PS3 Review – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is like a chain restaurant – you know what you are going to get before you set foot in the restaurant. Maybe there are better restaurants out there with better food, but sometimes you just want some salad and breadsticks. While there is no delicious food involved, what you will get with MW3 is lots and lots of action.
It is important to note that while this game was developed by Infinity Ward, the same team that brought us Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare 3 was developed by Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games with some help from Treyarch, Raven and Neversoft. Activision brought all of its big guns to the fight to make sure that it could deliver MW3 despite the troubles Infinity Ward faced with its founders and a large chunk of the studio leaving shortly after Modern Warfare 2′s release. Whatever the details behind the drama at Infinity Ward, it is good to see that the series is still in safe hands.
The game starts right where MW2 left off. As Captain Price rushes to tend to Soap’s gunshot wounds, we flash back to some of the key scenes of Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2. After the brief review, we are dropped into the New York scenario that was showcased in the myriad of demos and walkthroughs of the game. From the destroyed corridors of New York City streets to a harbor filled with a fleet of Russian war ships, MW3 truly does feel like you are experiencing World War 3. MW has always been renowned for its iconic set pieces that span the entire globe, with the third entry managing to still provide gamers with thrilling run-and-gun moments.
As you make your way through the single player campaign, you may feel some “inspiration” from previous Call of Duty games. One building in one of the African settings is actually a nearly identical asset from a Modern Warfare multiplayer map that has been repurposed and tweaked to fit the new African setting. In another scenario you will be hiding out from squads of Russian soldiers reminiscent to the World at War ‘Vendetta’ level where you hide from German soldiers in Stalingrad. There is another scenario in a submarine that feels an awful lot like the cargo ship level from Modern Warfare. While some homages to previous games is common, there was a little too much deja vu. At times it felt a little too familiar.
Graphically, the game does not appear to have changed much from MW2. While MW2 was a pretty big step up visually from Modern Warfare, MW3 looks very similar to MW2. Granted, this may be due to the level of scale that some of the scenes are able to accomplish, but the IW engine looks to have peaked in the graphics department. This is a shame as the second Modern Warfare didn’t push the graphical boundaries 2 years ago, so the third entry is clearly beginning to show its age.
While the single player campaign is a great but familiar conclusion to the Modern Warfare story arc, the best aspects of MW3 are in its co-op and multiplayer modes. The co-op Spec Ops missions are nothing short of brilliant. Fans of the series will recognize the Spec Ops Missions concept from MW2. In addition to the task-oriented Missions, MW3 adds a new Spec Ops Survival mode that is their take on the Treyarch developed Nazi Zombies co-op mode or the Gears of War Horde mode. On top of the familiar wave based survival gameplay, the MW3 team has added the progression systems of multiplayer with unlockable weapons, perks and special equipment to help you survive the onslaught of enemies. Unlike the Zombies mode, Spec Ops Survival breaks its missions down into varying difficulties. If you just want to have some fun you can stick to the easier missions, and if you want a challenge you can try out the higher tiers with more powerful enemies. As with multiplayer, each kill earns you points which you can then use to buy more ammo for your weapons and new weapons as you rank up and start to unlock them. As you progress you will also be able to buy explosives like claymores and C4 to take down the more difficult enemies like Juggernauts or soldiers with body armor. And when you are being overrun there are even some of the killstreak rewards from multiplayer that can be unlocked. There is nothing more satisfying than watching an AC130 pummel that Juggernaut that has been chasing you and your buddy through the streets.
The game’s multiplayer mode has no genre changing innovations, but the MW3 teams have done a great job of taking the parts of earlier games that worked, axing the parts that didn’t *cough* knife teleports *cough*, and adding in some new twists to keep the game fresh.
A welcome change to the series is the re-invention of the killstreak reward. In previous games, a string of kills without dying earned you some type of bonus. Modern Warfare gave you a UAV radar sweep, an air strike to kill a group of enemies, or an attack helicopter to fly around shooting anything it saw. Modern Warfare 2 added a bazillion more rewards that you could pick and choose from, but still only rewarded people who could string together a bunch of kills. For new players and the death-prone player like myself that could be very frustrating, and it only rewarded players who went for kills rather than rewarding players who played for the benefit of the team. My favorite game modes are Domination and Headquarters, and a good Domination or Headquarters player is going to be jumping in there seizing objectives and dying at least every couple minutes. The MW3 teams recognized this and expanded the idea of kill streaks into a more broad set of Strike Packages. For the players who can rack up long killstreaks, the Assault package hands out the bevy of traditional death-dealing bonuses like the AC-130 and the Attack Helicopter. If you have trouble staying alive, you can opt for the Support package. The beauty of the Support package is it not only rewards you for kills, it rewards you for capturing Domination points or capturing flags. Even if you have zero kills in a match, you can still be a benefit to your team and feel like you are contributing. For the truly gifted player there is also the new Specialist package that grants you additional perks as you earn kills. While you won’t be helping your team with air support or intel, you will be making yourself more powerful and potentially able to rack up even more kills as you progress. This may be less useful for objective modes, but for Free-For-All or Team Deathmatch modes it may be very useful.
