Since the original release of Medal of Honor for the Playstation 1 in 1999, the war-themed shooter genre has erupted into an onslaught of competition and rivalries. Franchises have begun and died off; some have improved while the less capable become forgettable impulse-buy fodder. Most recently the industry has focused its eye on the Modern Warfare series for propelling the genre into contemporary time. Modern Warfare 2 has gone on to be the best selling video game of all time and its juggernaut of PR and reception makes it difficult to look past its supposed competition.

So when I say “a Medal of Honor reboot is coming out this year” most people reply with “What is Call of Duty doing?” Although an unfortunate fact of the consumer base, it’s difficult to persuade people on a product they’ve never seen before. This is why back in May, Electronic Arts flew myself, along with a few dozen other journalists to see single player, and play multiplayer. Based off of my personal experience of seeing the campaign, and playing the multiplayer extensively, I can say there is not a doubt in my mind that Medal of Honor will dethrone Call of Duty this fall.

Now that’s an obviously very bold statement to make about one of the biggest franchises in video game history, so I should explain where I’m coming from. First of all, the game’s single player is being handled by EALA, and takes place during the early phases of the Iraq War (2003/2002) before it was even called the Iraq War. Medal of Honor doesn’t hide from its recent history, so you’ll be hearing about reasons why the war started, and you’ll know you’re fighting the Taliban and Osama Bin Landen. On the flipside of that, the developers assured us that the game is not trying to make a political statement, they just want to make a good game.

Medal of Honor takes place in Afghanistan 2003

The meat and potatoes of the game are split up over multiple characters. EALA only confirmed that you’ll be playing as both the Army Rangers and Tier 1 Operatives, but hinted at the fact that there would be multiple characters past these two. Greg Goodrich of EALA compared the Tier 1 operatives as the “Scapel,” a group of highly trained and deadly warriors who covertly infiltrate enemy lines and tip the balance in our favor. The Army Rangers act as the “Sledgehammer,” an unadulterated force that can bring down the thunder when required.

Despite the promise that there will be multiple characters, the real focus is on these Tier 1 Operatives. The rank “Tier 1” actually exists in the real American Army, but goes by a codename that most civilians do not know about. EALA did extensive research on this rank, the people in it, and even got a chance to speak directly to a few people who served under this elite title. The influence of speaking to these soldiers has apparently affected how the game was designed. The team is steadfast in creating a war game that is both respectful to the individuals portrayed in it as well as making it enjoyable to play through.

Speaking of which, how does the campaign work? For the most part it plays out as a linear first person shooter. In each mission you have set objectives that have to be completed in the order they’re given to you. What’s different about Medal of Honor compared to other competitors is that it isn’t as focused on set pieces. The minute-to-minute gameplay is more tactical and can play out differently depending how you approach situations. You’ll be clearing houses with your team, and sometimes you’ll decide to take a stealthy approach with knife kills and melees, or other times it’s just best to go in guns blazing.

The only time you’ll see a door, is when you’re about to kick it down

It’s entirely possible to play through the same mission two different wants depending on how much you want to rely on your teammates. That said, there are no direct squad commands in Medal of Honor, your friendly AI will carry out their own procedures and flank/charge accordingly. The teammate AI has also been tuned to actually be helpful in firefights. Unlike previous entries in the MOH franchise, your squad members can actually pick off enemies that are giving you a hard time and overall are very reliable.

Although there is an obvious focus on the tactical gameplay and clearing houses or traversing through valleys and mountains, there are still going to be a few memorable set pieces within the game. One particular demo we got to see was the Army Rangers taking down a machine gun emplacement. The Rangers pushed forward as the gargantuan gun obliterated walls of cover and rained terror on unfortunate allies. The team eventually got close enough to call in an air strike, after popping smoke and a short wait the gun’s location was replaced with an enormous explosion. The dust that was generated as a result ended up covering the entire battlefield and reduced visibility for a short amount of time. Needless to say, it was very cool, and really pushed the graphical fidelity to its fullest.

In fact Medal of Honor as a whole looks like a very good game on the graphics front. The art designers put in a lot of work of surveying areas similar to Afghanistan and making the level design believable and close to how it is over in the Middle East. There’s an obvious rigidness to the terrain and the landscape is filled with mountains, hills, canyons, valleys, and all sorts of height differential environments. The level design also doesn’t follow a strict corridor pathway. There are some obvious restraints on how far you can go in any one direction, but it still very much feels like a big open desert, even if you can’t walk across the entire thing.

