’s Due

Ever since I started actually knowing people in the gaming industry, I always like to read the credits fully (whereas I only glanced through them before).  The MoH:W team gave every. single. person. who worked on the game, whether as a consultant, or QA, or body scan model, or body mechanics tester, or what have you, a spot in the credits.  I have never seen credits as in depth and complete as I saw on this game, and I have to give them props for that.  I know that’s not actual gameplay, but it gives me mad respect for the team and is most definitely worth mentioning.

Storming the castle beach

Gameplay

I loved the range of things you got to do while playing through the Single Player campaign! From driving a bot, to driving a boat, to driving a car, to sniping fools from rooftops and helicopters and the like, to going through terrorist camp, to taking over a cargo ship all by yourself (which was CRAZY INTENSE, by the way).  The voice acting was great.  Even the little girl was good!  Most of the missions were inspired by actual events, which added to the intensity of my OORAH feels while I was playing.

(Resolution is bad on this one, but that’s my computer’s fault…)

The Negatives

The only negative I noticed was that the anatomy was a little funky here and there, as I mentioned earlier.  But that’s mostly due to Frostbite 2, I believe.

Overall

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the single player campaign of Medal of Honor:Warfighter.  The story was cohesive, believable, tactically enjoyable, intense, and got all my military feels all riled up.  That’s always a win in my book.  I’ve seen some negative reviews floating around (or, rather, one that has floated around several game review sites… *cough*), but I just can’t give credence to much of the complaints I saw in the article from my own experience with the game.  If you like military shooters, you’ll like Warfighter.  If you like pretty games, you’ll like Warfighter.  If you like excellent game soundtracks, you’ll like Warfighter.  If you like when a game shows that it knows what the heck it’s talking about, you’ll like Warfighter.  If you’re not intensely critical of video games, you’ll like Warfighter.  It’s definitely worth a playthrough at the very least; I know I’ll be playing it again as there are things I’d like to improve on (plus, it was just a fun game).

PLAY THIS GAME. DO IT.

ComicsOnline gives Medal of Honor: Warfighter
4 out of 5 one-man mutinies.

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