Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 3

In 2011, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 reminded all gamers once again why the series is one of the best in the business. People love to hate these games, but no other first-person shooters have this flair for visual spectacle in the singleplayer campaign, and few can stand up to their utterly addictive multiplayer.

While Call of Duty series has become formulaic at that point, Sledgehammer Games and Infinity Ward have refined and polished the gaming experience to produce muddled narrative and at times frustrating design.

Graphics 5/5

The game’s graphics created using the modified and improved IW 4.0 engine looks great. The explosions are awesome, and the intensity of the single player pushes you to the edge of your seat.

The exciting atmosphere Modern Warfare 3 creates surrounds you as you fight the enemies and assist your war buddies. Camera angles draw in more drama while the explosions and modern buildings collapsing help making the experience realistic.

The game's soundtrack provides a pulse-pounding rhythmic backdrop to the game, and the guns sound like they have more weight comparing to the previous games. The voice acting is also well done.

Gameplay 4,5/5

In the single player campaign, you follow and play several characters as you attempt to destroy your enemies throughout the story. The way to get through the campaign is to think about where you are going to move to and reach that destination quickly. The story remains linear, so you may feel as if you are watching an action movie.

There aren’t any decisions that detour from the storyline, and if you mess up, you die pretty quickly. However, as always you can recover from all your wounds due to your health regenerating once you take cover. The gameplay is exciting but yet a little predictable. Eventually, all I cared about was shooting, killing and passing the particular mission.

As to multiplayer, it feels pretty much the same kind of action it was in Black Ops before that, with subtle differences. And some of the maps resemble many of the maps, which was available on Black Ops.

The modes from the previous Call of Duty installments are also in the multiplayer lobby. But in addition to those, there are new ones added such as Team Defender and Kill Confirmed. Team Defender mode requires teams to capture a flag which has been dropped by the first person who gets killed after the match starts. They have to hold the flag to gain double points while the team without it only gets the regular kill points. In Kill Confirmed mode, you have to collect the dog tags of a fallen enemy before the kill is registered. These tags float above the fresh kill and can be taken by either your team or the enemy.

Both modes require you and your teammates work together to prevent points or positions being taken away. However, people may have a different idea as to what teamwork is about and go their own way.

If you have problems with the kill and death ratio, you’ve got an option to use the Support Strike package where each strike is unlocked by how many kills you get. The Support and Specialist packages are brand new to MW3, and both may help you with the way you attack the enemy.

In Spec Ops, you can choose to play online with friends or go solo against AI. There are Survival and Mission modes.

In Survival Mode, you have to fight off waves of enemies and see how long you can stay alive. Throughout the match, you get weapons upgrades to destroy different kinds of enemies, such as Helicopters, which make it impossible to move around.

In Mission mode, the missions with certain rank level requirement are split into four tiers of four missions. All but 3 of these missions have three difficulty levels. As you go from one tier to the other, you unlock each progressive level.

Controls 5/5

The MW3’s controls feel as good as ever, and the same sense of speed and exhilaration that comes from an exciting mission or a great round of multiplayer still exists. I don’t think there is a need to specify which buttons you should press to shoot, run, jump, etc. I will just say that the game responds to every action accurately and swiftly.

Replay Value 4,5/5

Thanks to the engrossing multiplayer experience and ability to play Spec Ops with friends, you can play online for hours and hours. The single player mode hardly deserves to be replayed as it’s just a linear story you enjoy once.

Conclusion

Modern Warfare 3 lives up to the series reputation, though sometimes it feels more like an expensive DLC for Black Ops. Nevertheless, it’s a well-made shooter, which allows you to lose yourself in its competition and action-packed atmosphere.

If you have friends who play this game, it’s worth to at least play the multiplayer with them. The multiplayer is great, with more modes and a ton of new levels and ways to interact via Call of Duty Elite. And the Spec Ops mode adds value to the overall package, creating the game that may not be perfect, but is too addicting to pass up.

• Graphics 5
• Gameplay 4.5
• Controls 5
• Replay Value 4.5

Pros

Lots of challenging Spec Ops action;
Exciting and entertaining multiplayer;
Multiplayer maps are well-designed.

Cons

A 5.5hour campaign feels too short.