Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Call of Duty is one of those franchises that people easily love it or hate it. This years iteration of the series will not change anyone’s opinions about the game. The game itself is more of the same, and that may be a good thing if that is what you are looking for in a game.

The COD gameplay sticks to a familiar formula from the past games. You will be aiming down the sights and throwing grenades and pretty much everything else from past games. The gameplay is fast and reaction based compared to other FPS like Halo. The gameplay though is still good. Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer did not wreak the game and have kept it as clean as the past COD games.

The story in MW3 is the final chapter of the Modern Warfare plot. It continues and closes the story with characters that you will remember from past games, Price and Soap. Naturally, there are new characters that you will play with as you fight across the world. The premise of MW3 is World War 3 where all the major first world countries are fighting the Russian terrorists. The story itself is pretty weak compared to past Modern Warfare games because they end a lot of ends just by killing people (which is natural because it is a Call of Duty game). I also felt even less connected to the characters like Price and the new guy, Yuri, because most of the dialogue is “Let’s get that guy!” Most of the reasons one would like a MW campaign are the big set pieces and there are plenty of those. An easy way to describe the single player experience is to say it is a roller coaster ride. And the campaign itself is fairly short and easy even on veteran difficulty.

Continuing on the trend of the past MW, spec ops returns. They continue with the challenge spec ops missions and include a new survival mode. The spec ops missions are a great challenge and are great to do with another friend who has skill in the game. The missions are based off of what you do in the campaign, sometimes being from the enemies perspective. They are similar in gameplay to the last MW spec ops missions so if you played a lot of that and didn’t like it, you probably would not like this. But they are fun missions overall. The new survival mode takes cues off of Treyarch’s Nazi Zombies mode. It is fairly similar to Zombies with some changes like fighting militia, dogs, juggernauts and helicopters and the ability to buy perks, kill streaks and guns from stations around the maps. The biggest problem I have with the survival mode is that you can only have one other player play with you instead of the four player zombies mode from the Treyarch’s COD. Overall, I think the survival mode is a great addition to MW.

The main reason why someone would come to a COD game is the multiplayer. The multiplayer continues with the trends of the past games with upgrading guns, perks, equipment, kill streaks and prestiging. This seems to be the most balanced version of the multiplayer to date with no blatant problems like the care package glitches and akimbo shotguns from MW2. There are plenty of people running around with shotguns and akimbo machine pistols like usual but there are many ways to play a COD game. Some new additions are the weapon abilities which may include things like reducing kick or weapon sway or putting on multiple attachments filling up past perks. There are also classes in this game that determine kill streaks. The three classes are assault, support, and specialist. The assault class is the class from the past where your kill streak resets when you die but have the more powerful rewards. The support class does not reset the kill count and the rewards are centered around helping the team out. The specialist class gives you new perks for every 2 kills you get. These may change how you play like if you die a lot it would be a good idea to have the support class so you can help out your team. The maps are all new and for the most part are good COD maps. Besides these changes, the multiplayer itself is more of the same.

To conclude, MW3 does not stray away from the path of the past COD games. It is a cleaned up, balanced multiplayer and generally a safe single player. The gameplay itself is still as good as it has ever been and is still entertaining. Basically is you are tire of the COD formula, this game is not that much of a refresh but if you are looking for a fun FPS than you can’t go wrong with MW3.