GAME REVIEW
Review Scoring Chart - 10:
Masterpiece; 9: Outstanding; 8: Very Good; 7: Good; 6: Above
Average; 5: Average; 4: Below Average; 3: Bad; 2: Awful; 1:
Reprehensible; 0: Non- Functional.
CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3
CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3
Format: PC (version reviewed), PS3, 360, Wii
Developer: Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games, Treyarch (Wii)
Publisher: Activision
Players: 1-4, plus online multiplayer
My Wii-specific review of Modern Warfare 3 will be going up at 11pm (GMT) tonight over at Destructoid, so check in there if that is the version you are interested in. It comes as no great surprise that Activision have been keeping that version of the game quiet, though: Call Of Duty has long been a series which places spectacle front and centre, so the graphically weakest version of the latest title was never likely to feature prominently.
It has only been a year
since Treyarch's disappointing Black Ops, whose storytelling
successes were undermined by gameplay that felt like business as
usual. The original Modern Warfare's success was built on its
superbly staged action sequences, finding a well-balanced blend of
the realistic and ridiculous in its blockbuster set-pieces. While
the bulk of the gameplay remained based around the usual
high-intensity gun battles, the change in setting, from the
battlefields of World War II to modern Middle Eastern cities and
crumbling Soviet wastelands, was as refreshing as the inclusion of
sequences bringing suspense and patience to a game more renowned for
its visceral pleasures. Modern Warfare 2 tried too hard to
recapture its predecessors glories without the same nuance, but its
escalation of the story from pseudo-realism to unashamed cartoon
brought greater opportunities for global-scale spectacle.
The game jumps between
international locations, taking blink-and-you'll-miss-it tours of
major Western cities, with deviations through India and Sierra Leone
for good measure. The problem is that, once transformed into
battlefields, the identities of these cities are redacted to a
slideshow of familiar landmarks (the NY Stock Exchange, the Houses Of
Parliament, the Eiffel Tower) thrown into the background as a
shorthand reminder of each mission's location. The Sierra Leone and
Indian excursions offer visual variety, but their sand-blasted
aesthetic is not distinct enough from the Middle Eastern missions of
games past to feel fresh, while an invasion of a Soviet submarine
seems to be using the same assets as Modern Warfare's cargo
ship assault. At least the game assumes the player has sufficient
familiarity by now to leave out the customary training mission. A
shame that it leans on the past so heavily everywhere else.
Set-pieces which were
surprising and tense in Modern Warfare are tedious through
overuse two games down the line. Only a zero-gravity shoot-out in a
plummeting aircraft threatens to inject the game with a shot of
originality, but the effect barely lasts a minute. There are two
extensive stealth missions where a significant amount of time is
spent gazing down a superior officer's lovingly rendered crotch,
waiting for enemies to look away before crawling unnoticed beneath
them, but every beat is recycled from the original Modern
Warfare's celebrated
Pripyat mission. Their heavily guided nature now tests endurance
rather than the nerves: do anything of your own accord and the game
will slap you on the wrist and make you start again, feeling more
schoolboy than soldier.
A positive development is
the opening up of the series' trademark battle sequences, offering a
degree of freedom in where to take up position across conflict zones
littered with debris and secret passageways. Previous games in the
series offered many of the same choices, but while the path forward
remains unwaveringly linear, it at least feels a little taller and
wider. On-rails vehicle sections are passable diversions, barely
asking players to interact with the game at all in order to progress,
but at least keeping to the series' strengths of fast-paced,
explosive action.
The campaign, though,
represents only six hours of a game where most will spend days,
courtesy of the online multiplayer. Anyone who has tried a Modern
Warfare deathmatch will know what to expect from this latest
iteration, but a handful of small refinements help further balance a
game of an already superlatively high standard.
The most notable change
comes through killstreaks being delineated into three packages:
Assault, consisting of the familiar care packages and helicopters;
Support, providing team-based awards and a kill counter that does not
reset following death; plus Specialist, providing additional perks
with each fresh batch of kills. Support is particularly useful in the
early stages of the game when equipment is limited, allowing such
defensive advantages as ballistic vests and advanced UAVs to be
conferred even whilst dying frequently at the hands of more
heavily-armed opponents. Later on, matching your strike package to
your play style and environment becomes a decision of increasing
tactical importance.
The return to a Modern
Warfare method of acquiring new weapons and equipment through
levelling rather Black Ops'
purchasing system is less positive. Treyarch's game found a
satisfying middle ground between working for your upgrades and having
a degree of control over how to apply them, so reverting to the older
model feels like a slog, asking players to continually use the same
weapon to acquire its perks and attachments, rather than being able
to tailor them to your needs.
Regardless, with a fresh
set of maps that balance different play styles better than Black
Ops, with every
sniper-friendly stretch levelled out by a plethora of hiding places
and underground routes for close-range combatants, and a greater
sense of location than their single-player alternatives, the good
news is that while Call Of Duty's campaigns remain trapped in
the past, its multiplayer continues to set the standard in the
present. [ 6 ]
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