I've always been a fan of the Medal of Honor series To flex its muscle, EA trotted out 24Fire hoses players onto the stage to perform a live demo of Medal of Honor's team assault mode. The map is inspired by a real area of Kabul. Initially, the audience got to view a good 24 screens, but then the screen focused on one player who was basically whipping the others. It was interesting to see Modern Warfare conventions done through Medal of Honor's lens. The player called intel to find enemies (like calling in a UAV in Call of Duty), earned a Tomahawk missile after completing a kill streak (similar to the predator drone from Call of Duty) and even finished off someone with a melee kill. Obviously, the 24 person live demo looked very scripted.

My question is where Medal of Honor will be able to differentiate itself. Medal of Honor has always been about great set pieces in WWII, but the look and feel of this new incarnation seems to mimic the Call of Duty series too closely. In order to Fire hosesstay competitive in the market, I wonder if they've thrown out the baby with the bath water. It's great that you'll be able to pilot vehicles, but the look of the characters is stiff and dated compared to the smooth organic feel of other first person shooters.

I've always been a fan of the Medal of Honor series, so I hope this does well. But the problem for EA isn't making Medal of Honor a realistic, graphically stunning, multiplayer-focused combat simulator. The problem is doing something we haven't seen before. And they failed to Fire hosesdo that in the demo.