Medal of Honor: Warfigher, The Epitome of What’s Wrong

Duncan Kennedy, Source Article: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2012/10/27/medal-of-honor-warfighter-review

It used to be that First Person Shooters were a genre of reflex and decisions. Levels were linear, sure, but you had a choice of how to go about them. It’s the deliberation of “Do I tough it out and use just my pistol, or do I take the easy route and use all of my rockets and grenades?”. Those were the good times. Now all we have to look forward to is railroaded experiences with little to no choice or skill needed.

            Medal of Honor:Warfigher (MoH:WF) is the latest in a long line of Medal of Honor titles, originally a franchise that prided itself on its accuracy and compelling gameplay. The latest game is a poorly made excuse of millions of dollars. Perhaps the worst outcome of this game was the fact that it still sold amazingly. Despite mediocre reviews from all over the industry, it still secured the top spot in the UK. Does this blame fall on EA, who funded the project and published it, or does it fall on Danger Close Games, the studio that developed the game? Perhaps neither, it seems that the consumer base as a whole is the problem.

            The issue of masses of people buying mediocre products isn’t new, but it’s getting worse, and it creates a negative feedback-loop that might seriously harm the industry. It works like this; A company rushes out a poorly made game of the current popular genre. With the aid of forceful marketing and massive amounts of hype, the game sells like hot-cakes. Regularly, the game would never make a sequel, as consumers would see the poor quality of the game they just bought, but in the case of established franchises like Call of Duty and Metal of Honor, consumers remember the great games of the past and are “willing to tough it out” until the next game. This allows the big company to rush production on another poorly made sequel and forcefully market it to result in massive sales. Not only does this lower the standard of the industry as a whole, but it dumbs down the consumer base and makes it harder for other games to sell without adding in features to make it “more like Call of Duty”.

We’re seeing games with unnecessary multi-player modes. We’re seeing mechanics that have been done to death. Until games like Medal of Honor: Warfighter are no longer met with amazing sales, we’re going to have to settle for the same “Modern Warfare” shooter quarter after quarter.