Reviews// Medal of Honor: Warfighter

With next to no messing, you’re dropped into the thick of things; take out a truck as it arrives at a container yard. I don’t ask why - I think it may have given a reason in the preamble, but I wasn’t paying attention at the back. Oops. Throughout the game you operate with a team, and in this instance as with all others, your sidekick offers directions and instruction; stealthily melee this poor bugger to death, sneak up on that truck and plant explosives. Hide here for a bit. Kill that bloke in the kiosk, quietly. Hang about! He’s in a glass kiosk, and putting a bullet though that glass will make a right old racket, so I’ll have to...

“Too slow”, my buddy says, and gives the man the good news himself - right through the glass, shattering everywhere and making a din.

Indisputable fact of videogame stealth; if there are no huge floaty icons indicating awareness or a magical "field of view" radar map, you’re effectively playing a guessing game.

As a first mission I expected to be coached, but throughout this segment I felt completely like I’d missed the point, had no clue what I was doing, why I was there, where I should go and how I should control my character. Having been away from shooters for a while, I needed some time to reacquaint myself with the usual controls. But with the stream of instructions, on-screen prompts and trying to figure out my surroundings, I was really just stumbling through on luck alone.

Thankfully it’s a short segment and, oddly, the next is where you’ll find the training mission - of all things, as a newbie at a terrorist training camp. This is where you can get clear, effective instruction on targeting, using iron sights/zoom, crouching, sprinting, jumping, going prone, using peek and lean, melee and lobbing grenades.

Now I feel like I’m back in control, and in no time I’m coupling sprinting followed by crouching to satisfyingly slide into the relative safety of cover. It’s welcoming that real, safe cover is scant, and you’ll often find that you’re still taking damage, because it gives urgency to combat.

It forces you to constantly evaluate how safe you are while you auto-heal from injury or assess and reload your ammo. In most cases, even substantial cover is eroded as the barrage of bullets peels away chunks of concrete.

Using peek and lean, it doesn’t take you long to become efficient in assessing the scene, identifying targets and popping back up to take them out. Carrying just two weapons, one of which has unlimited ammo (in “Normal” mode), I rarely found the need to replace either of them. There are plenty of choose from, as the enemy leave their AK-47 and AKUs littering the place.

Battles usually take place in an arena-like location - a courtyard, a wide street or a park - and are separated by sections of “pushing on” (running after your team down corridors, alleys, etc) to the next arena, where you’ll often find progress is blocked by a locked door.

This is where you’ll need to carry out a Breach. Used extensively (excessively, perhaps) throughout the game, you must pick from one of the breach methods - kick, tomahawk, crowbar and more (enemy headshots unlock more!). There’s a short “hands-off” cutscene of the door being stoved in followed by a flashbang being lobbed through the opening, then you’ll find yourself thrown into the room in slow-motion, “bullet time” action.

The aim is to take out a room full of enemy. Remember to take those headshots if you want to earn new breach methods - though, frankly, they all have exactly the same effect on the gameplay

After a few sections, it all starts to feel just a tiny bit repetitive, tinged with some FPS deja vu: Go to location. Encounter resistance. Combat ensues. Follow your buddies to the next section. Breach. Repeat. It is repetitive, but it’s not like you couldn’t say exactly the same about any other FPS - the genre is so heavily worn it’s difficult to deliver anything invigorating.

God knows, developer Danger Close has tried. In addition to the obligatory sections of on-rails shooting from a helicopter or boat, other elements have been added in a bid to broaden the experience; take up a sniper’s position to kill pirates or “pickle” targets for air strikes.