The environmental design is jaw-dropping

The more important part of the technical side of development is the Artificial Intelligence. An entire section of the community day was dedicated to looking at the AI of Medal of Honor. On a very basic level, the animations and mannerisms of both the friendly and enemy units have been overhauled from Medal of Honor’s last release, Airborne. Every AI now has a variety of movement abilities, they can still walk and run, but they’ve also added full-on sprints as well as limps and crawls after being shot. Even whilst running, the AI will react to nearby fire by attempting to duck away from the bullets or make a sharp turn to avoid incoming fire.

In the event the AI does get caught by a bullet, there is realistic implementation of hit-detection. Every unit has a different animation depending on where it was shot and how lethal of a hit it was. Units that manage to hold on to dear life will attempt to limp away, or if shot in the stomach they will curl up in the fetal position and hope for survival. It’s sort of odd to talk about all the ways your enemy can die, but it adds a realism layer to the game that most other releases tend to forget or not bother with.

However everything so far is peanuts compared to what the audience is really looking forward to: Multiplayer and the big hook of Medal of Honor. Unlike every game ever made, Medal of Honor is actually being created by two different developers simultaneously. The single player is handled by Electronic Arts Los Angeles, while the multiplayer is being created by DICE (Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment), the famous creators of the Battlefield franchise. DICE wanted to make a multiplayer game that was not related to Battlefield since the fanbase of that series demand a certain type of gameplay and additions. This means big ideas such as increasing how fast the pacing in the game is and how important the vehicles are wouldn’t fly in Battlefield, but are free-game in Medal of Honor.

Multiplayer is very fast paced and tense

We got to play multiplayer extensively over two maps. One was entitled “Helmand Valley” and the other was “Kabul City Ruins.” Multiplayer supports 24 players online, and both games modes we got to play were team based which meant 12v12. We first played Helmand Valley, a large-scale objective map that had one team attacking five objectives while the other defended. The valley was enormous and had several stages depending on which objective the defenders were on. The game ends when either the defenders complete the last objective or the defenders lose the total amount of lives they were given at the start.

This game mode was a lot more similar to a Battlefield-style type of game, but the pacing of the game is very fast in comparison. The controls go for an obvious arcade-like feel and grip as opposed to the Battlefield slow and heavy inertia. There was also one tank on the map that only the defenders could use to help take down the numerous walls and outposts they had to breach to get to the final objective. I personally felt that the balance between infantry and vehicle was perfect. The tank didn’t seem all that important, but when it was used at the correct time it was vital to the success of the defenders. That being said, the tank is also relatively easy to take down as long as you gear up correctly.

Speaking of which, the other big thing for Medal of Honor is the loadout options. The obvious comparison is made to Modern Warfare, but instead of picking perks and extra grenades, you modify what type of gun you’re bringing and how you want it speced out. You can choose between a grenade launcher for extra efficient, or maybe a silencer and go covert? There were also numerous options for scopes, magazines, and other variations that can be matched up with any play style.

This man is pointing a gun at your face

There is also a leveling system that unlocks more guns and accessories, but we didn’t get a good look at how that was planned out or what the higher levels got in comparison to the lower levels. However DICE did say that any person who reaches the highest rank will acquire the ability to grow a beard on their character model to show the rest of the world how they’ve conquered the leveling chain.

The second map available was Kabul City Ruins. This map was played in Team Deathmatch mode, and it was vicious throughout the entire experience. Kabul City Ruins is a map that is designed to have no safety ever. Every corner can be flanked, every building has at least four entrances, and there is no safe haven for anyone. This forced players on both teams to be constantly moving and raiding other sides of the map and rely on their quick reflexes instead of methodically paced tactics. In comparison to the Valley, this map was much smaller but made sense considering the design was made to evoke that tension of being snuck up on at any second. The Kabul City Ruins map was not only fun to play, but probably one of the better designed multiplayer maps I have played over any game, let alone shooters.

Finally, there is one final modification to the multiplayer formula made in Medal of Honor, and that is the offensive and defensive actions. Whenever a player cumulates enough points by doing actions such as reaching objectives, killing enemies, or assisting allies they are rewarded with a tier of abilities. Offensive actions are triggered with the left D-Pad direction, and defensive is deployed through the right D-Pad direction. Offensive gives the player more and more advanced explosive actions. It starts with mortars, then artillery, and eventually if the player is killed enough they can unlock the S.C.U.D. missile and beyond. On the defensive actions, players can choose to help their teammates out in various ways. The first level is a simple UAV (that can be shot down), but further down the line abilities such as body armor, or instant ammo are granted to your teammates for an extended period of time.

