Say it with me, “Another year, Another Call of Duty.” This time Activision is turning to their ever popular developer Infinity ward, with some help from Sledgehammer Games, for the next installment in the Modern Warfare franchise with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Modern Warfare 3 is set to break all time sales records as it is easily the most anticipated games of all time. But just because a game a game breaks sales records doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s good right? Oh who am I kidding? Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the best Call of Duty yet, and will certainly contend for game of the year across the board. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s perfect by any means, it does have it’s flaws, but the positives most certainly outweigh the negatives in this years Call of Duty.
Starting off with Modern Warfare 3′s campaign throws you right into the action of “World War 3,” with Russia continuing their assault on The United States with a massive invasion of New York City. The main protagonists of Modern Warfare 2, “Soap” Mactavish and Captain Price, return with a few new characters sprinkled in as they try to ease tensions between Russia and the rest of the world as well as try to thwart the evil Vladamir Makarov as he acts as the puppet master of this massive global war. Infinity Ward’s campaigns have always kept my attention more than that of other Call of Duty developer Treyarch’s as they simply have a knack for creating epic, explosive, fast paced missions and this game is no different. These games really make you feel like you are apart of the war and if you didn’t know that it was a game, you would be quite convinced that this was the real thing. The plot is actually really interesting, which is normally not the case for first person shooters, but this one keeps you on the edge of your seat and even has you feeling a little heroic after you dispatch the men who had just released deadly chemicals onto innocent civilians. The enemy AI was a bit dull at times, with some enemies letting me walk right up to them before they even realized that I was there, but it sufficed for the most part. The visuals in Modern Warfare 3 are spectacular, although there were a few moments such as the mission where you are protecting the Russian President Vorshevsky in the crashing airplane that looked like they could use a bit more polishing but then you are treated to an amazing action sequence when the plane does down and rips apart and you instantly forget about those minor tweaks. The soundtrack is quite an accomplishment as well, playing this game with a 5 or 7 channel surround sound system or headset would definitely be my recommendation as this game rivals Michael Bay’s entire filmography when it comes to explosions, gunfire and action in general. Infinity Ward also did a great job of changing up the pace in the campaign with a variety of different missions that you take part in. One second you will be scuba diving under a Russian submarine planting explosives, and they next you will be racing through the London subway system attempting to prevent a terrorist attack on the city. The campaign is excellent, exciting and is the best one yet in a series of already excellent installments.
Now onto what most people are really concerned about, the multiplayer. The multiplayer in this one is definitely an upgrade over previous Modern Warfare installments with a plethora of new maps, weapons and perks among other things. The most notable new item is the killstreak system, it has basically been completely overhauled from before, and now has three different killstreak systems to choose from. In previous Modern Warfare games, your killstreak reward allowed you to pick a few different rewards that you would get when you killed a certain amount of people and that reward would reset after every time you were killed in combat. In Modern Warfare 3 you can pick from three different systems and they are titled Assault, Support, and Specialist. The assault system is the basic system from previous games where you pick a few different rewards, such as a predator missile, and you will get that reward when you have reached the set amount of kills and is reset after you die. The support package gives you a series of rewards that will benefit your team as a whole, rather than destroy the other team, and this package will remain intact and compund with every kill regardless of whether you are killed or not. The Specialist package gives you an extra perk, such as sleight of hand, after every second kill and will give you every perk in the game after eight consecutive kills but will reset after you have been killed. This new system is obviously an upgrade over Modern Warfare 2′s system and is something that will keep you trying to mix and match your killstreak rewards in your “Classes” to figure out what the best strategy is for each map. There are also a few new match types such as “Kill Confirmed,” where you not only have to kill your enemies but you als0 have to collect their dogtags from their lifeless body in order to get the credit for the kill. These new modes were fun but I really think that Infinity Ward needs to take a page out of Treyarch’s book when it comes to secondary game modes though, as Black Ops’ secondaries were a bit more interesting than that of the Modern Warfare series. I also really loved the new rank up/xp system in this one, Activision has made it so that you are ranking up at a quicker pace, both on you profile and with your weapon, and it will certainly make you feel like you are really making progress and had me coming back for more to try and get that next level or weapon upgrade.
One of the more surprising additions to this game was that of the new “Survival Mode.” This mode is very similar to “Horde Mode,” of the Gears of War series, with wave after wave of enemy terrorists coming at you and you simply try to see how many levels you are able to get through without dying. This mode seems like a no-brainer for the Call of Duty series and was done very well and definitely adds a great amount of re-playability to this title. The Spec Ops mode also makes a return and features many new “levels,” and features. Spec Ops is fun, but has never really caught my attention. The mode is done well, but it has never been something that really interested me.
Modern Warfare 3 is perhaps the most anticipated game of all time, and certainly will eventually be the best selling game of all time until the inevitable Modern Warfare 4 or Black Ops 2 come out. It certainly lives up to that hype with an action packed Campaign, highly addictive multiplayer and a very fun new addition with Survival Mode, but how long will fans keep buying into this series? We have now seen a new Call of Duty game every year for the last seven years and while I enjoyed this game a lot, it’s beginning to feel a little bit like Madden with titles coming out every year with nothing completely mind blowing coming out in them. But for now, I’m buying in and I look forward to the next installment.
Pros :- Action Packed Campaign
- Addictive Multiplayer
- Surprisingly fun Survival Mode
- Occasional Graphical Flaw
- Nothing incredibly new
