Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

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This game currently holds the record for sales in a week and sales in one day for any video game. People like to say this is a bad game that only sells well because of advertisement and hype. If that were true it would not explain why people continue to play it or why they continue to pick this up year after year. Are all these COD fans just miserably playing online not having fun? The series maybe boring and unimpressive to many but it appeals to a demographic and it appeals to it well.

It's simple: if you've liked the previous CoD games then you'll like this one. If you were expecting something ground-breaking and new then this game is not for you. This game is like Madden. All you're going to get is new weapons, maps, some tweaks, and some new features. Whether or not this justifies the price tag is a different story. I'm purely basing my review on entertainment.

As a long-time fan of the series I'll start off with the bad. The singleplayer is as useless as ever with a non-sense story that you simply will not care about. It is repetitive and linear with overwhelming spawning enemy AI shooting from all directions serving as the only challenge. The only variation is some vehicle levels reused from previous Call of Duty entries. There are no tools at your disposable to change things up. It's the same shoot, cover, grenades mechanic in place since the first Call of Duty on PC. At least back then the firefights felt intense and you were part of an actual historical event. While Call of Duty 4's campaign was entertaining the following MW2 and MW3 don't add anything, the surprises and thrills are gone. SPOILER: when Jackson died in COD4 it was dramatic and unexpected. When this same trick is used in MW2 (twice) and MW3 it's just not as interesting.

**My major gripe is that there's no consistency of characters. Characters are constantly being introduced and killed off in every entry. Soap, Price, and Nikolai are about the only consistent thing about this series in terms of story. Even then they are just empty NPCs providing orders and guidance to the player. There's never any interaction or personality shown to make you care.

I'll move on to the reason why most people buy this game or any CoD game for that matter: the multiplayer. As usual thing are played out on medium-sized maps between 6-player teams. The most popular game modes are TDM and Domination. Multiplayer is fast, intense, and catered towards those with short attention spans like myself. You won't have to traverse much ground in order to find something to shoot at. Some prefer more variation, obviously Battlefield 3 being the main example. There's nothing wrong with that game but I prefer the down and dirty street fight. If you do too, you'll feel right at home.

The new "strike packages" are welcome giving players different options in terms of playing style and tactics. For instance, the support strike package does not rely on consecutive kills. It continually stacks and does not reset after dying. This allows players to be more aggressive while still supporting team members. Likewise the specialist strike package allows players to add perks to their original 3. After getting 8 kills they player will have all perks becoming a super soldier. Now they won't be able to call in any killstreaks but the advantage of additional perks is a great advantage in a gun vs. gun situation.

Maps were advertised as being more balanced. This is a matter of opinion but I'll have to agree. For the most part the maps have been designed to weaken camp areas. Most sniping/camp spots will have too many alternate routes to enter and flank. Other spots will just be awkwardly placed not giving the player enough view over heavy traffic areas. There are plenty of camping players but what do you expect in an FPS game.

Perks have been reorganized in a way that forces players to make some hard choices on how they set up their classes. Of course the specialist strike package remedies that but in general I've seen people go with the normal killstreaks. For instance, in previous games the player would use a perk to be invisible to radar. This perk would also double as protection against air support. They have now been separated into two different categories. The same goes for the popular 'sleight of hand' perk that allowed faster reloads as well as faster aiming. Now as two separate perks players will need to rely more on careful playing and good old reflexes.

Not such a big deal since it's identical to MW2 but the weapons are great. In Black Ops each category (assault, light machine gun, sub machine guns) had only a couple of weapons worth using. These weapons were so good there was no point in using anything else. MW3 has the reverse effect where everything works great, almost too great, where gun selection sometimes feels like it doesn't make a difference. It comes down to preference.

The downsides of multiplayer is the lack of dedicated servers which I've complained about since CoD switched over from PC. This causes you to rely on the host system. I'm not sure why but every now and then I'll be 'slower' than everyone else usually getting shot after getting behind cover or just a second before I actually spot an enemy. Sometimes I can tell this is working in my favor and I'll have an amazing time but I'd much rather everyone just be on the same level in terms of online latency.