This guy could probably use a defensive ability

Although these abilities sound like a pretty insignificant change to the formula, they actually make a sizable difference when it comes to the overall battlefield. If you’re on an objective map and have to rush a machine gun, it’s probably easier with enforced body armor, at the same time other play styles could choose to launch a SCUD missile at the machine gun and hope that fixes their problem. This small variation to what has been tried and true proves to work out for the better in the grander scale of things.

I played Medal of Honor multiplayer for three or four hours straight. When given the option to eat lunch or keep playing, I kept playing. As someone who isn’t that big into multiplayer games in general, that means a lot. Maybe it was because I was destroying everyone else in the game (doing TalkXbox proud, 32 kills 2 deaths in one match! WOOT WOOT) but I believe, at its core, Medal of Honor has an edge on the competition. Two developers mean twice the amount of effort, it’s a benefit that not many developers have and it seems to be doing a lot of good to the final product.

Medal of Honor is scheduled for release this October 12th 2010.  There is also a multiplayer beta that is supposed to be released relatively soon.  Look for a news post on that later in the coming weeks. When I landed in Los Angeles, I had the assumption that this community day would just be an effort made by EA to seem relevant in a majorly dominated Call of Duty market. But after leaving three days later (and seeing Black Ops recently, I mean… come on) this Fall looks like it is going to be very competitive.

(UPDATE — READ BOTTOM) This news article’s title is purposefully misleading. I’m afraid folks at home won’t be able to play the Dead Space 2 demo being shown at E3, but Electronic Arts is offering fans of the franchise to subscribe to a mailing list at their website. Doing this will ensure that exclusive E3 footage on the game will be emailed to those who are on the mailing list. Going to E3 is a big dream for virtually everyone who plays video games, but if you aren’t one of the lucky ones, this is practically the next best thing:

News hit today relating to how the NFL is running their exclusive deals with 3rd party companies. The official news story is about clothing/hat companies and who gets to make the official NFL hats. American Needle Inc. claimed they were being excluded from buisness with the NFL due to an exclusive agreement between Reebok and the NFL. American Needle Inc. explained that the NFL is not one company, but a culmination of 32 different ones. The court agreed, effectively ending all exclusive agreements the NFL has, here’s where EA ties in:

It’s a sad state of affairs for the skating genre when a brand new game like skate 3 is released and the only thought in my mind whilst playing is “This still isn’t better than Tony Hawk 3.” Although the last universally acclaimed skateboarding game was released almost a decade ago; developers today haven’t been able to match the level of quality that Neversoft achieved all those years ago. Today, the fate of the Tony Hawk series has been sealed to irrelevancy, and Electronic Arts has taken a stab at the dynasty left behind with their own series entitled “skate.” Sadly, in the latest installment to the series, skate 3, EA spends more time trying to catch up with its own standards rather than present anything new worth experiencing.

Skate’s central concept was established in the first game and is continued in the 3rd: a focus on realistic skateboarding. This goal is accomplished with a unique control scheme where almost every trick is controlled with the right thumbstick. Flicking the stick in different directions or in combination with one of the trigger buttons allows you to pull off every spiffy stunt that real skaters can handle. This allows the challenges to be set on realistic opportunities and goals. Instead of having to grind an entire level flawlessly, it’s considered a huge feat to make it down a staircase rail without bailing.

The story is also set in a realistic atmosphere. It begins with your skateboarding avatar bailing on a particularly massive stunt.  Afterwards you and your friends decide to start your own skateboarding brand. Along the way you run into multiple advertising companies, sponsorship offers, and famous skateboarders. The success of your skateboard brand is reliant on completing numerous press-related photo shoots and videos in order to increase the sales of your boards. These tasks are where skate 3 differs greatly from its two predecessors.

Fear not, the mega ramp returns

The past skate games have frequently required players to perform very precise and specific stunts in a particular fashion. A combination of human error and inaccuracies of the right control stick caused an abundance of problems in these seemingly simplistic plans and resulted in frequent controller throwing. Skate 3 doesn’t attempt to combat the root of the problem, and instead just makes the overall game easier. For example, video shoots now only require you to perform any number of stunts, however you want, wherever you want and as many times as you want. This means if the goal is “perform six stunts,” you can literally stand in one place and Ollie six times in a row to complete the challenge.

