Medal of Honor (Modern Era version) revealed

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From Kotaku

Fight the Taliban and have a beard that'd make Rubb Ed envious? I hope this is more Spielberg than Bay, hint, hint.

And DICE are doing the multiplayer, colour me interested.

I've seen the common "EA just copying COD" comment but that game needs some competition so it doesn't get lazy on us. I'm looking forward to how they are going to go about it.

I have the same problem with this as I had with Modern Warfare.

Games about wars in which soldiers are currently losing lives crosses an unacceptable line.

Modern Warfare should never have been made (First one was Blackwater: The Game) and neither should this.

Crockpot wrote:

I've seen the common "EA just copying COD" comment but that game needs some competition so it doesn't get lazy on us. I'm looking forward to how they are going to go about it.

Not really looking forward to a me too fps, but I wish EA LA well and say, "Ra Ra competition!"

AAAAARGH. Tannhauser'ed I was!

Since DICE is doing the multiplayer for this one, I wonder how it will differ compared to the Bad Company and Battlefield series' online components.

Enh, I guess I'll transpose what I wrote elsewhere...

Maybe this will be games' Generation Kill, or the real Six Days in Fallujah, the war game that treats a real contemporary war seriously; maybe it will just be yet another blockbuster shooter. It's far too soon to tell, but as Chris Remo points out in the comments to the Gamasutra report:

Chris Remo wrote:

I also appreciate that this game seems to be definitively set in Afghanistan. That is not the case with Infinity Ward (outside of the extremely brief Afghanistan intro in MW2), which uses a much vaguer "Middle East" setting.

Setting the game definitely in an ongoing war is, if nothing else, ballsy on EA's part, so I'm interested to watch how this pans out.

Does anyone actually think/hope that this might have any sort of mature or adult perspective?

Lard wrote:

Modern Warfare should never have been made (First one was Blackwater: The Game) and neither should this.

I could make the same argument for JRPGs and a whole host of other games out of Japan that oozes a pederast subtext. To be honest that sh*t is hideously offensive to me and I wouldn't let a kid near that ish lest something get in during his or her sexual awakening. Absolutely vile portrayal of sex and women that should have no place in anyone's society anywhere.

Ah, but then again, we don't live in society where I get to impose my standards on you and you don't get to impose your standards on me. Trying to argue for video game censorship while playing any video games as a hobby is holding the wrong end of the Dumbstick with both hands.

Back to the topic ...

Modern Era MoH? No interest. IW doing fine with MW and DICE fills in the gaps with BF:BC (and I assume BF3). And there's always Ubisoft with Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon. I doubt there's anything a MoH game can offer me that could match what those franchises already do.

I'd rather see Medal of Honor -- well to be honest, die and go away. But barring that they should've gone just completely over the top WW2 Comic Book Era with it. Nazi Werewolfs, Japanese Zombies, Flying Wings bombing New York, and hell throw in Fu Manchu. That would at least make it thematically and visually interesting to me. But then again that's basically Wolfenstein.

I just don't see where MoH works in the modern video game anymore.

As much as I adore "Generation Kill" the mini-series and liked the book I can't imagine cross-translating what made both of those work into a game. Mainly because it wouldn't be fun. What "Generation Kill" makes perfectly clear is that real war is a dull, boring, tedious, and heart-breaking activity.

Who wants to play a game where you drive fourteen hours across open desert, get in one firefight, have one of your squadmates accidentally shoot a child, overrun an airfield where the enemy has fled, and then accidentally bomb a empty part of the desert because you are tired and wired? At that point you are making a tragic version of Desert Bus.

I don't think any game will ever solve the dichotomy of making a war game that is fun while still retaining a adult perspective about war.

Lard wrote:

Games about wars in which soldiers are currently losing lives crosses an unacceptable line.

Funny, every friend and relative I have that has served in Afghanistan or Iraq would consider that comment ridiculous.

*Legion* wrote:
Lard wrote:

Games about wars in which soldiers are currently losing lives crosses an unacceptable line.

Funny, every friend and relative I have that has served in Afghanistan or Iraq would consider that comment ridiculous.

I don't understand why it's unacceptable. They have been countless movies based around current conflicts in the Middle East with scenarios that involve soldiers dying. Why the double standard?

This could be interesting if, as Ratboy says, this is a more serious take on the situation in the Middle East. The fact that it seems to be about some superhero operator "who takes on missions no one else can handle" does not fill me with hope though.

At what point does a game about people dying in real events become acceptable? What's the time table here?

93_confirmed wrote:
*Legion* wrote:
Lard wrote:

Games about wars in which soldiers are currently losing lives crosses an unacceptable line.

Funny, every friend and relative I have that has served in Afghanistan or Iraq would consider that comment ridiculous.

