Whats old is new again and again
It’s that time of year again; the leaves are turning orange and falling from the trees, my kids won’t rake them like I ask, Football season starts and oh yes, it’s time for a new Call of Duty. This annual tradition continues with the release of Modern Warfare 3, which is a direct sequel to Modern Warfare 2; the new one not the original, and the new Modern Warfare 3 has little if nothing to do with the original Modern Warfare 3. Hey, good news, if your eyes aren’t crossed at all of that then you can consider yourself a true Call of Duty fan. This year, in what I assume was the developer’s effort to direct players to the campaign portion of their games, players were able to chase down Markev in the story mode days before the rest of the game unlocked.
I have made no secret that I do not care about the narrative in the Call of Duty games, I play them for the multiplayer madness and (now) zombies, but more on that later. This campaign is extremely short, the rumor is it was originally going to be DLC and boy does it feel like it. The majority of missions are these open world areas that are just sections of the Warzone DMZ map that will offer a large area to loot for weapons and gear, and complete whatever objective while being hounded by AI mercenaries. These missions were not bad and did deliver the big explosions that CoD is known for, however they just felt easy. Most of them I avoided engaging enemies at all and just focused on whatever the mission objective was, which usually involved blowing something up. Thankfully the campaign can be finished quickly, which depending on why you as a consumer purchase Call of Duty games is either going to delight or upset you since the game is $70.
MSRP: $69.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $69.99
Not going to lie here, the multiplayer feels very similar to what we already had in MW2. The fact that all of the players guns and skins carry over and can be used in MW3 kid of makes sense that they would feel similar. The new weapons feel good and sound better, one of the biggest improvements for me is the footsteps. Thankfully the developers have made them softer than in MW2, but because the internet is gonna internet no one is actually happy about it and will just complain, such is the life of a Call of Duty fan apparently. But I will say that if you were a fan of MW2’s multiplayer portion, then you will enjoy this latest entry. The loadout system is quite different as perks are attached to pieces of gear like boots, and other abilities are linked to a vest which will allow for two primary weapons but will limit players to 3 gear pieces. It’s an improvement on the last system but its no ‘Pick 10’ system, best advice I can offer is to read each thing closely as some perks are not where they used to be.
Now, Zombies this is the mode that I was most excited to try; and not because I am a huge fan of the mode in the past games. In fact, I never really bothered with it much outside of playing it with my kids every now and again. But friends, I want to tell you that I have spent the majority of my time in Modern Warfare 3 in the Zombies mode. Its freaking fantastic, first off, it’s now open world, and takes place in a map the size of the Warzone battle royale map. 25 players all work together to push back against an ever-growing swarm of the undead. Players can load into the map with a max squad of 3 but can group up with others once loaded in. This is a tad tedious if you have a big group of friends that want to play, but the open chat works great and for the most part folks are really helpful. The map is littered with points of interests like the game mode staple Pack-A-Punch machines which upgrade your mere mortal weapons to laser blasting arms of death.
Players will be dropped off and tasked with taking on one of maaaany contracts around the map. These missions range from escorting vehicles, to holding a location while a scientist performs a test; some of these missions are easier than others. These missions will provide the currency that players will use to pay for upgrades, buy killstreaks and gear and other things. Luckily the map is broken up into sections, the outside edges are level one, the inner circle is level 2 with the inner most circle being level 3. Everything is clearly marked so players won’t just wander into a harder level unaware. One of the issues though that I ran into was if you are on the border of a harder area the game seems to prioritize spawning the higher-level zombies instead of the ones native to the area, I was in. It happened every time, and while my group survived. It was annoying to be looting a building only to have a level 2 zombie shamble in with armor and I only have a pistol.
Aside from the lackluster campaign, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with Modern Warfare 3. As I said earlier, I come to these games for the multiplayer and while having all the original Modern Warfare 2 maps look great being remade, it just seems weird that they didn’t do this for Modern Warfare 2. Some of the maps are just too large for the game mode, so I am hoping that the teams can figure that out. Another issue that I have experienced is the spawns being jacked up. It’s not great to spawn literally in front of enemies only to watch your team all get killed repeatedly. This is something that the team is working on a patch for, and I feel like the spawns always suck in Call of Duty at first, it’s just something we have to accept like the leaves turning orange. But the elephant in the room is the $70 or more (depending on the version) Activision is charging for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and if it is worth it. Well, if you play these games solely for the campaign, skip it and find a YouTube playthrough. The narrative experience is just too short and doesn’t do anything really new and exciting. Modern Warfare 3 ended up turning out how most feared and that is it just feels like a DLC with the developers focusing on the nostalgia of MW2 instead of pushing the genre and game forward.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