In situations like these it’d be easy to pass the burden onto the player’s dedication to learn new tricks and improve their ability, but skate 3 doesn’t reward experimentation or going above-and-beyond the predetermined goal. There are not any rewarding accolades for performing troublesome Nollie 360 Flips or Super Dude Backflips in place of six consecutive ollies. In addition to this, the game’s career never attempts to teach the player new skills past the basic tutorials. Complex maneuvers such as footplants and transfers are never explained within the career. This lack of explanation leads to puzzling instances when the game requires specific tricks to be performed, despite never mentioning them in prior challenges.
What’s bizarre about these problems being prevalent is that they’re the same problems everyone complained about for the past two years. Instead of fixating on the source and making the overall game easier to pick up for beginners or amateurs,  we’re given a more extensive “Hall of Meat” aside, and Death Races have more relevance—distractions used to bait us away from actually improving our ability.

The game does not feature levitating

To be fair, skate 3 includes a somewhat helpful tutorial graphic named the trick tracker. This tool maps what actions you performed with the right stick, and draws them on a small graphic representation of the said analog stick. This means you can see if you’re rotating too much, or didn’t flick in the correct direction. However, this feature is never prominently mentioned so it’s entirely possible to play the entire game without knowing it existed. Skate’s major detractor is its inability to convey helpful tutorials to fully understand the depth of its complex trick system. Without proper progression of difficulty, the game just hits a brick wall once it starts asking for more elaborate maneuvers.

The environments of skate 3 haven’t improved much either. The Tony Hawk series thrived because each map had a plethora of spots and locales for skateboarding extravaganzas to be had. In skate 3, the world has definitely become more condensed, but there are still long stretches of bland asphalt and uninteresting terrain before arriving at one of the few key hotspots. This issue is somewhat quelled by the ability to teleport to any of these locations via the start menu without having to discover them first. Regardless, it’d be nice to have a small skating-dedicated town or village instead of a full city with extraneous excess.

You get extra points if your entire team wears matching outfits (not you don’t)

On the plus side, skate 3 does present a few important additions to the formula. Traversing off your board is now a viable way to travel thanks to a control overhaul, and the ability to create your own skateparks is an important step for the user-created content hemisphere that the game frequently prides itself on. The soundtrack has also seen improvement with this iteration. The soundtrack features a couple solid tracks and mixes in a blend of genres ranging from Q Lazarus to Ole Dirty Bastard. There’s also a unique music option where based on how well you skate, original tracks from artists like Del The Funky Homosapien are played in the background to signify your skill.

In reality though if you’ve played any other skate game, it is the same exact thing. This may be a good thing if you’re way into skate’s depth and style; for everyone else, whatever problems you had before are still there, and whatever minor additions have been included do not make up for the frustrations and screaming sessions you’ll experience thanks to the inaccuracy of the controls. Without any meaningful additions or changes, the game feels like “skate again” instead of a proper sequel. If Electronic Arts truly wants to outlive Tony Hawk, and perhaps one day become better than the franchise we all grew to love, they’ll have to try a lot harder than this.

If you’re the type of person who likes bullets in their storm than you’re going to love Epic Games, People Can Fly and Electronic Arts’ new game Bulletstorm. This game was announced a few months back but now for the first time ever we have actual footage of the game thanks to this wonderful trailer. The game itself looks like an interesting mix of high octane action and a nutty point system that reminds me of The Club. The most important part of this trailer though? It has Nine Inch Nails, see for yourself:

Man, doesn’t this skater look like he’s having a good time? I mean he’s doing a kickflip, coach frank is helping him out, there’s a lovely watermark in the lower left hand corner I couldn’t remove. Looks like a boatload of fun to me. But if you don’t believe me you can watch this stellar trailer promoting all the cool tricks you can do and scenes you can visit in skate 3:

Skate 3 is coming out next week, and to let everyone know Electronic Arts has released a TV commercial for the game. So starting sometime next week during the launch of the game, you should be seeing this odd video on your television. For some reason I get an odd Braveheart-vibe from the commercial. These guys must really be into skateboarding if they got flags and stuff:

Fans of the Dead Space franchise will be happy to know that Electronic Arts just released the “reveal” trailer of Dead Space 2 today. Currently we’ve only got a YouTube embed (which you can see below) but we’re working on getting our own upload as well. If you like inkblots, scary images, and ominous sounding quotes you’ll enjoy this trailer: