From above, it just looked like specks of white in a green field. Night vision has that effect from afar. It zoomed in, showing the specks to be goats and a man, sitting among them, on a boulder. The camera shifted again, now removing the green overlay and showing the same man from a few meters away on the ground. A radio transmission came in, with a male voice quietly asking if he should take the man out.

"Negative," another voice replied. From behind the herder, a figure rose up, wrapping his arms around the man's neck, slowly putting him to sleep. He was an innocent civilian; he had nothing to do with the war. Part of being a soldier means not harming innocents, which is something that Medal of Honor tries to replicate.

Suddenly, a weapon rose into view, and several other men stood to their feet. They were an elite squad of Tier 1 operators, the "scalpel" of the war, sent into The Shah-i-Kot Valley of Afghanistan to take down gun emplacements before Army Rangers invaded the area. The player, codenamed Rabbit (due to his having nine children), stood up and looked around, inspecting his other squadmates: Preacher, Mother, and Voodoo, before moving towards the objective. When creating the The Shah-i-Kot Valley in Medal of Honor, EA built it based on hundreds of photographs taken of the area. The images themselves were taken by actual Tier 1 operators, serving as consultants to the developers during the creation of the game. In order to properly replicate and, in a way, respect the soldiers, they're going to the source, assuring that their game is close to reality, to a point. Executive producer Greg Goodrich was sure to emphasize this importance on several occasions, explaining that they're trying to make everything as realistic as possible without giving away information that might hurt the armed forces.



The realism doesn't extend too deeply into the gameplay, however. That's not Medal of Honor's style. Combat looks reminiscent of just about every other modern FPS on the market, sharing similarities to the Call of Duty series, though with much more attention to detail. Bringing up iron sights will lock on to an enemy, as it does in CoD, and it looks like enemies go down in approximately the same number of hits. There will also be segments where the player takes the role of an Army Ranger, with dozens of enemies on screen at once. They are they "sledgehammer" to the Tier 1's "scalpel," but that's not what we were watching. We were looking at Tier 1.

The squad continued moving through the valley, occasionally stopping to take down enemies, or plant explosives to allow air support to continue laying down fire on a city in the distance. Once they did, the player turned and looked at the sky, seeing an AC-130 fire. The scope was much larger than most FPSs attempt, even if the graphics were still very rough in the pre-alpha build we were seeing. "The easiest thing in the world is making a game look good," Goodrich commented, "we can do that after it's fun to play. Doing it the other way around doesn't make sense." This had better be true, since it was obvious the game was extremely unfinished. Most character models were clones of each other (which explains some stuff from our Frame by Frame of the trailer a few months back) and all of the voice work was temporary. It didn't look bad, per say, just not done.

Even so, there were still wonderful looking moments. Later in the level, the AC-130 came back after the player painted a squad of tanks moving in on their location. Its guns changed their focus, blew them apart, and went on its way. It was awesome, reminiscent of some of the more epic moments from other modern warfare simulations. Rabbit then continued on a path, turned a corner, and was bashed in the face by an opponent. As he scrambled to get up the game slowed down, the insurgent turned, aimed... and was shot in the head. One of Rabbit's squadmates helped him up, mumbling "You're welcome" before continuing on the mission.

They are constantly sending builds of the game and videos of gameplay to the men who were actually a part of the battles they're trying to replicate. These real-life experts, in a way, have creative control, and can draw the line whenever they want. If things get too realistic, and there's fear that they might actually give things away, the Tier 1 operators can say no, and EA will take it out. Besides that, they'll go to them for cosmetic changes, trying to make everything more authentic. Early on, they heard back was that there was too much chatter during the game, as the rehearsed actions of the Tier 1 operators let them work in complete silence. To this, Greg said that they asked what they were thinking, and what they would have said if they were able to speak. The same goes for their weapons, since few actual Special Operations soldiers would use fully automatic weapons. "I want to know where every bullet goes," one told Goodrich. "What do I need an automatic weapon for?" They took this insight to heart, and while they weren't about to remove the feature forever, they added in the option to let players choose between automatic and semi automatic. It's not a unique element, that's to be sure, but it shows the developer's commitment to taking the consultant's words and putting them into the game.

With what looks like an impressive singleplayer campaign and Battlefield creator DICE heading development of the multiplayer, it looks like EA might have what it takes to create the next big modern shooter. With their help, Medal of Honor could return to the glory days, bringing the FPS to a different level.

Medal of Honor is due out this fall for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.