I don't understand why it's unacceptable. They have been countless movies based around current conflicts in the Middle East with scenarios that involve soldiers dying. Why the double standard?

Because games are just games-- still surrounded by a stigma of being childish "games". Even if the story is as matured as The Hurt Locker, people are still going to see it as wrong simply because of the simple fact that games are made to be fun. Making fun of a situation, no matter how serious a light you shine on that situation, is still making fun of it. I personally understand that sentiment, but it doesn't stop me from enjoying certain games of the sort. At the same time, I'm not necessarily one to let the message of a game influence my reasoning or behavior, so I'm not going to allow myself to be desensitized to the realities of war-- I can differentiate between real war and game war.

On the other hand, what gets me is the blatant immaturity of companies that develop such games and turn them into Mountain Dew-fueled pissing contests so the college bro-hams can feel cool. The games that deal with war through juvenile eyes, so as to make the game "cool" looking (I'm looking at you, Army of Two). The big problem with all of these games about war (Modern or past) is that a large part of the emotion and level of empathy that a good war movie or book brings about is simply lost or glanced over to make way for better gameplay. How often do you empathize with a guy getting shot in the head? No, that behavior is encouraged, no matter what game it's in. And do we see the results? The splattered brains across the wall behind him? The missing chunks of skull? Do we really think about how that guy was a father, brother, son, cousin, uncle? Not often, if ever. Again, in the end a game is made to be fun. Good message or not, that is what a game developer is setting out to create. A good war novel or movie has set out for another purpose-- invoke emotion, garner empathy, make the viewer see a message-- or in the cases of the really good movies, feel a message. A game based on war simply cannot invoke such an emotion, because such a game would fail. Who would willingly choose to set out and kill other people for fun? Who really wants to willing force themselves through such a wave of negative emotions? So they have to dumb down those elements in these kinds of games, and it's sort of sad that it's currently necessary to make a game about modern warfare yet not really make it about modern warfare in all aspects, just the surface bits. Hopefully this genre won't always be this way, but by the time it has evolved to such levels, games will have to completely change their appearance/ stigma to the point that they won't be anything like what we play today.

Or maybe I'm really tired and should go to sleep.

PS. I don't really care about this game, but the art looks good.

The Horde in Gears of War had family too. How come no one thinks of that?

larrymadill wrote:

Who wants to play a game where you drive fourteen hours across open desert, get in one firefight, have one of your squadmates accidentally shoot a child, overrun an airfield where the enemy has fled, and then accidentally bomb a empty part of the desert because you are tired and wired? At that point you are making a tragic version of Desert Bus.

If a game managed to pull this off successfully - doing a good enough job of drawing you in to the story beforehand so the events hit home - it would be amazing. I would buy it in a heartbeat.

I would be more interested if the game was about someone other than a solo super soldier, but still, I'm more interested in this than I thought I'd be. DICE doing the multiplayer is quite interesting. Surely EA wouldn't want a game to compete with Battlefield, so I figure they have something else in mind.

93_confirmed wrote:
*Legion* wrote:
Lard wrote:

Games about wars in which soldiers are currently losing lives crosses an unacceptable line.

Funny, every friend and relative I have that has served in Afghanistan or Iraq would consider that comment ridiculous.

I don't understand why it's unacceptable. They have been countless movies based around current conflicts in the Middle East with scenarios that involve soldiers dying. Why the double standard?

Piling on this bandwagon, and I'm active duty. It's just a game, nothing more, nothing less. Shoot, in all likelyhood, I'll be back over there before the end of next year.

Does anyone know if the multiplayer will have a fist-bumping mechanic?

Lard wrote:

Modern Warfare should never have been made (First one was Blackwater: The Game) and neither should this.

Wait, what did CoD4 have to do with Blackwater? It wasn't about PMCs that I remember. Soap is SAS, Jackson is USMC.

I really liked Medal of Honor when it first came out. The expansions just felt like lazy milkings of the name without a whole lot of attention paid to design. I never finished the PSX version and one of the expansions I abandoned because there was a part of the game I found impossible to get past.

AnimeJ wrote:

Piling on this bandwagon, and I'm active duty. It's just a game, nothing more, nothing less. Shoot, in all likelyhood, I'll be back over there before the end of next year.

To me it just seems exploitative, it's a gut reaction and I can't explain why.

larrymadill wrote:

As much as I adore "Generation Kill" the mini-series and liked the book I can't imagine cross-translating what made both of those work into a game. Mainly because it wouldn't be fun. What "Generation Kill" makes perfectly clear is that real war is a dull, boring, tedious, and heart-breaking activity.

