Story
Taking place just hours after Modern Warfare 2, the conflict between the US & Russia has escalated, with fighting in the states still going on, but has since spread to Europe after some surprise attacks by Makarov, who has since returned to continue his terrorist attacks against the west. As the United States continues to fight their Russian foe, Soap & Price are still waging their guerilla war against Makarov and his allies, all the while trying to stay out of the US Military’s radar until the time is right.
Despite still coming up short in an area or two, when compared to MW2, the story in this game seems to be more fleshed out, and has some twists or turns in it that harken back to the original Modern Warfare. It doesn’t feel as cheap as Modern Warfare 2's story was, nor does it feel as rushed or have as many plot holes. I won’t reveal what happens at the end of Modern Warfare 3, but I can say that just about everything that didn’t get solved/fixed in the previous MW, gets solved in this one.
Setting
With Modern Warfare 2 (And Black Ops, for that matter), we were given numerous places all over the world to traverse and kills the bad guys, and Modern Warfare 3 is no exception. If MW2 was a sign of things to come, then MW3 is hell on Earth. From the moment you enter the game, you first step foot onto the ruined streets of New York City, it’s grandeur having been reduced to a shadow of itself.
After a quick romp through the city’s harbor, it’s off to Africa & Europe. Perhaps stereotypically, the various points where you go look ruined & neglected, although when you make it to a coastal town, things look a lot better than the previous level you went through, but there’s still a vibe of neglect. Europe itself hasn’t faired well either, as the war has now spread to Britain, France, and Germany. Their majesty getting crushed by the heel of the Russian Army, and turned into broken shells of their former selves. One prime example of a nation getting it’s face mutilated is in the final mission in France: after capturing one of Makarov’s men, you and your squad are driving through the streets, and eventually end up at the bridge, with a horde of Russian soldiers in front. With the reds keep pouring in, the ultimate (and dramatic) choice is to target the Eiffel Tower, and having it’s debris take out the Russians.
Even the Middle East isn’t immune to the conflict between the US & Russia, as the player makes one final trip into the sandy domain. I won’t completely reveal where you go & what happens while you’re there, but I will say that it’s a homage to the various fancy buildings that they construct.
Characters
One thing that is a weakness in the Call of Duty franchise (at least in my opinion, and not just in the Modern Warfare series) is characterization. It’s not that there aren’t any good characters, cause there is, but the fact that they either die immediately, die off-screen, or disappear from the story that won’t let the player interact with them. Given the FPS nature, this is understandable, but there’s been plenty of examples of first person shooters with great characters (Bioshock & Borderlands 2 come to mind), and given what’s going on, you’d think that there would be some great characters. This is not the case.
Actually, that’s a partial fib. There’s definitely some characters that do stand out, regardless of which side you play. Over in the Delta Force missions, there’s Sandman, a no-nonsense soldier that has a cool mind, and a itchy trigger finger. Following him are equally stable soldiers Grinch & Truck, who often banter with one another outside of combat. When you’re playing one of the Task Force 141 missions, you return to the familiar faces of Soap & Price. When we first see Price way back in Modern Warfare, we see a gruff individual that’s been through a lot of shit. In this game, he’s been through more shit, but we see him to be a more caring individual, especially when he’s with Soap (Not in that way...perverts!). They’ve been through a lot together, enough so that we partially see a different side of him. Same goes with Soap.
There’s a few other characters, but they aren’t worth many words. Just these ones.
Gameplay
If there’s any chief complaint about the Call of Duty series (This really started when MW2 came out, although there were some rumblings during World at War’s runtime), it’s the fact that the gameplay has remained the same since MW1, and hasn’t changed much. Essentially, the gameplay comes down to this:
1) Appear at the mission area
2) Move through the area & kill people
3) Do small tasks
4) At the end of the game, kill the main badguy while he’s distracted (Don’t ask)
Now, some might say that I’ll deny this, but I actually agree with this, if albeit reluctantly. It is very repetitive, and it can get boring quickly, but if you can get past those two things, you’ll find a relatively good action game. It’s a shame that not much has changed.
