Single-Player: GPU-Dependent, Just Like Battlefield 3
Built on the same Frostbite 2 engine that debuted alongside Battlefield 3, Medal of Honor Warfighter's single-player campaign is likewise highly dependent on graphics performance. At the lowest available detail settings, you need at least a GeForce GT 630 GDDR5 or Radeon HD 6670 DDR3 for playable performance. And that's at a meager 1280x1024. Crank the knob up to medium details and use a more enthusiast-oriented 1920x1080 resolution; suddenly, you're looking at a Radeon HD 7750 or GeForce GT 650 just to get by. And at the highest detail levels (the Ultra preset) with 4x MSAA, plan on buying a card with at least 2 GB of memory and either AMD's Radeon HD 7850 or Nvidia's GeForce GTX 660 graphics processor. Stepping up to 2560x1600 or a triple-display configuration necessitates a Radeon HD 7970 or GeForce GTX 670, at least.
As we saw in Battlefield 3, CPU performance matters little to the single-player campaign. A 3 GHz Pentium G860 manages to achieve the same average frame rate as a Core i7-3960X overclocked to 4.2 GHz (even if the Pentium's minimum frame rate dips a bit lower). Even an old Athlon II X2 240 at 2.8 GHz is able to serve up a smooth experience. It simply holds back our Radeon HD 7970 a bit. Pairing that inexpensive CPU to a more mainstream graphics card would likely yield a better-balanced combination.
As for the game itself, I consider it another well-produced first-person shooter set in modern times, which perhaps makes it more relatable to a 30- or 40-something year-old gamer than tale from World War II or Vietnam. I applaud the game's developers for putting in the effort to convey the human element behind our Tier 1 operators, whose work largely goes unrecognized...necessarily.
On the other hand, I find the whole presentation somewhat disjointed. The missions are fun and interesting, but they seem unrelated at times, leaving the impression that someone wrote a story around them, after they were designed. Still, if you love Battlefield 3 and Call Of Duty: Black Ops, then you'll probably enjoy Medal of Honor Warfighter, too.
