Ever since this game was announced back in March, anyone with half a brain should have known what to expect. They had already "leaked" the entire story in June, they showed off some of the multiplayer maps a month later, they had the CoD event in California, and come November 8th, people did the same thing they do every year: Rushed out to buy it. I decided to wait (like I did with Black Ops) a few months before I got my hands on a copy. I actually liked the game the first two times I played it. Granted, the times I played were matches offline, but I still decided to pick it up once the price went down. Amazon obviously can read my mind, since it was $40 at the time I bought it.
So how is it? Well, for those that don't like to read long reviews, I'll leave you with this. It is the definition of copy and paste. Take that as you wish. For everyone else, keep reading.
Modern Warfare 3 takes place directly after Modern Warfare 2. No shocker there, right? Neither is the rest of the campaign. You fight your way through New York against the Russians, blow up their navy fleet, head to Africa, then England, France, Germany, and finally you head to chase after the same bad guy you were after in Modern Warfare 2.
In all honesty, there is nothing new here. It honestly feels like Infinity Ward thinks I'm a male that's either between the ages of 13 and 18 (or still has the mindset of such age), or I'm just incredibly stupid and all I want to see is action, action, action, action, action. You know those "guy movies" that are action-packed, but repetitive? That's Modern Warfare 3's campaign. This is also where some of the cut and paste comes in. Remember back in Modern Warfare 2 when you were a Marine and at the start of one of the last levels, your character looks down at his bloody hands? Same thing happens in Modern Warfare 3, except you're a part of Delta Force, your hands aren't bloody, you're in Berlin, and your name isn't Ramirez. You remember the map Pipeline from the first Modern Warfare game? Remember the tallest building in the map, how it had three levels and people sometimes sniped from the very top? Yup, that building has made its return in the campaign of Modern Warfare 3. But more on the copy and paste thing later.
Continuing on, a lot of the missions start off the exact same way. You're usually either hopping out of an airplane, or you're playing the stealth role. I would say half of the missions featuring Price and Soap (yes, they're back) started the same way....in some bushes, trying to sneak past militia without alerting them, only to alert them later on in the level. Even parts of the missions themselves feel like they were ripped straight out of previous Modern Warfare titles. Remember "All Ghillied Up" from the first Modern Warfare? Remember how part of the level had you going prone underneath some trucks? You do the exact same thing in Modern Warfare 3. Only this time, the trucks are perpendicular to you, and one doesn't come after another to give you more cover. Overall, if you've played Modern Warfare 2's campaign, you already know how this one is going to play out. Funny thing is, Modern Warfare 2 took me four hours to finish on Regular, while Modern Warfare 3 took me almost five. Still, a very short campaign mode, and clearly not the reason why people would buy this game.
Just a quick statement for Spec Ops. Spec Ops has not influenced this review in anyway, shape, or form, because I find it very unentertaining and repetitive, though I know some people love it. Some of my own friends can't stop playing it, where as I'm bored within the first five minutes of firing it up. Basically, if you like Firefight from Halo, Horde from Gears, or Zombies from the Treyarch-developed CoD games, you'll like Spec Ops.
The majority of the fans stay for the multiplayer. Modern Warfare 3's multiplayer is, again, hardly different from any Call of Duty game you've played before. You have your Deathmatch, Domination, Ground War, Headquarters, Search and Destroy, and Capture the Flag modes we have all seen for years, now. A new addition to the roster is Kill Comfirmed. It's a Team Deathmath variant where, if you kill someone, they leave behind floating dog tags you have to pick up. However, anyone can pick them up. If a teammate picks them up, it's a point for yout team. However if someone from the opposing team picks them up, or the person you killed comes back and picks them up, neither team gets a point. And also there is a Community Playlist that, as of now, features only one game. Only time will tell what will be added and dropped, but for now, it really isn't anything special.
