MOH dev: Try it before you judge us

Medal of Honor developer Danger Close Games has urged gamers to try controversial Afghanistan shooter Medal of Honor before judging it.

The furore sparked by being able to kill US troops as the Taliban in MOH's DICE-developed multiplayer portion was all just a "misunderstanding", the EA-owned developer insisted.

Weeks before release EA and Danger Close decided to change the name of Medal of Honor's bad guys multiplayer faction from Taliban to Opposing Force – a move slammed by analysts.

In a statement executive producer Greg Goodrich said the decision was taken in response to feedback from soldiers and their families.

"It's just a misunderstanding," Danger Close marketing director Craig Owens told Joystiq.

"I think eventually, as guys like us - I'm 42 years old, right? - so as I get older and stuff, we're becoming a world of gamers that are gonna be at all levels and I think that'll go away.

"It's just one of those transition points, where people who don't play games still think they're just for 12-year-olds and they're just all fun and games and they could never really tell a story like a movie does."

Owens refuted the suggestion the removal of the Taliban was an attempt to convince US shop GameStop to go back on its decision to refuse to sell the game at its Army and Air Force Exchange Service stores.

"Really the big thing was playing as a Taliban killing US troops," he said. "So we basically just changed it to 'Opfor' - which is a term they [the US Armed Forces] use, some of our competitors use - more out of respect."

Last month Goodrich told Eurogamer Medal of Honor uses the Afghanistan war, Taliban insurgents and Al-Qaeda because that's where the game's stars, the Tier One Operators, were deployed.

Medal of Honor is out in the UK on Friday. Eurogamer's review will be published at 2pm BST today.