Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Welp, another year, another CoD. I like that they finished the Modern Warfare story arc finally, but it's still pretty much the same game I've been playing since '07. I got it yesterday, put about ten or so hours in it and I can say that I'm not impressed by anything that it does up to this point. That said however, I am happy to say that I am indeed having quite a bit of fun with it. Single player campaign is fun so far, lots of explosions and insanity (per the CoD formula) and lots of bullets flying around. Sometimes I almost feel that the craziness gets to be overwhelming, but then it's over just as quickly as it began. My biggest complaint, it's pretty much the same thing as Black Ops, and essentially every other Call of Duty out there.


The graphics are good; not great, but good. The engine is aging and it shows a bit. They did tighten it up and add in some updates to make the textures and lighting better, but it does look fairly similar to last year's Black Ops. It does well when there are a lot of enemies and allies on screen at the same time. Mixing in some explosions and smoke and I did not notice a slow down at all yet which is fairly impressive in my opinion with all the insanity on screen. The sound quality is very good. Weapons sound deep and gunfire is less Hollywood style, and starting to lean towards a slightly more realistic sound which is nice. The character voices do tend to get tracked underneath the other effects, which is also a more realistic approach and I approve. If you have a problem, play with the subtitles on and viola! Problem has been solved.


The gameplay is where this game shines. Controls are tight and very responsive. Infinity Ward seemed to have fixed the knife attack so you actually have to be fairly close to get it to work. (could just be I suck, I'm open to that opinion) The single player campaign is standard fair, it follows the pattern set up by its predecessors I have no emotional attachment to anyone so the "hard" moments don't really do much for me because at this point, I just don't care. After killing hundreds, probably closer to thousands of soldiers, meaningful deaths just don't have the resonance they should.
Multiplayer however, is where Modern Warfare 3 shines. The modes are the same as always, except we also have Spec Ops mode instead of Zombies. Matchmaking works well as always, the maps are pretty fun and varied. There are some slow times getting matches together but I feel like that is probably because the game is still new and there are a lot of people trying to get on at the same time. The leveling system has become even deeper than it was before as well. You level up as always unlocking new weapons and perks, but so does your weapon. The more you use your weapon, the more options will be available for you to customize with. This will help add many hours to multiplayer gameplay because of all the work that needs done to unlock what you want. The strike packages are also a nice added system to the multiplayer. You pick one of three strike packages and that molds your killstreaks to what you want to do. Wanna go in Rambo style? Go with Assault and pick your attack oriented killstreaks. Just beware that when you die, your killstreak count gets reset to zero, so you have to work hard to get up to that eighteen kill reward. The support however doesn't have their killstreak reset upon death. So, while they may get fewer (or more depending on the player) kills, they can achieve their top reward fairly easily providing they get the kills. Deathstreaks also show up to players who are having a hard time. They give a small boost to try and help get a player out of a rut and get them back to killing instead of dying. 

Spec Ops mode has two options now. There is survival and missions. Survival is the new thing that Modern Warfare 3 brings to the table and it is wonderful. Survival is single player or multiplayer and the goal is to, well, survive. You face endless waves of enemies until you die. Simple premise. I've found this mode to be my favorite because it gives me a rush when I barely make it through a wave and only have 30 seconds to race around the map to the ammo resupply area and then run to the explosive resupply area while making a stop to see if I can get any support from the support shop. It's all a lot of fun. Mission mode is pretty much the same fare as Modern Warfare 2's Spec Ops mode. There are various missions you have to complete: hijack a plane, run an obstacle course, stop a nuclear reactor from exploding. They all offer different levels of difficulty rewarding the player with one, two, or three stars depending on the level.

So, in closing, I enjoy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. It ends the story arc well, even if it is pretty much the same thing as the ones before with a few added bells and whistles. I am happy to give this game a respectable 8/10 in my opinion. See you online.