Preview: Medal of Honor

After plenty of WWII installments on consoles, PC and handheld platforms, Electronic Arts is looking to get shooter fans excited about the Medal of Honor series by taking the FPS into present day Afghanistan. While this might seem controversial to some, it's another way of looking at a war that's become part of everyday life for some in more ways than one. This new Medal of Honor is not only looking amazing in demo form, it's also managed to capture the unpredictability and chaos of war as it focused on things going right and wrong in a short period of time. At EA's Hot for the Holidays press event, a PlayStation 3 demo build drew a constant crowd of editors who sat and watched a producer put the build though its paces.



The solid Unreal 3-powered graphics, realistic smoke and dust effects and intense pacing of the demo build were pretty amazing and from what we saw, the shooting action was coming along quite well. No hands-on time was allowed, but the build was definitely thrilling enough that everyone who crowded around had questions aplenty about the final version. On a personal note, I'm happy to see MOH making a return to the FPS spotlight and definitely want to play the single player campaign just to see where it goes in terms of story. Some folks are making a ruckus over the ability to play as a member of the Taliban in the game's campaign, but this seems like a case of piling onto (and making a big deal of) a controversy that might end up setting the game apart from the pack of similarly themed "modern" shooters.

I seriously doubt EA is going to make light of the situation facing actual US forces in the field and as any true war game fan knows, putting oneself in the shoes of the enemy is a good way of seeing the conflict from their perspective even if the enemy is a current threat. I don't see too many criticisms against Civil War battle recreations in southern states that lost the war and those occur with some regularity. That and at the end of the day, MOH is a game first and an accurate representation of reality around fifth or sixth (if that). At this point, I'm going to be one of those reviewers who's waiting for a retail copy of the game so I can be fair and objective based on what's playable, not get insulted and hateful because I have an opinion of a particular war or enemy force. Er, end of lecture, I suppose... back with more on Medal of Honor in a bit.