Medal of Honor Warfighter

Available on: Xbox 360, PS3, and PC
Played it on: Xbox 360
Played it for: 20 hours

RATING: 9.5/10

Medal of Honor Warfighter is an incredibly good shooter, and that's not a statement made out of bias. The second installment of the MoH reboot delivers quite a punch in all of its aspects, and it's a game that will easily stand up to it's big brothers, Battlefield and Call of Duty, and even, in many ways, surpass them.

First off, the campaign. Unfortunately, like it's predecessor, Warfighter's campaign is very good, but very short. But it's not any shorter than the campaigns of Battlefield 3 or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, so where it stands out is quality. Warfighter uses the same engine as the Battlefield series: first Frostbite, and now Frostbite 2. But the way that the two Medal of Honor games utilize these engines makes the games look and feel a little different, and a little better than Battlefield. Both game series have bullet drop and bullet lag, both have fairly realistic gun recoil, both have unlimited sprinting, and both take place in a variety of locations that can really bring out the beauty in the engine's graphics. So what's the difference between Warfighter and BF3?

For one, the writing. The campaign in BF3 feels very scripted, rather generic, and due to the narrative style, it's very easy to predict what is going to happen next. Warfighter, on the other hand, has a very well written story, and the narrative is able to carry the plot along very nicely. It isn't perfect, but it is done well enough to stand out strongly among the other campaigns of the genre. On top of that, the graphics of Warfighter utilize the Frostbite 2 engine better than BF3 does, and send the player to locations that aren't monochrome and forgettable. Yes, BF3 can look very nice, but it does get a lot of flak for over-doing the bloom effect in the lighting, and this is very true. Playing BF3, all that's memorable is running around in a few day missions that all look brown while the sun blinds the player at every opportunity, and then playing a few night missions where all the street lights are as bright as the sun, and have the same effect. Warfighter fixes this problem quite nicely, and tones down the bloom significantly while adding more splashes of color and varying brightness to bring out more of Frostbite 2's capabilities. Of course, it's still the Middle East, so there is a lot of dirt and dust floating around, and the buildings are still mostly tan, so Frostbite 2 won't really come to life until the rumored Mass Effect 4, but at least the campaign in Warfighter uses the engine well.

The "real meat" of most modern first person shooters, however, is the multiplayer. And Warfighter delivers. Taking most of the modes from the first MoH, Warfighter's multiplayer feels very tight, balanced, competitive, and combines the best aspects of the multiplayer modes of its big brother games. It's not possible to just pick up a controller and destroy everything like in Call of Duty, but it doesn't require the hours of strenuous practice to get in the zone like Battlefield. It has a happy medium that can be reached within the first half-hour or so of playing, and the unlocks and varying map configurations keep the multiplayer fresh and exciting. As long as teams work together, capturing objectives can be done in any number of ways, and it's also possible to set up an iron-clad defense against the enemy team's capture if your team knows what it's doing. Sector Control, Combat Mission, and Team Deathmatch all make a comeback in Warfighter, along with a new Capture-the-Flag gametype called Home Run, a Demolition gametype called Hotspot and a playlist gametype called Real Ops, a hardcore mix of Combat Mission and Hotspot. There's no need for Call of Duty's myriad of gametypes, either. With just these, Warfighter's multiplayer stays very fresh, fluid, and energized. For the first time in a very long time, it feels like the game was built for both campaign AND multiplayer, something that's been eluding shooters since Star Wars Battlefront II and Call of Duty 2.

Warfighter, then, is what a shooter should strive to be. If it had a longer campaign, it would easily be the best shooter I've ever played. Even so, the short campaign only knocks it by half a point, which, in my books, makes a pretty amazing game.