Today during day two of gamescom 2010 in Germany, El33tonline had the opportunity to have a closer look at Medal of Honor with an explosive (to say the least) presentation held in the EA business lounge, during which we were reminded about the game’s setting before getting some hands-on time with a newly unveiled mission.

Medal of Honor will continue the tradition of previous games in the franchise by focussing on telling the stories of different soldiers, from their unique perspectives, only this time in a modern setting as opposed to the oft-used World War II theme.

Medal of Honor will also continue in delivering an authentic narrative based on historical events involving ordinary men (and possibly women - I didn’t think to ask…) in extraordinary circumstances, while respecting the material and treating it with the care it deserves. This game is based on the Tier 1 Operator, an elite soldier used during the conflict in Afghanistan to complete classified, top-secret and dangerous missions.

As mentioned, the game will include stories told from different perspectives. These tales will fall into one of two categories as far as the kinds of mission and gameplay you can expect to experience. One is the ‘scalpel’ type of mission, where you play as a Tier 1 Operator tasked with completing precise, tactical missions. The other is the ‘sledgehammer’ all-out action type, where you play as a member of the military tasked with attacking and destroying enemy installations and killing enemies in as blunt and effective a way as possible, helping to thin out and clear enemy resistance along the way.

Following this brief orientation, we got to see and play through one of Medal of Honor’s missions entitled Gunfire, where you find yourself in the gunner seat of an Apache helicopter whilst flying alongside an ally helicopter, as you both rake the terrain below for signs of enemies and then explosively remove any threat they might pose, as well as ‘remove’ any enemies you find dashing back and forth on the ground.

From the beginning of the mission, you’re looking out of the ‘backseat’ cockpit struts of a helicopter with full control of firing missiles and rounds of ammunition. The environment on display was pretty detailed and the overall landscape looked very impressive, with all sorts of effective lighting and atmospheric effects lending themselves to a realistic representation of rolling hills and rising mountains hundreds of metres below your chopper.

After an extended period of flying, a group of enemy vehicles appeared far below to enable a quick munitions test. A few rounds or an expended missile or two easily took care of these ne’er do wells, but this is just the beginning. Before long, the mission requires you to pour rounds of ammunition down on enemies wielding rifles and very dangerous RPGs, as well as destroy a few buildings and tactically destroy a dozen emplaced mortars.

The helicopter you’re in automatically flies in patterns around the environment, trying to give you the best opportunity to locate and destroy enemies (handily targeted for you on-screen by your flying buddies). There were times, however, that the interior geometry of the helicopter’s cockpit obscured my vision of the ground and enemies that were desperately trying to kill me, momentarily making it impossible to see where to shoot.

And while the mission is filled with action and explosions, there were periods of time when characters began to talk with each other over the radio while targeting mortar emplacements, at which time all of the action stopped dead and left me with nothing to do but listen and wait until the next opportunity to open fire. It’s obviously important to pace the action and not let players overindulge in all-out warfare with little consequence (Read: Palette-cleanser missions), but these sections were frustratingly lengthy… well, at least mildly frustrating.

Also, despite the large quantity of explosions, the mission didn’t feel overtly satisfying to play through. I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt and assume that there are still changes and tweaks to be made to Medal of Honor proper before release, so hopefully it doesn’t mean anything if I mention that certain elements (such as the buildings, enemy animations, and the explosions themselves) of the demo looked decidedly average, and that there was hardly any proper visual feedback from shooting enemies on the ground (other than a death animation), while destroying buildings and emplacements results in a pretty weak whimper, rather than visceral and impressive havoc.

Hopefully, this isn’t indicative of other elements in Medal of Honor.

Overall, though, the presentation of this slice of Medal of Honor was impressive and provided an interesting (if unrepresentative) look at one of this year’s most anticipated titles.

Look forward to the release of Medal of Honor on October 12th in the US and on October 15th in the UK, on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

Be sure to browse through El33tonline’s previous coverage of Medal of Honor for tons of screenshots, videos and more information.

If you’re not spent on Medal of Honor media just yet, you can also watch a portion of this level in action with a gameplay video below: