This intense look at Medal of Honor's multiplayer shows off the game's Combat Mission mode.

In the mode Coalition forces have to take out five consecutive objectives to win. As your clear an objective the map expands. The mode also has limited respawns, which the game calls reinforcements.

The audio, as with the audio found in my play-through of the game's helicopter mission, remains a high point for a what is shaping up to be a very solid looking shooter.

Did you notice the Bradley Fighting Vehicle in the video? It can seat both a driver and a gunner. How about those Taliban you're fighting against? Yeah, I didn't notice that either.

Can virtual combat be entertainment for the soldiers who engage in the real thing on a daily basis?

The commanding general in charge of the Army & Air Force Exchange Service, the department store and mall found on every U.S. army and air force base in the world, doesn't think so, at least not if the virtual combat is a video game depicting warfare in Afghanistan.

That's why Maj. Gen. Bruce Casella decided to stop the sale of Electronic Arts' Medal of Honor in his stores. He also notes that in the multiplayer modes of the game, gamers can take on the role of Taliban fighters.

But the inclusion of the Taliban as both enemy, and controllable character, is at best a red herring. I had a chance to sit down and play Medal of Honor against other video game writers earlier this year, long before the game's inclusion of the Taliban had become such a hot topic, and didn't even notice that some of us were the Taliban. It felt no more meaningful than playing a game where one side is red and the other blue; one side cops, the other side robbers; one side U.S. Army, the other Nazis.

And when talking to Kotaku, Casella seemed more concerned about the subject matter of the games than the characters in it.

"We regret any inconvenience this may cause authorized shoppers, but are optimistic that they will understand the sensitivity to the life and death scenarios this product presents as entertainment," he said. "As a military command with a retail mission, we serve a very unique customer base that has, or possibly will, witness combat in real life."

It's an interesting point, but one that also holds true for a myriad of games that AAFES does sell, like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops. Both feature military combat in realistic settings.

More importantly, at least some active duty soldiers don't seem as bothered by the notion of playing a game featuring combat as Casella seems to think they would be.

Greg Zinone, founder of Pros. Vs. G.I. Joes, runs a nonprofit organization that allows active duty soldiers to play video games online against professional athletes and celebrities.

He says the nonprofit, which started about two and a half years ago, has been extremely well received. But getting the military on board initially was an uphill battle.

Zinone started out by going to the USO and teaming up with them to get soldiers online and play Madden against pro athletes.

"We started out with Madden because we thought that would be popular, but they wanted to play these war games," Zinone said. "We play a lot of Call of Duty now, Call of Duty is huge among the troops."

But initially, the USO was very hesitant to transition from Madden to Call of Duty, Zinone said. They didn't believe that soldiers would want to play the sorts of games that turn what are very real life and death moments into entertainment. Eventually Zinone convinced them that's what the troops wanted.

"Combat guys, all they want to play are war games," Zinone said.

The video games proved so popular with combat troops that the USO created Multi-Entertainment Gaming Systems or MEGS. These MEGS are two giant footlockers packed with consoles, controllers, video games and a projector that are dropped at forward operating bases for front line soldiers to use.

"They have absolutely nothing where they are stationed, but occasionally they get video games," Zinone said.

One combat soldier told Zinone that they like to play the games because it's not like they are "reliving what we did an hour or a day ago, it's just a game."

"Sometimes we're sick of being the good guys, we're the good guys all day," the soldier told Zinone. "When we are playing these games we want to be the bad guys too."

Maj. Gen. Casella's decision to not sell the game on bases is unlikely to have a big impact on Medal of Honor sales. Last year AAFES only sold $176 million worth of video games world wide, that's less than 2 percent of the total video games sold in the U.S. last year, according to the NPD Group.

But the impact it can have on soldiers, no matter where they stand on the decision, can be very real.

Zinone suggests that the Army and Air Force just keep the game behind the counter, if they're worried about it bothering some of their customers.

Not providing the game sends a bad message, he says.

"These soldiers come back from active duty and they're being told they can't buy a video game because they won't like it," he said. "That seems kind of pointless."

Well Played is a weekly news and opinion column about the big stories of the week in the gaming industry and its bigger impact on things to come. Feel free to join in the discussion.

First off, I am an active duty Air Force member.

It seems that this whole thing is being misinterpreted by the community based upon a possible misunderstanding of how the Army and Air Force Exchange Service works. Hopefully I can illuminate the situation. It is a series of retail outlets that serves ONLY military personnel. If you aren't in uniform, they will ask for an ID card for every single purchase. This is largely due to a lack of sales tax and other savings. AAFES is supposed to exist as a benefit in return for our service. These stores are not comparable to Wal-Mart or Best Buy even though they look similar. The whole thing is run by the military, even the few on base GameStop's operate as vendors with the permission of the military.

Why did AAFES decide not to stock Medal of Honor? Out of respect and sensitivity, as mentioned by Major General Casella. This is not about violence, censorship, political correctness, Jingoism, morality, or anything else. If you walk around a BX or a PX, you will only see three types of people: active military members, retirees, or immediate family members of servicemen. That means that the number of people affected by the war in Afghanistan is astronomically higher than in a civilian store. Those are the people who WILL be affected by a death in Afghanistan. A real world game might be too much to handle. Do you really want to see a little kid show the game to his mom and ask if that's where daddy is? Absolutely not, but it could happen. Picking up Call of Duty: Black Ops? Completely different.

The difference between this game and other military shooters is that it is real and it is current. Fictional games are really no different than a summer blockbuster, and games set in real conflicts have always had at least a generation of buffer space between participants and audience. I wholeheartedly believe that Danger Close went to great lengths to make the singleplayer respectful. I appreciate the effort. The problem is that multiplayer can't have that redeeming effect that story provides. It's just a name change from CoD's "OpFor" to Taliban, but that can be enough.

Keep in mind that this decision only affects military personnel. If someone buys this game on a base and gets upset, they are probably entitled to be. More than likely, they've been there or have been affected by operations there. Is anyone really going to tell a recently returned troop that they are being overly sensitive because they get upset watching Americans play as the Taliban killing other Americans? By not stocking the game on base it becomes a personal decision to buy it and keeps it out of the spotlight. AAFES doesn't have to worry about impulse buys or scenes from veterans or complaints. They are choosing not to endorse something that might upset their clientele. Military life is stressful enough, they are merely trying to be sensitive to the pain of their patrons. It would be in poor taste to advertise a game where the player can kill Americans as the Taliban to an American who might be killed by the Taliban in the near future.

If we want to buy the game, going off base isn't really an inconvenience. We aren't confined to base, so access to the game is in no way being denied (maybe in really remote locations). Most military gamers will probably still pick up the game and won't have a problem with it. The gameplay mechanics won't be any different than other recent shooters, but the locations might be more familiar. Probably not a big deal to most. But again, this isn't about most gamers. This is about people with PTSD or anxiety over a deployed loved one or some other painful trauma. The BX is one of the first and last stops when returning from and leaving for a deployment. A soldier who returns from firefights in Helmand province should expect painful or insensitive reminders off base in the real world. But shouldn't they be spared while on base?

Are the people playing as the Taliban playing any differently than in Modern Warfare? No. But it's about the perceptions of that minority who fight the wars the rest of us turn into entertainment. What it comes down to is that AAFES doesn't care what servicemembers buy, they just try to provide whatever it is that they want. This particular product won't do a very good job of satisfying the customer if they find it offensive or disrespectful. In a normal retail outlet, publicly banning something under those circumstances would be unacceptable. Luckily, this isn't normal.

As for me personally, I had already preordered the game from Amazon. I don't have any problem with the content, but I certainly won't show it around base. I actually deal with Operation Enduring Freedom everyday and expect to be deployed to Afghanistan within a year. I want to go. Anyways, sorry for the diatribe. I felt I could offer a rational military perspective on the issue. Please consider some sort of feature on reactions from warfighters. This is one of the only real videogame news outlets that can run in depth opinion pieces. For an issue like this, a comments section probably isn't enough.

Ed's note: Please take a moment to read another take on the issue from a former Army Medic.

It's amazing, even years after getting out of the Army, how much it colors your everyday life.

As a former Army Medic, now working as an entertainment journalist covering comic books, video games, movies, and TV, my soldier past comes up far more often than I would have ever expected.

The news about Medal of Honor including multiplayer modes where players will control the Taliban, naturally, has become a topic that friends who know of my two backgrounds now ask about on a regular basis. With Thursday's further news that Gamestop has chosen not to sell the game at US Military bases, I was quite simply incensed.

To give minimal history, I served in the United States Army as a Combat Medic for six years. I had two deployments in that time: one to Iraq at the start of the war, and one to Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. I saw combat, I saw injury, and I saw death.

However, I also saw solace in games. While in Iraq, we networked together a couple of tents and played games like NCAA Football, Halo, and yes, even games like Desert Storm. Video games were a great respite for us during our day to day lives. We were able, for a few minutes at a time at least, to have some sense of normalcy and escape to another time and place, even if it did wind up being something similar to what we were living.

Electronic Arts has been marketing Medal of Honor from the start as a game seeking to honor the military through authenticity. Now, the things I could pick apart there could easily fill another column, but one fact remains: the opponent there, in Afghanistan, is the Taliban. In WWII games you fight against, or AS in multiplayer, Nazis or Japanese forces. In a game set in the modern era on a modern battlefield, it then follows that the opposing force would be the modern enemy. This makes sense, and this is far from the first time that you can play as the bad guys, realistic or no, in a game, let alone in a shooter.

So now Gamestop, at the request of the Army and Air Force Exchange Services, is pulling the game from pre-order and will not carry it at any of the BX/PX (Base or Post Exchange) located shops they run. It was done, to quote the statement given to Kotaku, "out of respect for our past and present men and women in uniform."

OK. There's nothing inherently bad about that. AAFES made a request, Gamestop followed through politely and apparently with no fight. My problem, however, lies with AAFES making the request in the first place. The idea that a gameplay mode in a game people choose to or not to play could be so inherently damaging is simply silly. Giving things this kind of weight and power is the problem, not that they exist in and of themselves. It's something I had to learn myself. For about 3 years after I returned from Iraq, I found it impossible to play any realistic shooters, or to enjoy fireworks. There were little things within those experiences that set off powerful sense memories. Eventually, it took sitting down and trying to remember what was enjoyable about these things to me in the past to make them enjoyable again. Releasing that self-imposed power made me remember, hey, this is a video game, and I like video games.

That's the point here that the officials at AAFES are overlooking in favor of being cautious. This isn't a tool to convert American Soldiers into Taliban. It is a game, and in the game you play one of two roles. In the Army, you sometimes have field exercises in which you are placed on the side of "Opposing Forces." In that, you are role-playing as modern enemies in order to improve your knowledge and your fellow soldiers' knowledge of how to combat them. Games don't come with an inherent evil, an inherent power, or even, most of the time, any specific political message. In the campaign of Medal of Honor, it will be no doubt clear that the Taliban are the enemies. In multiplayer, sometimes, people will be "Opposing Forces." That's not offensive to me as a soldier. The offensive thing to me as a soldier is AAFES thinking I can't protect myself from a product I deem harmful. If it feels potentially damaging to an individual, then the individual doesn't play it and that's all that needs to happen.

It's a video game, and I like video games. It's a shame that soldiers who like video games and want to play this one won't be able to simply pick it up at their local shop.

Lucas Siegel is a Veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Site Editor of leading comic book and pop culture site Newsarama.com. He has been an avid gamer since the age of two. For more from Lucas and Newsarama, follow him on twitter at http://twitter.com/LucasSiegel.

Ed's note: Please take a moment to read another take on the issue from an active duty Airman.

The commanding general of the Army and Air Force Exchange Services told Kotaku today that his decision to have Medal of Honor pulled from U.S. military bases worldwide was spurred by "well-documented reports of depictions of Taliban fighters engaging American troops" in the game.

"Out of respect to those we serve, we will not be stocking this game," the Army & Air Force Exchange Service's Commander Maj. Gen. Bruce Casella, told Kotaku. "We regret any inconvenience this may cause authorized shoppers, but are optimistic that they will understand the sensitivity to the life and death scenarios this product presents as entertainment. As a military command with a retail mission, we serve a very unique customer base that has, or possibly will, witness combat in real life."

The determination to not offer Medal of Honor, first broken by Kotaku, impacts all Army and Air Force Exchange operations worldwide, including its website and 49 on-base and post GameStops. Any reserve or preorders placed through shopmyexchange.com will be cancelled. Preorders originally placed through GameStops on Army and Air Force installations will be transferred to the nearest GameStop off the Base or Post.

We've contacted EA for comment and will update when they respond.

As all stores located on Army and Air Force bases will no longer be allowed to sell Electronic Arts' upcoming military shooter Medal of Honor because an aspect of the game includes playable Taliban characters.

The Army and Air Force Exchange Services has confirmed to Kotaku that they requested the game pulled from the 49 GameStop's located on bases in the continent U.S. The ban, an AAFES representative told Kotaku, also extends to all military PXs worldwide.

In an email to employees, GameStop says the decision was made "out of respect for our past and present men and women in uniform."

"GameStop has agreed out of respect for our past and present men and women in uniform we will not carry Medal of Honor in any of our AAFES based stores...," the email, obtained by Kotaku, reads. "As such, GameStop agreed to have all marketing material pulled by noon today and to stop taking reservations. Customers who enter our AAFES stores and wish to reserve Medal of Honor can and should be directed to the nearest GameStop location off base.

"GameStop fully supports AAFES in this endeavor and is sensitive to the fact that in multiplayer mode one side will assume the role of Taliban fighter."

The stores on bases contacted by Kotaku all confirmed that they no longer will be selling the game and referred us to GameStops in town to pick up the title when it comes out.

Electronic Arts declined to comment further for this story.

They have, though, made their opinion on the matter clear.

The commanding general of the Army and Air Force Exchange Services confirmed told Kotaku that his decision was based on the inclusion of Taliban in the game and impacts all PXs located on Army and Air Force bases worldwide and all GameStops located on U.S. bases.

I walked readers through Medal of Honor's lone Apache helicopter level during GamesCom earlier this month. Here's your chance to see it, uncut, for yourself.

Electronic Arts says this video is an uncut, unedited video meant to "show our audience what they can expect when Medal of Honor launches on October 12."

In part one of EA's Medal of Honor experience video series, titled Fallen Angel, there's a great deal of running, shooting, exploding, and colorful language.

Last week at Gamescom, Crecente got to play through a level of Medal of Honor flying a gunship. Now EA lets us explore the more down-to-earth aspects of the title's gameplay, running and shooting.

I've done so much running and shooting in my lifetime that it's hard to distinguish one from the other. It would be an interesting experiment to strip the UI elements from the latest five or six modern-day military shooters and see if the uninitiated could tell the difference. The be completely honest, I might be hard-pressed.

Now show me what happens when a player dies in each game, and I become Mr. Wizard. I am a connoisseur of first-person shooter death. My mother always told me to find something I am good at and stick with it.

The UK's Secretary of State for Defence Liam Fox called for the ban of Medal of Honor for being "tasteless". He later defended his remarks. EA, the game's publisher, has now retorted.

EA Games president Frank Gibeau tells website Develop that Medal of Honor will not be altered due to the outcry of politicians or the media. Soldiers have opinions for and against the title.

The upcoming Medal of Honor features multiplayer that allows gamers to play as Taliban fighters. The game is set in Afghanistan.

"There's a lot of furore around games that take creative risks – like games that let you play terrorists in airports mowing down civilians," Gibeau told Develop, referencing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

"At EA we passionately believe games are an artform, and I don't know why films and books set in Afghanistan don't get flack, yet [games] do. Whether it's Red Badge Of Courage or The Hurt Locker, the media of its time can be a platform for the people who wish to tell their stories. Games are becoming that platform."

Gibeau continues, saying that EA anticipated the controversy "What's really important for us is that we partnered with the US military, and the Medal of Honor Society as well. We've gone out of our way to produce the best story for the game."

One of the worst things about controversies like this is that they cast aside something truly important: Is this a good game?

EA boss: MOH won't submit to 'Taliban' outcry [Develop]

If not for you fine Medal of Honor beta testers, we would't be able to shoot a bullet through the opening between a guy's legs in the final game. We can thank you for other things as well, brave testers.

An EA man explains on the PlayStation blog how the developers of his company's next big first-person shooter have changed their game thanks to feedback from a public multiplayer beta of the game .

For example:

Improved Hit Detection

This was a very big issue and came up many times in the forums. We are glad to say that hit detection has been vastly improved. We really tightened up the mechanics and essentially, wherever the bullet hits on the body - that is where the hit registers. It is even possible to shoot and have the bullet go between someone's legs – it is that precise!

and

Major Graphic Overhaul

The graphics have been overhauled and upgraded. We are happy to report that the game looks even more spectacular than before.

Let's assume that they would have implemented a graphics overhaul even without any beta feedback. Let's not assume that all these betas are just marketing stunts. This particular beta, according to the post, influenced changes in the game's tech tree and the frequency of support actions. Here's hoping these betas, like this one and that Halo Reach one in the spring, actually improve the games we play. Medal of Honor will be released in October, so we can find out then.

Beta Feedback: How You Helped Shape Medal of Honor's Multiplayer [PlayStation Blog]