One interesting new addition to Modern Warfare 3 has little to do directly with its gameplay. The new Call of Duty Elite service is Activision’s attempt at expanding the Combat Record from Call of Duty: Black Ops into a more in-depth statistics and social networking platform that will span all future Call of Duty titles. It is a very ambitious project but sadly the best parts of the service are only available to subscribers at an incredibly high fee. The service will only appeal to true COD fans, and the price is only worth it if you invest some serious time into the game.
Modern Warfare 3 might be “more of the same”, but that is not entirely a bad thing as it is a copy of a great game. The MW3 team has delivered a satisfying conclusion to the story introduced with the first Modern Warfare game, brought some great additions to the game’s popular multiplayer and co-op modes – but the lack of innovation or real change means that the game is the least enjoyable game in the trilogy.
PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score
+ Awesome Spec Ops co-op gameplay + Consistently engaging CoD multiplayer experience - Little innovation |  |
22 Responses to “PS3 Review – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3”
An 8/10 is a very fair score in my opinion. MW3 is a good game, but not great. Great review.
beat the single player pretty good. m.p maps have chunks ripped from previous to the point of deja vu
…Like the three-story structure from MW2′s Pipeline map? That’s just one of the larger, more glaring recycled elements. How about the way there’s only a minimal amount of actual new features that evolve the game away from the tired formula? These CoD games have become so mundane and repetitive from year-to-year, they are now in my category of annual shit-games, cranked out and shoved down our throats just so the companies have a “new” product… Like Madden, Tiger Woods PGA, or any of those other games that have an annual release with the least amount of evolved new features.
I bought BlackOps on the midnight release and, with exception of the Zombies playability, I’ve never seen the hype everyone talks about with CoD, and I certainly don’t see the draw to MW3, much less pay an annual subscription fee for a game that will become obsolete by November 2012 because ANOTHER half-assed Duty game will be released by that time… Fuuuuccckk that shit!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfqpGJ1vhLU
What the shit? COD4′s nuke was haunting and eerily beautiful, MW2′s “No Russian” was an unnecessary mission left in the game solely for shock value (made worse by the fact that they made it an interactive massacre), but this? This is just fucking pants-on-head retarded. This isn’t Homefront, COD doesn’t need to make a name for itself, adding bullshit like this for shock value is completely pointless.
It’s funny how they left a hitmarker in there, though.
I’m in the middle of the campaign right now, just renting from Gamefly, and it is exactly what I thought it would be…more of the same like this review says. I’m playing on Hardened difficulty just to keep me awake honestly. I usually don’t feel the need to crank up the difficulty in games because I just enjoy playing through the story, but I chose to amp it up a little right away for MW3 just because I was expecting exactly what I found: This is a Michael Bay film with a ton of explosions and no depth. I don’t find myself caring about the characters at all, and that controversial family scene didn’t even evoke any emotion because I expected right away and it was unnecessary, it was a feeble attempt to get us involved in the campaign when they knew it was a shallow experience to begin with. The fact that these games can still keep up with other games visually just shows how well they put together COD4, and how it was ahead of its time, so I will give them that.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it is a horrible game. I guess I’m just saying I’m bored with the same formula we have seen for the past 4 years now. I find myself pushing to play longer just so I can get through it (I just got the game in the mail today and expect to finish the campaign tomorrow) and move on to games I know I will enjoy much more like Uncharted 3, which I haven’t even started yet because of Batman and Battlefield.
Well I hope it makes you feel better that MW3 sold 9.3million copies on release day, making it the biggest entertainment launch ever. Enjoy http://n4g.com/news/883765/modern-warfare-3-tops-9-3m-first-day-biggest-industry-launch-ever?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
It’s amazing what the hype machine will do to people who don’t actually know much about the game… Or played past ones to know it’s THE EXACT SAME THING AS THE LAST GAME.