Who wants to play a game where you drive fourteen hours across open desert, get in one firefight, have one of your squadmates accidentally shoot a child, overrun an airfield where the enemy has fled, and then accidentally bomb a empty part of the desert because you are tired and wired? At that point you are making a tragic version of Desert Bus.

I don't think any game will ever solve the dichotomy of making a war game that is fun while still retaining a adult perspective about war.

When I say "A game like 'Generation Kill' would be nice," I mean something a little more restrained than having Army Sergeants running around dual wielding sub-machine guns while calling down nuclear weapons. The Ultra Modern Warfare joke has been done.

And it must be said again, that is one rockin' beard.

well this digressed quickly...

Getting this back on track, Im not especially interested, mainly because the MoH games never really grabbed me after playing CoD1 and CoD2

Press Release wrote:

“When we first set out to reinvent Medal of Honor, we wanted to stay true to its roots of authenticity and respect for the soldier but bring it into today’s war. The Tier 1 Operator is the most disciplined, deliberate and prepared warrior on the battlefield. He is a living, breathing, precision instrument of war.” said Greg Goodrich, Executive Producer, Medal of Honor. “We are honored to have the rare opportunity to work closely with these men to create a game that shares their experience.”

“EA has always been an advocate for telling the soldiers’ story. The new Medal of Honor follows that tradition. We felt it was important to tell the story of today’s war and today’s elite soldiers via today’s most relevant medium – videogames,” said Sean Decker, VP and General Manager of EALA. “We are so proud to bring together two powerhouse development teams to make this game a reality; EA Los Angeles and EA DICE. Medal of Honor promises to be an unforgettable entry in the modern shooter genre.”

I'm curious - it doesn't sound too far from what the guys behind Six Days in Fallujah - except that MoH will be solely about fictional characters. Thing is - based on that one Shacknews piece, Six Days surely wasn't the realistic experience Atomic had promised, and given the background of the team and the current 'benchmark for success' - Modern Warfare 2 - I doubt it'll be "the story of today's war". Mind you, I don't t think every game has to be an ArmA-like hardcore sim - but it doesn't necessarily have to be the Michael Bay-esque have scripted sh*t explode around the player experience either.

DSGamer wrote:

The Horde in Gears of War had family too. How come no one thinks of that?

Because they're not real.

But Soap, and Indiscriminate Middle Eastern Hostile #6? They're real.

Gravey wrote:
Chris Remo wrote:

I also appreciate that this game seems to be definitively set in Afghanistan. That is not the case with Infinity Ward (outside of the extremely brief Afghanistan intro in MW2), which uses a much vaguer "Middle East" setting.

He got it wrong. MW2's entire final scene -- the one with cavemen ops, Hydro Thunder, and knife recycling -- happens in Afghanistan as well.

(it's just that you have to kill Americans troops in it, not Afghan insurgents).

I like these threads and enjoyed participating in the one about the airport massacre in MW2, but after seeing the game in reality it struck me that taking this all very seriously just didn't fit with the reality of a big corporate-financed FPS title in the gaming mass market.

Don't we all know what this game is going to be like? You will be doing a series of missions that involve running around shooting a lot of taliban. Or sneaking around and shooting a lot of taliban. Or sneaking up and knifing a lot of taliban. And you will have taliban in trucks that you will shoot with a rocket. There will also be an occasional civilian that you're not supposed to shoot. And probably an escort mission or two.

And when you've finished doing that for 6-8 hours in single player, you will play multiplayer that's based around ranking up and unlocking new weapons and skills. That's what the awe-inspiring 14-35 year old male demographic will pay $60 to play. They don't want to play a video game version of excellently-reviewed The Hurt Locker, which bombed at the box office.

I'm not going to write this off until I see what they're doing with it - I think it's easy to just say 'meh, aping MW1 & 2', and while that might be superficially true, you never know, they might do something really interesting with it. The focus on beardy, behind-the-lines special ops chaps might make for interesting COIN type stuff like dressing in local clothing and infiltrating enemy camps.

Like I said, I'll wait until I see some footage and/or gameplay before forming an opinion. I'm a sucker for military FPSs anyway (I've bought and played the whole Brothers In Arms series, even though they sort of sucked, as well as a whole load of daft generic shooters - Black, anyone?).

I'm with Happy Dave. I'll put this on my list to check up on from time to time and see where they're going with it. I'll keep in mind EA's involvement so I don't get my hopes up too much.

Funkenpants wrote:

They don't want to play a video game version of excellently-reviewed The Hurt Locker, which bombed at the box office.

Good points, just one small correction. Hurt Locker didn't bomb. It's considered a pretty big success in the indie film world in terms of business. Great movie though. Definitely worth catching at home if you missed it, or it missed your area.

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