Before I even get into the bulk of this review there are a couple of things that I want to get off my chest first. To begin, I have a small rant of the nature of PC gaming in general. It seems that publishers and developers are continuing to neglect PC gamers as a whole. Now this is probably because they make most of their money off of consoles but that doesn’t mean they can’t put a decent package together for computer gamers. When Modern Warfare 2 and 3 came out, console gamers were able to purchase the “Hardened Edition” which came with some extras that would be interesting for the collector such as me. Would it have cost that much more to do the same thing for the PC version of the game? I don’t think it would take too much effort to release something extra for computer versions of games, or even to really support them in general.
My second rant has to do with first person shooters in general and their development. It used to be (not too long ago) that you bought a game for its story, for its campaign, for the characters, but nowadays all the focus seems to have shifted to multiplayer. In my experience, when a developer shifts from a solid campaign to focus on multiplayer, the campaign suffers significantly. Using Call of Duty as an example, the first Modern Warfare had one of the best campaigns I ever played. I replayed that game a dozen times on various difficulties, and was one of the only times that I consistently enjoyed the multiplayer experience. But as we have progressed through the series, the development teams seem to have focused more and more on multiplayer and the single player stories have suffered as a result. What we need to do is make sure that we have covered both fronts. We can’t let campaign suffer to better multiplayer and we can’t let the multiplayer suffer to better a single player game, at an asking price of $60 the developers better have a solid footing for both.
Now, unfortunately, I have to talk about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and I will get into why that is unfortunate shortly. As I prefaced in my Black Ops review, when I play any game in general, I am looking at it only from a single player perspective as I don’t particularly enjoy multiplayer.
The setting in Modern Warfare 3 takes place directly after Modern Warfare 2. World War 3 has broken out, and Russia is at war with the rest of the world. Captain John “Soap” MacTavish was stabbed in part 2 and is being rushed to a doctor by his mentor Captain John Price. The two of them have been condemned by the rest of the world, and have been branded traitors, along with the rest of Taskforce 141. As with previous games, you experience the story for multiple perspectives, and in many different parts of the world. The problem with the story in Modern Warfare 3 is that it just wasn’t very interesting or compelling. As a direct sequel it seemed like such a rehash of everything that has been said or done before. After being treated to a great story in Black Ops, MW3 just seems to fall flat. Other than Price, and Soap there aren’t really any characters that I care about, the dialogue seems so repetitive, and the story in general seems so cliché and one-dimensional.The sound in the game has never been better, but is not that much of an improvement either. Not only does each weapon have a clear, and distinct sound, but the overall environment really draws a player into the firefights taking place around them. The game is accompanied by a full orchestral score that you can barely notice unless you’re listening for it, which is really what a score should do. It should highlight the emotional ups and downs in the narratives without making itself obvious, and the score for MW3 does exactly that. The voice work is superb, and even though I don’t like the script itself, hearing Price’s voice always brings me back to my first experience with Modern Warfare.
Graphically, little seems to have changed from the previous iteration. The mission briefings while the various levels load have been ramped up slightly but the actually direction of the game seems to be all over the place. The screen is often too dark for me to be able to clearly make anything out, and the ability to use night vision has been reduced down to one single level. A recent complaint I have for games in general is that they have become too cinematic. There are too many times in MW3 where you’re taken out of the action and shown an in-game cut scene and all it does is reduce the tension or the adrenaline a player is supposed to get from the experience. What the developers have tried to do is to make you do mundane tasks while in the cut scene to make the player feel involved but really it feels half-assed and is more annoying than it is engaging.
The game play in MW3 is just so, “been there, done that”. There is really no better description that I can come up with. When I picked up MW2 two years ago I thought it was too similar to this first one in many of its mechanics but I still enjoyed it because it offered new levels such as snowmobiling, and a speed boat race at the end. In this latest adaptation there is nothing that I can now look back on and say, “Well at least we had that one new thing”. Other than instances where you just have wave after wave of enemy come at you, or random running from building to building, regardless of the location, it is all just a rehash of the first two games in some respect. It seems that the developers took what was a lot of fun in small amounts in the first two games and just drew out those moments so they became tiresome.
I could keep going but describing the derivative nature of the game has just made me more irate. It is really just sad to see a series held in such high regard fall so far.
If you got this far through the review and you’re still thinking you would like to pick up Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, I would simply ask “why?” Other than multiplayer, which includes a new subscription service called Elite (also, not available for PC), there is nothing redeeming about the story mode. The graphics, while sharp, have no significant improvement from the first two, the game play is the same wave after wave of increasingly dumb A.I. from ridiculously large distances that shooting is impractical, and the direction takes you out of control far too many times, far too often. The game is a constant barrage of explosions to the point that your character is knocked down, and dazed about half a dozen times in the game only to be greeted by someone telling you to “get up and get going” over and over again. This is a game that was designed for the monotony of multiplayer, and while those who play online might consider themselves ‘gamers’, without an authentic and engaging story, what is the point?
