E3 2012: Medal of Honor Warfighter PC Hands-On

I was one of the few people who found some enjoyment in Medal of Honor 2010. Even though my enjoyment was limited to the single player campaign, I was still excited to see what the latest installment of Medal of Honor had in store for multiplayer.

I played a 30 minute multiplayer demo of the game, which took place in the war torn streets of Mogadishu, Somalia. The mode we played was similar to Domination in Call of Duty. There were three control points throughout the map and the objective of this mode was to own all control points on the map for the longest time possible.

The class system has been tweaked in Warfighter. Rather than choosing your character class, you can choose soldiers of different nationalities, each with their own weapons and unique abilities. The nationalities include, but are not limited to Canadian, American, British and Australian. For example the Canadian Joint Task Force 2 soldier is a heavy machine gunner who can call in black hawk support while the Australian SAS is a light machine gunner who can call in mortar strikes and carry heavy armor rounds. The map we played featured a lot of close quarters combat, so the Australian SAS felt like the best choice for the game.

Another new addition to the multiplayer is the buddy system. Within your own team you work in smaller teams of two players. Your buddy is always highlighted in green. You can spawn and replenish your heath and ammo from your buddy. The buddy system felt fresh and worked really well. It almost forces you to play more as a team, unlike Call of Duty. It appears from my hands on time that the Developers have spent a lot of time fine tuning the online experience as no one class appeared to be overpowering and everything seemed finely balanced.

Warfighter runs on the Frostbite 2.0 engine and the game looks absolutely beautiful. Everything from the characters to the environments featured an amazing amount of detail. It's just a shame that the game won't feature the same amount of destruction we've seen in titles like Battlefield.

After my hands on demo with the game, I walked away impressed. The new MOH felt and played a lot better than Call of Duty and could end up being one of this fall's biggest surprises.

- Siddharth Masand