As a big fan of Call of duty, I was looking forward to the latest in the series. Whilst the rest of the world seemed to write off MW3 before the game had even come out, I had high hopes for a game I was sure would have me coming back again and again. As I witnessed the big leap in gameplay from Call of duty 4 to Modern Warfare 2 and the not-so big but still substantial leap to Black ops, I was eager to see what new surprises Infinity ward & Sledgehammer games had in store for me. What new innovations would silence those non believers and have me tallying up that embarrassingly high amount of online playtime. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case...
Firstly I`ll talk about the campaign. The campaign is exactly what you`ll have come to expect from the MW2 & Black ops campaigns. Which is probably the worst thing about it. Its all way too familiar. You "lead" your squad of about 3 members from point A to point B, trigger some sort of action sequence and repeat. While its not awful, the gameplay works and the scale of the levels are much bigger (and occasionally impressive) than the previous MW, things are just too samey and repetitive. The single player ends far too abruptly with a huge anti-climax that was just plain lazy. People who are expecting a campaign as atmospheric and lengthy as World at war or CoD4 will be disappointed, as I completed the campaign on the hardest difficulty on my first play-through in a measly 6 hours. Sadly the MW3 campaign follows the same trend as the last two installments, and its something you may want to complete once, but never a second time.
Spec ops, along with multiplayer and campaign, is one of the three things to choose from MW3 on the title screen. Surprisingly, its also the best of the three. Its the only part of the game that seems to have truly been improved. 4 missions are available from the get go, and more become available as you level up. These missions involve things such as setting up bombs in a certain time limit, rescuing hostages and defending specific areas. These missions provide short, frantic bursts of gameplay that when played with a friend (Preferably over headset) can be some of the most fun you`ll have in MW3. An added feature is the new survival mode, which is Infinity wards answer to Treyarchs "zombies". You team up with a partner and attempt to survive as many waves as you can. The game provides you with purchasable guns, explosives, sentry guns, perks & killstreaks, to defend you from the never ending hoard of varied enemies like C4 armed attack dogs, juggernauts and poisonous gas wielding soldiers. The gameplay is very fast paced and the game barely lets you catch your breath before sending out more helicopters filled with attackers. Like the missions it provides an accelerated and hectic experience, with a lot of replay value, add that to the impressive list of 14 playable maps and Special Ops makes for one thing in Modern warfare 3 worth returning to.
Obviously, the online multiplayer is the main focus of the game. Its the reason people like myself, bought the game. The multiplayer has made little to no improvements since MW2 and some steps back from Black ops. Why no wager matches? Why no Customisable emblems? Why no Dynamic maps? such as Launch which featured a Rocket taking off, leaving all playings underneath it burnt to a crisp. As well as WMD which had a train racing by in the background. I just could not understand why Infinity ward would not include all the things that made Black ops such a hit, and just add more. Instead I was welcomed with boring and bland maps, that all seem to feel like close quarter mazes. Snipers are better than ever but the maps only offer the odd medium length hallway instead of long open areas which made sniping so fun in the previous ones.
Perks are pretty much the same but with a few differences, luckily commando and one man army have gone (Its worth noting the game also has improved hit detection since the last game) but none of them particularly add much to the experience. Pro perks are way too easy to get, It took me about an hours worth of gameplay to get a pro perk without me even trying. Where as with perks before I was forced to try new things, such as capturing ten flags in Black ops to get marathon Pro & having to destroy 40 enemy killstreaks in Mw2 to get Cold blooded Pro. Though I was glad to see the shotguns were a primary instead of a secondary weapon, I was unhappy to see a lot of guns and their reload animations ported straight from MW2. As if the guns themselves were not bad enough, a lot of the emblems and Titles were just repeated lines and images with a slightly different concept. For example, the wargasm title is back only with a different picture, and the anarchy symbol is instead of being on a plain background,
on a t-shirt for some reason.
Modes are almost all the same besides Team defender and kill confirmed. Team defender is by far the best new mode as it promotes team play, something CoD is famous for abandoning. Kill confirmed is decent but is really just a tweaked version of team deathmatch, & you`ll find yourself heading over to sabotage, Search & destroy and demolition after a couple of matches. However its always nice to see a new mode.
New killstreaks have been added but again, most are the same. Some are innovative and interesting like the ability to become a Juggernaut and hand out protective vests for your team mates, thought most are just variations of things you will have come to expect such as the chopper gunners and AC130`s. It is possible to have some fun mixing and matching your weapons and classes as the core solid gameplay is still intact, but things just feel way too familiar.
