Even their controversy, which never seemed entirely unintentional, ended as a bungled embarrassment for EA. But where Call of Duty was at times reserved, other times ridiculous, other times disturbing and always riveting, Medal of Honor stays skin-deep. Medal of Honor seemed to be parroting Call of Duty throughout the process: a WW2 shooter turned modern with a bit of controversy swirling around it. But in the end, despite the contemporary setting, the attempts at relevance, and the painstaking attention to detail, Medal of Honor says the same thing as any other game: these are badass dudes, and you are these badass dudes. Before caving to popular opinion, EA spent a brief period defended their product as a piece of art that should be considered like any other. The storytelling feels rushed intellectually as well.
Medal of Honor set out to make a Hollywood-style game, but while certain scripted sequences feel clean enough to communicate, the complete experience isn't tight enough to drive the story from one scene to the next. I spent much of my time running around trying to trigger scripted events, or wondering whether I was doing things the way the game wanted me to or if stabbing in the dark might yield the same result. That isn't to say that the game doesn't have its moments-the scene where the Rangers are heading to the front, trying to hide their nerves with aggression before they're ambushed stands out, as does a confused goat herder looking into the headlights of the first special forces into Bagrah.īut the gameplay itself is not clean. And ultimately, the game tells a story that despite its best intentions, fails to do the one thing that would have justified their contemporary context. The game they made, however, contains none of the willingness to engage with the bitter realities of the war in Afghanistan that the early controversy suggested. MORE ON Medal of Honor: Marc Ambinder: The Story Behind 'Medal Of Honor' Conor Friedersdorf: Playing as the Enemy Ta-Nehisi Coates: Osama Bin Laden as Protagonist
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