Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the 8th game in the Call of Duty franchise and 3rd installment in the Modern Warfare series. It was developed by Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer games and Raven Software and was published by Activision. Modern Warfare 3 continues the story of Captain John Price and Soap Mactavish as they hunt down Vladamir Makarov and try to put an end to World War 3. The game also brings back its time tested competitive multiplayer and cooperative Spec Ops Mode.

The campaign in Modern Warfare 3 is a fast paced roller coaster with some cool set pieces but like a roller coaster it offers little freedom. One of the first things I noticed when when playing the campaign and throughout it are the sheer numbers of explosions. This game has enough explosions to not only impress Michael Bay but make him envious. It was like they were trying to figure out what would make the story more exciting so they just decided to add more explosions. The story itself pretty much follows the same formula of past Modern Warfare games, to the point where you can call what is going to happen next because the same thing or sequence has happened in the past 2 Modern Warfare games.

The average campaign level consists of just following a computer controlled ally from point A to point B, then an on-rails vehicle sequence and then finished off with more following of an ally. Playing through the campaign on Normal difficulty I rarely ever felt like I was in danger and just died mostly to exploding cars or barrels. There are also stealth sections of the game but those are also incredibly easy because if you just follow right behind your teammate you wont be spotted. Over the years First Person Shooters have gotten quite linear but with Modern Warfare 3 it mostly just feels like an on-rails shooter.

The cooperative multiplayer mode, Spec Ops, has been brought back from Modern Warfare 2 to MW3 with a few additions and improvements. Spec Ops is a mode where 2 players can work together to beat missions with varying difficulties and challenges. The missions are pretty short but are fun and can be pretty challenging. This time around Spec Ops also includes a leveling system and a new mode called Survival. Players can level up through playing the different missions and survival mode. In Survival Mode players are pitted against waves of enemies with breaks in between waves to buy weapons, ammo, perks and upgrades with money they’ve gotten from killing enemies and completing waves. Each wave gets progressively more difficult until the players eventually are overwhelmed and die. I had a lot of fun with survival, it reminded me of Nazi Zombies from past Call of Duty games except I liked fighting enemies that shoot back a lot more than zombies.

Now on to the staple of the Modern Warfare franchise, the competitive multiplayer. Multiplayer has pretty much stayed the same except for a redesign of their killstreak system. Players can still level up and unlock new weapons, equipment and perks from leveling and once the max level is reached players can start from level 1 again by prestiging. This time around weapons themselves can be leveled up by using them and as they level up players unlock new camos, attachments and proficiencies. Proficiencies are a new addition to the game and allow players to increase a stat or aspect of a gun such as the damage or recoil. The game playlists have pretty much the same game types from the last Modern Warfare such as Capture the Flag, Seach and Destroy and Headquarters and a couple new types such as Team Defender and Kill confirmed. My favorite match type from the game is easily the new Kill Confirmed mode in which players drop dog tags when they die and their killer must retrieve it for the kill to count towards the score and a teammate could grab it to deny the kill. It added a whole new strategy to the game that sort of discouraged camping.

Infinity Ward reworked the killstreak system in MW3 by breaking them into 3 categories or Strike Packages a player can choose from while creating a class. The Assault Strike Package is very similar to the way kill streaks used to work where players received the streaks by building up a certain amount of kills without dying. This package contained streaks such as Predator Missiles, Osprey gunners and attack helicopters. The second packages, The Support Package, still relies on players building up kills to unlock rewards but their kills wouldn’t be reset upon death. The Support Package of course contains rewards that are geared more towards supporting the team such as Advanced UAV, SAM Turrets and EMPs. The final Strike Package is the Specialist Package which has the player build up kills similar to the Assault Package except instead of rewarding streaks like predator missiles the kills unlock up to 3 additional perks. This is probably the most different the killstreaks get from the previous games but I ultimately found this package to be most useless since there weren’t a ton of perks I wanted to have all together. While it seems on the surface that killstreaks were drastically changed in practice basically just felt like the same thing except now with the support package there are always EMPs and Advanced UAVs up.

One of my biggest issues with Modern Warfare 3 has to be the map design. There isn’t a single map that I actually like in the game. The way the maps are designed with tons of corners, objects and cars with people to hide behind or by it encourages camping. In every game I’ve played there is a huge issue with people hiding in corners and thanks to the maps it’s impossible to check every single corner you go by so you die a majority of the time from being shot in the back. Another issue I have that’s related to the maps is the way they reworked the spawning system. Now it seems like they spawn players on their teammates to help avoid spawn camping, which is when another team will sit around the opposing team’s spawn area and just kill them as soon as they spawn. The problem with spawning next to your teammates that are alive is that most of the time they’re already in a fire fight so you are being shot and and kill as soon as you spawn. It is an extremely frustrating issue that I’m surprised got out of testing.

My biggest issue with the online multiplayer in MW3 has to be online issues hands down. I’m not sure exactly what the term is but I’ve been hearing lag compensation to describe it. In every match I’ve had in this game there are issues where I would shoot an enemy way more than enough to kill them and they’d turn around and kill me with two bullets. Then if you watch the kill cam to see what your enemy saw you wouldn’t have even shot a bullet and just stand there like an idiot while he mows you down. I know for a fact it isn’t my internet connection because I don’t have this issue with any other games online. This happens to varying degrees during matches and there are short times where the game plays fine but it’s very inconsistant. There are also occasional moments where the hit detection is completely messed up and my bullets would go right through enemies standing right in front of me.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is another Modern Warfare game. I can’t say it’s a step forward for the franchise because it still looks exactly like the original Modern Warfare and it seems to have just as many if not more issues. While the single player campaign is decent it’s really short clocking in at about 5 hours and Spec Ops wont last you much longer. What gives the game its longevity is the multiplayer but the experience is just too frustrating to bear with most of the time.

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