Modern warfare 3 isn't a bad game, its possible to have a good time with a buddy in special ops & perhaps new comers could get something out of the multiplayer. But it just isn't the innovative game the franchise and fans deserve. Certainly not the worst game of 2011, but definitely the most disappointing.
New Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 images featuring some of the classic maps Scrapyard and Terminal have apparently leaked online.
Just like you remember! EXACTLY like you remember... now give us another $70 so you can play what you were playing years ago with slightly better graphics!
They've kicked this dead horse to the point that they're relasing re-remakes. "No, this isn't the same as the Modern Warfare II we released before, this one is an actual remake instead of a reboot!"
The maps on Modern Warfare 3 were the reason I lost interest in CoD all those years ago. They were horrifically designed.
Well there's a number of reasons really but if I can pinpoint the exact moment the series died to me it was with the MW3 maps
This franchise needs a break man. Imagine if all these CoD dev teams actually working on new IPs, not just call of duty.
Sales would have to drastically decline for that to happen, which unfortunately there are zero signs of that happening...the battle passes probably make more than most games ever do in lifetime sales
So this is Modern Warfare (2019) 3. Great job Activision. I've stopped playing because of this nonsense. Plutonium is the way to go now.
Jacob writes: "Upon release, Modern Warfare 3 was hailed by the critics. They raved that it exceeded the hype, met all expectations and was one of the best first-person shooters going. It appeared Call of Duty was still king of the castle and it had the sales to back the claim up too. And yet, player reception was remarkably muted. On Metacritic, the game sits at a paltry 2.9 user rating."
Fall 2011 will always be a time that I remember. I had come off of playing 4 straight Call of Duty games; MW, WaW, MW2, and black ops with a group of my friends. MW2 was and likely always will be my favorite. I had poured months of game time into the series, so it should have been easy for Infinity Ward to sell me on the game over BF3. I had played some bad company 1&2 before, but it hadn't quite grabbed me like call of duty did. Leading up to the release of BF3 and MW3, one stood above the other in my mind.
BF3 was all out warfare that I had never seen before, and the graphics looked so good! In contrast, MW3 looked like MW2....but maybe even worse. I decided to try the beta for BF3. That's when my mind was made up - the chaos of Operation Metro consumed me. Putting in over 20 hours into the beta during the couple day period. I told my friends they had to try it. A couple did, but only one of them got hooked the way I did. The rest were still on the COD hype train and didn't want anything to do with Battlefield.
When both games released, the public perception was clear. Although MW3 certainly sold more, there isn't much of a question in many people's minds which was the better offering. MW3 was a drab rerelease of MW2, while BF3 is one of the best games in the series, and one of the best FPS games of all time.
Some of my friends got sick of MW3 fairly quickly and switched to Battlefield, but there's still some of them that never got to experience the greatness of that game.
I have since switched back and forth between the series' depending on how poor each offering is, but I have to say, I still get much more excited about Battlefield games.
I could talk about my experiences in BF3 for hours, but I'll end it here for all of our sakes ;)
I remember telling my friends back in 2007 "keep battlefield 3 on your radar boys!"
You know what’s weird, I have played all cod’s since.. well cod 4. Put thousand upon thousands of hours into them. Loved mw1. Loved WaW. Loved MW2. Loved blops. Hated, hated mw3. Still couldn’t never put my finger on why.
Really the only ones I hated were ghosts, IW, Aw , Cold War and MW3. (And maybe vanguard)
A rep from Activision has confirmed that all reports about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Remastered being in the works are false.
It would’ve been nice to be able to finish the trilogy in remastered form but at the same time, I’m not super surprised - by the time 3 came around they’d milked MW to death and it was the weakest of the 3 by far.
Every few years I replay one of the old cod and I like them for some fun, it would be nice to have it remastered when I get back to it in 5-10 years.
looks like you have plenty of time to remaster it yourself if its that important.
Took me a long time to write this review!
Comments are welcome :)
I havent played MW3 but the Titles and emblems are ported?? From Mw2?
Not bad review. I agree, online is boooooring. This is the first CoD since 4th when I quit playing after 2nd month and never touched it since.
you all sound very different from anyone i ever see online, you must be pc gamers
I enjoy the online cause it is more balanced than the other CoD's. I hate both BF3 and MW3 campaigns. Only FPS campaigns I've liked recently are the Killzone games.
I'm not a huge fan of CoD, so maybe that's why I'm not as disappointed.
+In MW3 the best perk without a doubt is the care package.
+Online split-screen is also an improvement over MW2.
+16 solid (but small) maps create some variety.
+Video recording/YouTube uploads, good matchmaking, and Mercenary mode are some things MW3 does better than most online shooters.
I really hope they start from scratch on the next game, and give it a 4 year development. They certainly have the funds to do so.