Medal of Honor Warfighter Review

Medal of Honor Warfighter is an impressive multiplayer shooter with tight controls, an arsenal of weapons and modes, teamwork-promoting two-man fire teams, and an array of cool elite fighters from nations around the world. The problem is this stalwart Warfighter is also skilled in the art of shooting itself in the foot. Game-derailing bugs that should have been squashed long before launch make Warfighter's multiplayer more frustrating than fun.



Every time I died in multiplayer, there was a roughly 10% chance respawn wouldn't work properly. I've respawned in below-the-map limbo, with nothing to do but watch as my Navy SEAL slow-motion spirals into the abyss. Other times I've appeared outside of the designated "combat zone," boots cemented to the ground as a warning timer ticks down to my unavoidable death. The very worst respawn bug puts me in a strange prison. The first time it happened, I simply thought I was in a part of the map I didn't recognize. It was a sizable area, with a couple different paths to go down, but each was completely blocked off from the rest of the level (and other players) in some way -- a barbed-wire fence, felled tree, or an impenetrable wall of ugly jungle. My only exit was to fall on my own grenade -- a terrifying and depressing metaphor for modern warfare if I ever heard one.

Meet Your New Fire Team Friend

There have also been multiple crashes to desktop and screen-minimizing, Battlelog-wants-to-say-hi issues (yes, EA's Origin is required to run the MoH multiplayer), but the respawn comedy of errors makes those look good by comparison. Bottom line: there is no excuse for these major issues making it into a launched product, particularly from one of the world's biggest game makers. It's a crime they did, because the potential is there for Warfighter's multiplayer to be fantastic, and these bugs squander most of it.


The look, feel, and mechanics of the Warfighter campaign are carried over seamlessly to multiplayer (unlike the terrible two-engine Frankenstein that is the 2010 Medal of Honor), and this action puts them to better use. The visuals have definitely been toned down for smoother online action, but it's still a good-looking mode that runs well, and the slide, peak, and lean cover controls work the same way they do in single-player -- that's a good thing.

Danger Close added a few new tricks to the typical modern shooter formula, most notably in Warfighter's terrific two-man Fire Teams. Join a match in any of the multiplayer modes and you'll automatically be paired with another player (and will easily pair you with a real-world friend). Everyone gets a buddy, and the only time you're without a partner is when there's an odd-number of players. Your partner is given an aura and a big green marker on your overhead map, so it's easy to know where they are at all times -- and there are big benefits to sticking together and playing as a two-man team. I quickly discovered that my health doesn't automatically regenerate (a welcome change from the silly hiding and healing that's become the norm), but when I did get shot, my Fire Team partner scurried over to patch me up. Similarly, there are no ammo boxes and I couldn't pick up fallen enemy bullets, but my buddy was happy to toss me a clip or two when I was in need. Thanks, man.


Only Fire Team partners can perform these support actions on each other (your other teammates cannot), and each time I healed or supplied, a nice little helping of points was added to my score. It was all the incentive I needed to make my assigned teammate my new BFF instead of going the lone-wolf route. Fire Team partners also serve as in-the-field respawn points, not only giving partners good reason to stick together, but also making it easy. My only complaint about the Fire Team system at this point is that due to a lack of a tutorial, a big chunk of players don't yet understand how important partners are. Too often I've gone chasing after clueless buddies in hopes of getting healed or resupplied, only to be fatally ignored.

Speed Freaks

Because Fire Teams take care of two of the big support components of squad-based shooters, choosing a class is really about choosing a weapon. All the basics are here: Assault, Sniper, Demolitions, Heavy Gunner, and the light classes Spec Ops and Point Man that should be called the Road Runners. Point men and Spec Ops soldiers are fast -- too fast -- and can easily make opposing players using slower classes look like bungling Wile E. Coyotes. Their speed, combined with their bullet-spewing submachine guns, gives them an advantage on the battlefield, and it's the biggest balance issue I've encountered. It's also a design flaw that discourages the team play that Fire Teams work so hard to encourage. Who needs a buddy that slows you down when you can motor your way to the top of the leaderboard without him?


I resisted that temptation and spent most of my time playing as the mid-ranged Assault class, where I quickly grew to appreciate Warfighter's unique level-up system. Each of the classes was available to me right from the get-go, but only one of the 12 nations within each class. Playing and earning XP as a British SAS Assault class, I steadily unlocked a number of weapon mods, but it wasn't until I leveled up that I unlocked a new faction for Assault and the weapon associated with that particular nation. Each nation's team has a distinct look, so leveling up not only meant new weapons to choose from, but new unis for my Assault soldier.

It's a nice spin on the tried-and-true leveling system created by Call of Duty 4, which naturally appears to be confusing for a big portion of players. Between matches, one of the most frequently asked questions I heard over the built-in VOIP chat was, "How do I unlock new guns?" Like the Fire Teams concept, this is never really explained in a tutorial -- that would've gone a long way toward clearing things up.

Combat Mission: Impossible

Of Warfighter's eight diverse, globe-trotting maps, there are a couple real standouts: Basilan Aftermath and Sarajevo Stadium. Both do a terrific job of forcing players to incorporate different tactics, with multi-level structures perfect for close-quarters battles, and because of the well-placed sniper perches I had to stay on my toes and dart between cover to safely navigate open areas.


These sizable, fun maps are best played in Warfighter's objective modes, including domination (Sector Control), search and destroy (Hot Spot), and conquest (Combat Mission), which give players multiple attack-and-defend goals to keep the action fast and frantic across various parts of the level. The only misstep here is Combat Mission. It's maps are significantly smaller than Battlefield 3's, so the conquest action doesn't flow nearly as well. It's not uncommon to lose an objective as a defender and find yourself stuck behind the shifting combat zone lines with no hope of getting to safety before the short timer ticks down to death. These zones also severely limit movement, making the whole thing feel far too constricted.

There are enough other quality objective modes available, making Combat Mission easy to ignore, but it's impossible to get around the elephant in the room: Warfighter's bugs. Even after an enormous day-one patch and a second hotfix patch a day later, respawning into limbo, prison, and inevitable death is still far too common to be forgivable. Warfighter was clearly rushed out the door to get the jump on Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and suffers for it. Its fresh ideas could've made this a great multiplayer shooter with a few more months in development boot camp, but its near-fatal launch flaws will likely cause gamers to abandon it before it gets there.

Continue reading for our take on Medal of Honor Warfighter's campaign, and our Warfighter Port Authority.