The multiplayer works the same way as previous games in the franchise, as I mentioned earlier. There are a few new weapons and attachments, but overall, if you've played a Call of Duty game before, you've played this one. The only difference is there is a seperate ranking system for each weapon you use, and those are also separate from the main ranking system. However, some experience points you earn throughout the game go to both your rank and your weapon rank. Your weapon levels up everytime you score a kill, destroy equipment with it, or use it to take down killstreaks. Leveling up your weapon unlocks new attachments, camo, and proficiencies. A Prociciency is like a perk, but for your weapon. For example, you can have one taht reduces the recoil, or one that increases the range of your weapon. I think it's a nice touch, for once. Unneccessary, but still a nice touch. But gone are the days of buying attachments like in Black Ops, though earning items in this game isn't really much harder in my opinion.
My main issue with the multiplayer is, once again, lag. We already know Activision and Infinity Ward spend as little money as possible to keep this game afloat and selling, but seriously, it's starting to show in a horrid way. There have been numerous times where I would shoot an enemy, he's almost dead, I'm still shooting at him, haven't moved my sight off of his body, and he kills me. As I sit and wonder "How could that have happened?!!", I watched the killcam to see that my last five rounds didn't even register. They came out, and you can see me still shooting him, but it's as if the game just said "OK, you shot him enough; he gets to kill you". There are also random moments where the game will literally freeze while playing online. And I mean freeze to the point where you think your console has frozen. I've seen random slowdowns while playing online as well. You know how when the game shows the last killcam, it slows down a little bit so you can see the killshot? Imagine the game slowing down a little bit while you're sprinting, for no reason. You would think that Activision would treat its new cash cow a bit better than that. Hopefully a patch later down the line will fix things. I highly doubt such a patch will be released, knowing their track record with Modern Warfare 2.
But to continue from my copy and paste mentioning earlier, it's very hard to deny this game being in copy and paste form. The red dot sight attachment is literally ripped from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and touched up to look pretty. A lot of the guns sound the same, and virtually every single attachment that you saw in Modern Warfare 2 is back in Modern Warfare 3. The only new addition I've seen is the hybrid sight, which combines a zoomed scope and a holographic sight. The perks are mostly just re-used perks from previous games, as well, though (of course) there are some new ones. Blind Eye makes you immune to air support and sentries. Assassin makes you immune to UAV, sentries, thermal, and heartbeat sensors. Those two perks make Cold-Blooded from Modern Warfare 2. Bling from the same game is now a proficiency for weapons. Scavenger is the same thing is has been since Modern Warfare 2 (though I don't mind this since I like the perk). The Main Menu layout looks exactly like Modern Warfare 2, except it's a different color scheme and has different pictures to represent the modes. The campaign even feels like the previous games. You're basically doing the exact same thing over and over again. Kill this group of enemies, move foward, kill another group, move foward, go in this building, kill the people that show up, move foward, kill another group, move forward, random action scene, random "Jump and reach for the chopper!!!" moment that was cool in 2007, use some random turret, move forward, use some random vehicle, move forward, yet ANOTHER AC-130 scene, move forward, repeat in the next Call of Duty game that was announced just weeks after this one was released.
It's unfortunate that Infinity Ward and Activision proved some people right with this game. I was hoping they would actually back what they said (remember when they told us no Final Stand? they lied) and would at least TRY to push out something different, even in the slightest sense. But instead, we get the "just add a few things so we can call it new", different. Instead of your mother making you baked chicken and corn for dinner, she made you baked chicken, corn, and seasoned the corn with a pinch of salt, but she had to tell you she added salt, or else you wouldn't have noticed it. However, at the same time, it should have been known this was going to happen. Overall, I would give this game 3 stars....BARELY. It's more like a 2 1/2 stars. I wouldn't even care if they had re-used EVERYTHING and changed nothing new. I just wish they would get the multiplayer right and fix the horrid lag issues people have been complaining about for two years. Hopefully a patch will fix this along the lines (and if one does, I'll update this), but I wouldn't hold my breath.
If you've been playing Call of Duty since the second one, like me, either wait and see what happens with future updates, or completely skip this one. You're not missing anything. And if you loved Call of Duty 4, like I did, I HIGHLY recommend you skip this one.
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