Medal of Honor 2010 vs 2012?

… ahh Warfighter. They attempted to up the ante on the emotional front by adding in a flashback-style homefront drama. Initially this seemed like it could be a good idea, but it never really paid off, and they spent far too much of the story dealing with these little flashbacks with only minimal return.

Everyone knows that it must be terribly tough to have a loved one far away from you, going towards battle rather than away from it, but whether it was the script, or the voice acting, or something else, Warfighter never really pulled off the emotional coup d’état that I was hoping for.

They certainly had the opportunities.

This is a really heavy, and honestly surprising part of the game.. but they do not let you dwell on this at all, you escape and begin to take down an entire ship full of bad guys by yourself. Even when I was playing it the first time, it felt out of place. Like I was suddenly in some revenge movie, taking it out on the random Islamic terrorist who happened to be around the next corner, instead of dealing with emotional aspect of what just happened. Again, in real life, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is how it actually went down, but for an entertainment medium, they need to make the emotional connections clearer.

… which they FINALLY did … on the last freaking mission.

This has *ALL* of the payoff. You get to take down the big baddy (kinda anticlimactic though), save the world from PETN and have an emotional funeral scene complete with Navy SEAL’s embedded insignia and a child’s flower.

The problem is this comes way too late to salvage the game/story as a whole. They didn’t get me to care enough about the characters to really make it painful to watch. If this scene had been about Rabbit? Oh man. They still managed to add in some meaningful text to the ending:

Real life super heroes exist; they walk among us every day, ready to defend our great nation and its citizens in a moment’s notice. They are husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons capable of staring death in the face, and still come home to rock their newborn infant to sleep in the same day.

This kind of warrior cannot be manufactured of purchased. They are born into this life, blessed with a higher sense of purpose, and the understanding of what exactly their fate may hold. We chose to share this life with them, because we would rather love an extraordinary man for a brief moment, than spend a lifetime with a man far more ordinary.

You can never be prepared for certain events in life, they change you, and their consequences turn your world upside down. Meeting your husband’s casket as he makes his final journey home. The prospect of rasing your children alone. Living the rest of your days without the one person that loved you unconditionally and never let you down. In truth, these men never let anyone down, which is why they are no longer here today.

These amazing warriors chose to spend their brief but amazing lives with us. We raise their children. We honor and remember them, we live in the present, and we look to the future. They knew we would have th strenght to carry on in the face of tragedy, and to become stronger, more amazing versions of ourselves. They knew we would never be defined by their passing, but inspired by their memory to live more fulyl and to make each moment we are given count.

– Stacey