Can EA usurp Modern Warfare's throne with a revamped Medal Of Honor?

It’s no different in the videogame industry than any other. The moment someone has a successful idea, it’s never long before everyone else jumps on the bandwagon. Sega’s doing it with Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing and Tecmo with Quantum Theory. Mario Kart and Gears Of War echo in each, along with the sound of money tinkling into company coffers.

It was only a matter of time, then, before someone took their cues from this generation’s most successful game: Modern Warfare 2. We just weren’t prepared for it to be an entity so prominent. EA’s returning to Medal Of Honor after a two-year hiatus, the WWII setting eschewed in favour of modern day, war-torn Afghanistan.

The trailer released during the Spike VGA Awards 2009 is undoubtedly a sleek and impressive piece of work, boasting visual fidelity on par with anything the best have to offer. Yet the comparisons with Activision’s incendiary epic are undeniably abundant – air support fires down upon hapless troop through infra-red cameras, quad bikes quick up dirt during speedy vehicle sections and hostages are found bound and rigged with explosives. Sound familiar? The entire trailer is a panoramic parade of military-industrial fetishism that, after hours spent playing MW2, has become very familiar. If EA was to slap a subtitle onto the end of its latest game, we wouldn’t be too surprised if it read ‘Medal Of Honor: Even Modern-er Warfare’.

As we said it’s only to be expected, and the reason why is glaringly obvious. EA says that MOH is ‘inspired by real-life events’. Forget Afghanistan; the inspirations are found in MW2’s sales. With MW2 nudging the Call Of Duty franchise past the 55 million units sold mark and bringing in over /$3 billion/ in revenue for Activision, the temptation for other publishers with available resources to follow suit must have been inexorable. It’s horribly cynical, yes, and EA’s new title may not necessarily be the most imaginative, but the publisher certainly knows what needs to be done when it comes to making money.

Yet this ignores one very important factor: you. As you’re well aware, gamers aren’t stupid, and we can smell an uninspired marketing ploy from a mile away. If EA has any hopes of taking Infinity Ward on at its own game with even the slightest slither of success, it’s going to need to ensure MOH is a worthwhile alternative to MW2’s adrenaline pumping action, and not just a lazy rehash of the same tired ideas. We’re yet to truly see MOH in action, which makes any current appraisal premature, but it’s hard to deny that what has been revealed so far doesn’t lean more toward the latter category than the former. Hope does reside in certain elements of the game’s plot, however.

“[Medal Of Honor] will introduce the Tier 1 Operator, a relatively unknown entity who takes on missions no one else can handle,” reads EA’s press release. “The development team has been working closely with Tier 1 Operators from the US Special Operations Community since the earliest stages of development to create the most authentic modern war experience.”

Greg Goodrich, executive producer on the project, further elucidated upon the game’s plot, carefully avoiding any combination of the words ‘modern’ and ‘warfare’. “When we first set out to reinvent MOH, 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.” Sort of like Captain Price, then.

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Dangerous Territory

The choice of contemporary Afghanistan as the setting for MOH may very well be a controversial one for several reasons, not least the recent pledge of some 30,000 more US troops for the ongoing war in the region. “EA has always been an advocate for telling the soldiers’ story,” said Sean Deckler, VP of EALA. “The new MOH 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.” What Deckler fails to mention in his appraisal of the medium is the scrutiny it’s undergone in 2009 following various developers’ attempts to recreate such real-life issues. Atomic Games’ Six Days In Fallujah was dropped by publisher Konami after a controversial response from the public criticised its depiction of real events, and MW2 incited a huge furore in the media thanks to its ‘No Russian’ level. Nevertheless, MW2 was smart enough to fictionalise its events, keeping its story from being entangled in real world politics. MOH will have no such reprieve with its true-to-life Afghanistan setting.