Before I even get into the bulk of this review there are a couple of things that I want to get off my chest first. To begin, I have a small rant of the nature of PC gaming in general. It seems that publishers and developers are continuing to neglect PC gamers as a whole. Now this is probably because they make most of their money off of consoles but that doesn’t mean they can’t put a decent package together for computer gamers. When Modern Warfare 2 and 3 came out, console gamers were able to purchase the “Hardened Edition” which came with some extras that would be interesting for the collector such as me. Would it have cost that much more to do the same thing for the PC version of the game? I don’t think it would take too much effort to release something extra for computer versions of games, or even to really support them in general.
My second rant has to do with first person shooters in general and their development. It used to be (not too long ago) that you bought a game for its story, for its campaign, for the characters, but nowadays all the focus seems to have shifted to multiplayer. In my experience, when a developer shifts from a solid campaign to focus on multiplayer, the campaign suffers significantly. Using Call of Duty as an example, the first Modern Warfare had one of the best campaigns I ever played. I replayed that game a dozen times on various difficulties, and was one of the only times that I consistently enjoyed the multiplayer experience. But as we have progressed through the series, the development teams seem to have focused more and more on multiplayer and the single player stories have suffered as a result. What we need to do is make sure that we have covered both fronts. We can’t let campaign suffer to better multiplayer and we can’t let the multiplayer suffer to better a single player game, at an asking price of $60 the developers better have a solid footing for both.
Now, unfortunately, I have to talk about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and I will get into why that is unfortunate shortly. As I prefaced in my Black Ops review, when I play any game in general, I am looking at it only from a single player perspective as I don’t particularly enjoy multiplayer.
The setting in Modern Warfare 3 takes place directly after Modern Warfare 2. World War 3 has broken out, and Russia is at war with the rest of the world. Captain John “Soap” MacTavish was stabbed in part 2 and is being rushed to a doctor by his mentor Captain John Price. The two of them have been condemned by the rest of the world, and have been branded traitors, along with the rest of Taskforce 141. As with previous games, you experience the story for multiple perspectives, and in many different parts of the world. The problem with the story in Modern Warfare 3 is that it just wasn’t very interesting or compelling. As a direct sequel it seemed like such a rehash of everything that has been said or done before. After being treated to a great story in Black Ops, MW3 just seems to fall flat. Other than Price, and Soap there aren’t really any characters that I care about, the dialogue seems so repetitive, and the story in general seems so cliché and one-dimensional.
The sound in the game has never been better, but is not that much of an improvement either. Not only does each weapon have a clear, and distinct sound, but the overall environment really draws a player into the firefights taking place around them. The game is accompanied by a full orchestral score that you can barely notice unless you’re listening for it, which is really what a score should do. It should highlight the emotional ups and downs in the narratives without making itself obvious, and the score for MW3 does exactly that. The voice work is superb, and even though I don’t like the script itself, hearing Price’s voice always brings me back to my first experience with Modern Warfare.
Graphically, little seems to have changed from the previous iteration. The mission briefings while the various levels load have been ramped up slightly but the actually direction of the game seems to be all over the place. The screen is often too dark for me to be able to clearly make anything out, and the ability to use night vision has been reduced down to one single level. A recent complaint I have for games in general is that they have become too cinematic. There are too many times in MW3 where you’re taken out of the action and shown an in-game cut scene and all it does is reduce the tension or the adrenaline a player is supposed to get from the experience. What the developers have tried to do is to make you do mundane tasks while in the cut scene to make the player feel involved but really it feels half-assed and is more annoying than it is engaging.
The game play in MW3 is just so, “been there, done that”. There is really no better description that I can come up with. When I picked up MW2 two years ago I thought it was too similar to this first one in many of its mechanics but I still enjoyed it because it offered new levels such as snowmobiling, and a speed boat race at the end. In this latest adaptation there is nothing that I can now look back on and say, “Well at least we had that one new thing”. Other than instances where you just have wave after wave of enemy come at you, or random running from building to building, regardless of the location, it is all just a rehash of the first two games in some respect. It seems that the developers took what was a lot of fun in small amounts in the first two games and just drew out those moments so they became tiresome.
I could keep going but describing the derivative nature of the game has just made me more irate. It is really just sad to see a series held in such high regard fall so far.
If you got this far through the review and you’re still thinking you would like to pick up Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, I would simply ask “why?” Other than multiplayer, which includes a new subscription service called Elite (also, not available for PC), there is nothing redeeming about the story mode. The graphics, while sharp, have no significant improvement from the first two, the game play is the same wave after wave of increasingly dumb A.I. from ridiculously large distances that shooting is impractical, and the direction takes you out of control far too many times, far too often. The game is a constant barrage of explosions to the point that your character is knocked down, and dazed about half a dozen times in the game only to be greeted by someone telling you to “get up and get going” over and over again. This is a game that was designed for the monotony of multiplayer, and while those who play online might consider themselves ‘gamers’, without an authentic and engaging story, what is the point?
