The year 2011 seems to be the year of many head shot casualties. It’s a sad, salty year for some, but a fantastic rub-it-in-your face season for others. With the release of several FPS games this year, the one brings us to the end of the year is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. As many know, Activision’s Call of Duty series has been a wildly popular franchise with many great releases and a few not-so-great ones.
The single player campaign is really short, which any CoD player should expect since every entry in the series has only lasted about 3-6 hours max. There are many interesting parts in the single player like the chance to use the juggernaut armor, fighting on an airplane, and boarding and escaping a submarine. Single player has many of the ups and downs of the previous Modern Warfare titles. The game that Activision provides here is pretty good but not the best.
The campaign is a little too difficult when it comes down to the enemy AI. Enemies seem to be every where at once and definitely spawn constantly in places where death can come cheap and fast. Even though I felt that the campaign was a bit frustrating, it was still not horrible but certainly a bit repetitive in places. Of course, the ever popular multiplayer component is here to make amends.
The multiplayer in Modern Warfare 3 leaves me with mixed feelings, a lot of them good but some bad. Many of the new additions are very small in scope but do add to the overall experience. Kill streaks are now referred to as Strike Chains. When you gain strikes you are now able to select them in any order you want to use them with your d-pad. You also gain points to your strike chain now by capturing flags unlike when they were kill streaks.
Activision made sure to include 16 totally new and unique maps this time around. Each one of them comes with unique layouts that make you think differently about how you play the game. You’ll notice while running through the stages it’s still just as smooth as Modern Warfare 2 especially when you’re in the zone and hitting your stride. You will notice after playing for a few hours that you rarely spawn in areas inhabited by the opposite team which definitely makes everything so much less frustrating than in previous Modern Warfare titles. A lot of perks were added and removed here as well.
Modern Warfare 3‘s weapon system seems to have made a turn for the better as well. A lot of the weapons have been re-balanced and all of them now have their own leveling system. Unlike the last Modern Warfare, each weapon now has its own rank levels where all the player has to do is use a weapon to unlock its attachments, challenges, and proficiencies.
Prestiging has had a bit of an upgrade since Modern Warfare 2. To prestige you now have to make it to level 80, which makes the meta-game a little more extensive. Instead of just getting new things from rolling over your levels, once you enter prestige mode you can now choose from twelve different rewards. A few of these rewards are pretty creative and I think a lot of people can appreciate ones such as “Reset all Stats” and “Double Weapon XP”.
There is a downside to the most anticipated multiplayer mode of the year. Even with all of the perks and maps that have been included there’s just one thing that I can’t help get out of my mind: this feels exactly like Modern Warfare 2. When I picked up the game, I was really looking forward to playing something totally brand new or just a huge upgrade, at least something to make me say “Wow, they were working hard at this!” I didn’t have any of those feelings though.
Modern Warfare 3 is a really fun game when it came to the multiplayer, but the overall package is lacking. Even though it’s fun, it still isn’t what a major departure or upgrade from the previous entry in the series. At the end of the day, Modern Warfare 3 just feels like Modern Warfare 2: Extended Edition.