This system prevents users from joining games. It'll just randomly throw you into any game that has a slot for you or your party. This results in throwing players into a lot of losing games. Why? With a lot of people getting frustrated and leaving a losing round it creates gaps on the losing team. Innocent players looking to join a game are suddenly thrown into a round with a 30 score gap that's about to end. The game counts this as a loss! You literally can join a game, do nothing, and still lose.

Another issue is the auto-balancing system. I don't play in a party so when I do well the next round assures that I get stuck with all of the less skilled players to make sure I lose so things stay 'fair.' I'm not using anything that puts me at an advantage over anyone else so I'm bothered that the game feels I need to be punished for playing well. To put things in perspective I have a 2.00 KDR for TDM but only a 1.20 win record. In theory that is about right since the autobalancing is doing it's job. 50 percent of the time you should be put on a good team and the other 50 the losing team. So maybe this is a good thing for some?

I've ranted on long enough but I will repeat what I said before. People do not like this game and never will. The people that do (there are obviously many) wilkl play it and enjoy it as always. The graphics are aging, the game is very similar to MW2, and if you had problems with the series before most of those problems are still there.

The game is FUN. That's all there is to it. If it's not for you that's fine. To be fair I think this is the last COD game for me. It's a solid final entry to the series but if they make another one and it's still the same I'm probably satisfied with this one.

I look at the progression of this series like this:

COD4 Introduced classes, perks, modern setting, and more arcade-like gameplay

MW2 Introduced "super power" type perks, pushed the game over the top in terms of arcade style, introduced killstreaks which would become a staple of the series, finalized the game to a console audience in terms of style, maps, and controls/weapons

Black Ops balanced the game, took a step back in terms of style, map design, weapons, and was actually a little too watered down from what MW2 was.

MW3 Balances between COD4 and MW2 very well, really no where for the series to go from here

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Let me just start by saying this is only a review of the online play after a few hours logged in. I will come back and update more as I log more hours online.

Up front, was very disappointed in the presentation of the game. Graphics I thought came up very short. I actually think they took a step back in the before/between game presentation. Everything is very cold and nothing jumps out at you. I expected to be impressed before even getting into the game but I wasn't but then again it's not the gameplay so I can get passed that. The emblems and banners were different but looked cheesy compared to Black Ops. The maps were pretty cool but once again the graphics didn't impress. The cars looked cartoonish to me. But this may not be important to you as is it to me.

What is up with the voices of the players in multiplayer? Everyone sounds very tinny and I know it's not my headset because I have not experienced this in Black Ops or Battlefield. It's almost like they sacrificed voice quality for improved bandwidth for gameplay. I asked others I was playing with if they were experiencing the same thing and they said they were.

The online gameplay was laggy. I am going to give this a pass and attribute it to the first day of online play and likely a high traffic experience. It was really tough to play. For example, while playing Headquarters, I shot someone 5 times with a shotgun at close range only to have them kill me. Watching the replay from their vantage point right after, It showed me only getting off 2 shots cleanly while dying as a third shot was being fired. A 2 shot lag was a bit much. And don't say it's my connection as I have a high dedicated bandwidth connection. I will give this a pass for now since it was day 1.

One thing I did like a lot about Black Ops was that you could buy attachments and equipment early on which sort of evened the playing field a bit as opposed to having to rank up and earn the right to these things. Well it's back to the latter again.

Some of the new killstreaks are pretty cool. I especially like the attack drone (I think that's what it's called) which could be great for Headquarters games. But why do we have to unlock these for each different class we setup?? UGH!

Game invites took a step back as well. Remember in Black Ops how you could go to your friends list and just hit "select" to invite them? Well, no more! Not sure why they didn't adapt this into this release.