COD is such a joke. Its a average game with the same thing all over again, I just dont see why so many people flocking to buy this crap. Killzone 3 to me is a much better game, with better graphics, more exciting gameplay and story, yet it does not sell as well as COD games. WTF is wrong with people? Uncharted 3 is the best game ever made and it doesnt sell as well as COD WTF.
I honestly dont think Uncharted 3, Arkham City, and Skyrim COMBINED will sell more copies than MW3 is going to.
You can defend it all you want, but I think this is the end of day 1 blowouts of CoD. IGN posted an article saying the developers (Sledgehammer) are asking people to go onto Metacritic to rate the game higher… its average score by 2500 users is a 3 / 10. People wanted something new and they didn’t get it. Activi$ion needs a wake up call to innovate the series, because it is just getting old and tired.
They should leave CoD to the 360… Cuz both Micro$oft and Activi$ion love to make money at the cost of innovating.
things must be really bad if you have to do this
http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/121/1212113p1.html#disqus_thread
can’t imagine why a dev would have to do this if your game is awesome. a conscience is a hell of a thing to have.
Glen Schofield tweets
“I don’t usually do this but, if u like MW3 go 2 Metacritic.com & help our user score,” writes Schofield. “It’s suspiciously low. Be honest but help if u agree.”
For PS3 is 2.3 right now HAHA NO JOKE GO TO METACRITIC.COM RIGHT NOW
zombie that is what my link send you to. that very same article
Very fair score! I was worried all the reviewers would be intimidated to go against the grain and not give this an unfairly high score. I am a moderate fan of COD and enjoy playing them, but it cannot keep getting universal acclaim after so many iterations that are, lets face it, so similar
COD is like FIFA. no real advancement in the series. well maybe they got a new dribble or team and maybe a manager mode. but basically its the same release every iteration. why does it even get a high score even though its rehashed year after year? well let’s just say COD has its fans. and some reviewers are fans as well. not talking about PSLS here mind you. but the droves of sites that gave this game 9-9.5 every year, then go on to say its the best experience ever. what have some reviews come to. at east PSLS is more close to the truth. many games have been penalised for lack-lustre stories, too short campaigns, lack of innovation, choppy graphics, unstable networking, etc. All COD games have suffered from those very same issues and more – yet COD never gets penalised in its reviews. i am sick of activision and journalists alike perpetrating this sort of bias. reminds me of when cliffy B was tripping over the fact that some game-sites gave his gears 3 a lower score than gears 2. he took to twitter to vent his dissatisfaction and annoyance about the reviews. now there’s even a MW3 dev on twitter begging fans to rate the game high to pump up his metacritic user score. pathetic. what a disgrace to gaming. Gametrailers and IGN are so obvious with their bias. i imagine they treasure those freebies they receive at press events and private review screenings. it has become disgusting to read review on many sites nowadays. PSLS can maybe teach them a thing or two.
If CoD NEVER won a game of the year award we’d be seeing advancements in every single game. Yet after CoD 4: MW it started to stall… After WaW advancements basically didn’t exist. Sadly the average consumers buy in no matter what because it LOOKS good and gets HYPED the f*** out of. Hopefully BF3 can win Shooter of the Year though… =\
That would be nice ShadowStarr, but unfortunately I doubt it. COD’s fanbase is too great for that to happen. Today I tried to reason with a fanboy today that both games (MW3 & BF3)were good, but he was convinced that BF3 sucked even though he never plays.
yup unfortunately it won’t happen. not when it seems that the gaming industry is smitten with COD. that would be blasphemous, to even consider putting BF3 before COD. they would rather give it to another game
At least one reviewer isn’t kissing the franchise’s ass.
I have a friend who refused to buy Battlefield 3 for the simple fact that a GameStop employee said it was “the biggest dissapointment of 2011″.
you know we’ve gotta realise that there is a lot of companies that support COD every year. they’ve got jeeps to match each version, they’ve got customised 360s to go with each one as well. basically they throw lots of money (invest) into the marketing of the title. do we really think anyone would give this game a low rating? too many companies are too invested in the franchise for it to be labelled as a failure in any way. it would make the investors and advertisers look stupid. big money is being thrown around. and i have no doubts that some of that money has been spent making sure they get great reviews. it sound like paranoia but think about it for a sec. look at how many celebrities do ads for COD, that’s endorsement right there, do you think they would say anything negative about it? dumpweed, i even heard someone say that the graphics are so horrible that homefront looks better, the hype machine is in full swing for COD regardless of how much it fails to innovate or improve. it will always be like that until we as gamers begin to speak with our wallets and stop rewarding mediocrity and laziness