Danger Close Show Us Medal of Honor Warfighter
Developer Danger close
Publisher EA
Platform PC, PS3, Xbox360
Release Date October 23rd 2012
Creating the most authentic experience possible is paramount to the team at Danger Close, not only do they want the player to understand what it’s like to fight on a battlefield as a Tier 1 operative but they also want you to try and understand the impact that this life has on the soldiers and their families.
It is very easy to get detached from the real life wars when playing video games because they are an escape, but it is also good to see a developer with a conscience who understands that while it is great fun to run around a digital warzone popping off head shots, that every day there are real people out there in real warzones. People with families waiting at home, this is why the Medal of Honor series never tries to glorify war but rather just tell a story.
Tier 1 ops can often spend 360 days a year out in the field. This of course has a huge impact not only on them but also on their families. Medal of Honor has always gone to great lengths to not glorify the violence nor try to make a political statement, but rather to portrait what life is like on the front line, this time they will expand that to show the impact this lifestyle has on the family’s life too.
This is one of the reasons they bring in real life Tier 1 operatives to help craft the game’s realism. Tyler Grey who was on hand to answer our combat related questions is an actual Tier 1 op who has spent 10 years in Iraq and Afghanistan before being medically retired . He now works with Danger close and has a lot of input into the whole game from the smallest item like how the clothing colours should look, all the way to how the game mechanic should work and how the guns should feel.
I guess this is why the series produces the best shooters on the market. It is the tiny things, the way a bullet pops when hitting the ground. How a grenade blast impacts on a person and it’s why they create amazingly realistic experiences and why Medal of Honor’s story mode continually outshines the other big shooters who consistently produce terrible B rate James Bond style story lines.
One of the biggest additions to the gameplay we got to see in the short but impressive demo is the door breach mechanic. When your team is faced with a blocked door there are a number of things to consider. Who is behind it? Enemy or friendly? Or both? Are they waiting for you? Can you just kick the door open and take them out or does it require a flashbang to create confusion before your enter. When the team stacks up you are given 4 options that are quickly selected from a wheel, each option results in a different outcome sometimes you can get it wrong.
The game is built on the Frostbite 2 engine so you know it looks amazing and from what we saw plays equally good too. You know what to expect from Frostbite 2 glorious destructible environments and from the quick play through we saw you won’t be disappointed. We don’t expect full destructible environments but saw enough furniture splinter to keep the player happy.
This time around Preacher is returning home from his months overseas, loosing Rabbit, the threat of global terrorism and the break-up of his home life are all impacting on him when he is called up for more active duty this time it’s just much closer to home.
Players will also get to taste other locations such as the one seen in the demo. Set in the Philippines an based on the real life event when an Islamic terrorist group took a number of Aid workers hostage. Most of the mission took place in a hotel in the city of Isabela after being flooded in a typhoon the hotel where the aid workers are being held is partially submerged. This makes for a stunning setting where you must battle trough the water, around furniture clearing room after room off bad guys until you reach the hostages. This is where the door breach mechanic is first show. Tyler chooses to go with a flash bang quickly disorientating the captives but also the hostages. Before they know what’s happening the tier 1 ops have cleared the room got the hostages and are making their way to their escape via inflatable ribs.
While it is hard to take too much out of a short enough demo and the demo itself was quite action packed which was worrying it is a small snippet of the overall game with the aim to show us as much as possible in a short space of time.
Positives though, it looks amazing, seems to play really well, they went to great lengths to push home the authenticity they are striving for and Danger close are doing their own multiplayer this time. While it will be a global terror threat based game hopping from location to location it promises to hold a common thread all the way through.
Medal of Honor will remain my favourite shooter at least until October the 23!
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