I used to be an Infinity Ward fan and always thought they put out a better product than Treyarch. I think the tables have turned. I am not alone on this either. Everyone I played with last night that was mic'd up agreed with me that Black Ops is a better online experience except for one person that liked this game better.

Who knows. I might feel differently the more I play it but as of right now, I may spend more time playing Battlefield 3 and Black Ops than MW3.

**Update**

I've given it another week and I have not changed my opinion of the game. I am not sure if I am the only one experiencing this issue but this game lags terribly. I did not have, and still do not have these issues on any other FPS game including all of the previous CoD releases or the Battlefield games. On almost every match, I am seeing the game freeze for a split second then jump forward. It doesn't happen in the beginning of games, only when the action picks up so I am left to believe that the game is coded in such a way that it's being overloaded with data at the host. I also believe this to be the case because in one game I was in, my game aborted and I got an "out of memory" error on my screen. What is that?? Never seen that happen before on any other game. I've seen less of this on the smaller tactical games where the number of players are kept to 6-8.

I still have not got into the campaign but think I will spend most of my time there since I cannot tolerate the multiplayer any longer. I did however play the Survivor mode and really liked that a lot. It actually might be the best part of this game.

I still stand by my rating.

**Update**

Ok so I played the game off and on for about a month and I got to be honest, my feelings have not changed. The lag issue is not as bad as it was the first week the game was out but there is still noticeable lag. Let's face it....when playing online there has to be some aspect of lag and I completely accept that but I don't know why it's so much worse in this game than it was in other CoD releases. For me, it seems for the most part, the online games start ok with the lag not being that bad in the opening seconds, but as each match progresses it starts to become more noticeable. I am not sure if this is a memory issue or not but it seems the more action that is taking place, the more I notice the lag issue. I have not been back online in a few weeks, which is a CoD record for me. I've actually been online enjoying the BF3 multiplayer much more but that's not for this review.

Because of my frustrations with the online multiplayer performance, I turned to the single player campaign. I had no issues with the performance of the game in this mode, nor did I expect to. The single player campaign was actually pretty easy even on Veteran difficulty. Now I am just going back and completing the trophies to close it out.

Overall....the feeling is still the same and my rating will stick. I don't think it's a bad game but I expected more, performance wise and also in terms of creativity. I don't think this game delivers but it's just my opinion. ;)

Buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Now

Pros:

-Good campaign, but if you haven't played MW2&MW1 you'll be entirely lost

-Nice new multiplayer additions, such as bettys and scramblers

-Amazing new killstreaks like Strife Run and Overwatch

Cons:

-Not much originality. The multiplayer feels like a map pack for MW2

-The online maps all feel dull and similar. Hopefully the map-packs will bring some originality but we'll have to wait and see.

-Unsatisfying conclusion. Three games for... I'm not gonna spoil it.

Conclusion:

If you're a COD fan like me, this game seems old. The gameplay is fun, but if you're looking for something original try Battlefield 3. If you're new to COD, try Black Ops instead so you can understand the storyline. The Black Ops maps are also much more memorable.

Read Best Reviews of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Here

I have owned all the call of duty titles, and I feel that this one fell way short. The single player is entertaining as usual, but the multiplayer, which is why most people get the game is a step in the wrong direction. The multiplayer maps are very unimaginative, just a bunch of buildings with little creativity compared to other COD titles. Weapons are basically the same but with more options. The gameplay is the worst yet. I have a 35MBPs connection with a 35ms ping to the closest major city yet each game I play is laggy as heck and many games I get booted due to server connectivity. You would think that they would have servers all over to accomidate all the users across the US! I still think due to poor online gameplay and lack of map creativity this is near the bottom of COD titles.

Want Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Discount?

Let's be honest, this game is very similar to MW2 and CODBO (more so MW2). However, the gameplay in both multiplayer and single player modes is smooth and exciting. Some multi-player improvements I appreciate noobtubes have been nerfed and last stand is only a death perk. Some bads sniping seems too easy in this game and getting into a match can take quite a while (hoping this gets patched soon).