The original shooter franchise is back, and this time it means business

As last words go, "Is that a cellphone?" is right up there along with "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance" and "Am I dying, or is this my birthday?". As the subsequent explosion knocked both the player character and his team to the ground, the image faded to black, leaving those gathered to contemplate what they had just seen. Medal of Honor, the original World War II shooter franchise is back, and this time it's heading to modern day Afghanistan in a bid to re-enter the market it used to know so well.



Strategy Informer was given a special preview of the game's single-player mode at the EA Spring Showcase held in London. Not only did we get to see the previously displayed Tier 1 Operator level, but we were also shown for the first time the level after that involving the U.S. Army Rangers, who were in the 'Leave a Message' trailer.



Franchise reboots are a tricky business: the developers have to essentially re-make a well established entity and make it interesting again, but make sure it still 'feels' like what it is, and doesn't copy the competition too much. Prince of Persia had a reboot in 2008 (although that's now been slightly nullified by The Forgotten Sands), the success of which depends on who you talk to. Old school Dino-shooter Turok also had a reboot in 2008, although that was a bit of a flop. The new Medal of Honor team, comprised of veterans from the first game, new-comers, and even some ex-Call of Duty developers, is now attempting their own restart and so far... well... so far.

You'd be forgiven in thinking that's a negative criticism against the game, but it isn't, we're just reserving judgement for the time being. Truth be told, things seem to be progressing as expected, but we haven't been 'wowed' so far.

According to Executive Producer Greg Goodrich, the Medal of Honor series has always been grounded in realism, but also in telling the "soldier's story". You can tell they've put a lot of work into actualising those core beliefs. On the Ranger mission at least, the atmosphere is much more subdued and believable, with enemies popping up over the tops of ridges, and then fleeing again when faced with resistance, emulating the kind of hit and run tactics we've come to associate with the War in Afghanistan.

It's a shame though, as the new MoH seems to be at least trying to copy the Modern Warfare series by having multiple 'main' characters. On a personal level, it's hard to connect with someone if you're also playing as someone else half the time, and I think it would have been better if, on this point at least, EA had stuck to their roots and had just one main character. It is 2010 after all, if they needed to get around quickly, they could easily find a way. On a side note, this game is the fourth Medal of Honor where your character isn't conscripted to, or already a part of, the secret service (typically the OSS during World War II).

Watching Goodrich play the game, you can't help but feel that Medal of Honor will have to work really hard to shake the "one man vs. the world" syndrome some FPS games fall into. Granted, I personally I have no idea what the skirmishes fought in Afghanistan are like, but your small band does do a lot of damage, with little to no casualties. To be fair, Goodrich placed a lot of emphasis on how MoH will be a story driven game, so everything will happen for a reason. So far however, the game seems to follow the movement-slightly scripted set piece-movement formula so at the moment we're not expecting a ground breaking single player experience, although we have no doubt it will be well written.

Still, EA are fully committed to making this new game work. Goodrich mentioned how two full, separate teams were working on multiplayer and single-player, which is apparently not an economical thing to do. We hope there will be clear and direct communication between the two teams, as it would be kind of weird for the multiplayer aspect to bear little resemblance to the main game.

Graphically the game was actually pretty bland, although Goodrich was upfront and said that graphics weren't their priority at this stage: "Making your game look good is the easiest thing in the world, at the moment we're just polishing the core game." The single player uses a heavily modified version of the Unreal 3 engine, whilst the multiplayer actually uses DICE's Frostbite engine. It'll be interesting to see how the two differ visually. One thing we will say though, is that the MoH game world is more open, and has the potential to be more visually pleasing than Call of Duty. One moment that springs to mind is when you and your team climb the crest of a hill, and over to your left you can see the vast sweeping landscape of Afghanistan below you stretching away into the distance. We may be suckers for a good vista, but that will look good once it's finished.

It would be naive to think that this game would revolutionise the genre, or even be wildly different, considering it's actually a closer match to CoD than Battlefield was. Still, EA must be mindful of what they are trying to achieve, and what it will cost them: In the Ranger level we were shown, you and your squad see the old burned out husks of soviet tanks from when they tried to invade Afghanistan. This new Medal of Honor must wade carefully through the forgotten memories of games who've tried and failed to take on Call of Duty and the genre as a whole. We're hesitant to say 'so far, so good' at this point, but we're confident this title will give a good account of itself. We'd have to see the multiplayer first though before we give a final prediction.

Medal of Honor is due out on October 12th in North America, and October 15th in Europe on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, with the PS3 pegged as the leading platform.