However, there were some new additions. Coming in from Modern Warfare 2 is the new Spec Ops mode. Basically, Spec Ops takes pieces of levels from the singleplayer game, and creates mini-missions around those pieces, like a stealth mission through the snow. These mini-missions are great, and become especially challenging at higher difficulty levels. There’s even two Spec Ops levels that require a second player to come in the game (Ironically, MW2 had two Spec Ops levels that required a second player).
A rather new addition to the Modern Warfare series is Survival Mode. Similar to the Zombie mode found in Treyarch’s CoD games, you (and maybe 1 other player) survive wave after wave of armed soldiers that increase in difficulty overtime. What separates Survival Mode from the Zombie mode is that you have far more tools at your disposal, and even at higher levels you can survive, as long as you know what you’re doing.
Now it’s time for the elephant in the room: the multiplayer. Getting mutilated on the PC for MW2 (there were no dedicated servers), and getting a horrible bandage in Black Ops (there were dedicated servers, but people had to pay for them), most PC gamers didn’t necessarily have hope for when MW3 came to PC. However, not all was lost.
With MW3, we still have the Peer-to-Peer system, and it’s still irritating, but it seems to be more stable than MW2's P2P system (lag problems were rampant in MW2), and there aren’t as many hackers (they seem to get caught more quickly than before). Fortunately, they added dedicated servers again, and you don’t have to pay this time around.
The last multiplayer component I’ll take about is the prestige system for the guns, which are brand new to MW3. Unlike in previous CoD games, the guns have prestige levels. To level them up, you simply use a specific gun in matches. As you rack up kills, your gun levels with you, and gets you the standard attachments, but now you get weapon camouflage with headshots, and weapon perks (Think of the weapon perks like player perks for guns).
Graphics & Sound
Although Black Ops 2 trumps this game (Watch a video or two on youtube. Trust me on this!), Modern Warfare 3 still looks incredibly impressive. Using the MW3 engine, which was modified from Modern Warfare 2's engine (A nice looking engine in it’s own right), the game looks very believable, and the many levels look like places that were taken from our own world, and put into the game. If there’s one thing that damages the impressive visuals, it’s some of the textures. This has been a problem for a lot of the CoD games, so it’s still surprising to see it in a modern game like this. Basically, despite most of the textures looking good, there’s a few textures (especially some that have been taken from previous games) that look dated & grainy.
If the graphics have that tiny problem, then the sound effects have no problems. Everything sounds crisp, clean, and pristine. The guns sound realistic, the voice acting is great, and the music score is nice to listen to. We’ve got dramatic orchestras for the epic fights scenes, sorrowful dirges for the serious/death scenes, and action packed/fast paced movements during the faster scenes. There’s always some sort of lead into each of the pieces, which also act as a sort of scene change. Pretty clever, if you ask me.
Overall & Rating
It’s understandable why a lot of gamers have nowhere near as much respect for the Call of Duty franchise. Bobby Kotick has come out, time & time again in recent years, and said that business is now the focus of what they publish, not fun. They’ve taken further blows with WoW (Some gamers say the newer packs keep watering down the core system) and Diablo 3 (Despite selling 10 million copies, it didn’t reach as many expectations of gamers as ActiBliz thought), and the lack of response from some of the employees continues to reinforce this feeling. However, there’s still a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel: the original Black Ops brought back a little life into the Call of Duty franchise, and Modern Warfare 3 really brought more life back (BO2 has gotten a lot of people excited about the franchise, but only time will tell as to how it actually performs). I can only hope that this trend continues, until FPS gamers all over the world fully believe in the Call of Duty franchise once again.
Modern Warfare 3 gets a 8.5 out of 10.
See you all later this week, when I’ll review happy music for once. Until then, stay Otaku!
* Best SMG in the game, hands down:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf-tZ1FjWvE
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