Publisher: Activision
Developer: Infinity Ward/Sledgehammer Games w/ Raven Software/Neversoft Studios
Genre: First Person Shooter
Players: Single Player - 1, Co-op 2, Multiplayer - 2-18
Launch Date: 8th November 2011
Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games with publisher Activision have finally released the long awaited Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, with millions of copies of the game already it’s no lie that the franchise is off the scale with gamers, and with many of us finally getting to see the conclusion to the end of Task Force 141’s story we have to ask, is this the greatest game in the Call of Duty series, or is the brand slowly starting to fizzle out?
Only way you will find out is if you read our exclusive in depth review as we take a look into everything that the game as to offer from campaign to co-op in Spec Ops mode, it’s all included here, so read on to find out exactly what we thought of the finished product.
Gameplay – 9/10Call of Duty Modern Warfare revolutionised the way we play first person shooters four years ago by adding in certain elements into the genre that other company’s hadn’t thought of or used until today. The first person mechanics to this day are still amazing to use and with every new game comes a slight new change to the formula we all know and secretively love.
Modern Warfare 3’s story continues almost immediately after the second game as it continues to tell the story leading up to World War 3. We get met with our heroes Captain Price and Soap McTavish who are now on the run after having their worlds turned upside down in the previous game.
The story is mostly comprised of missions that are based on getting from point a to point b whilst taking out enemies in the process, with numerous set pieces to witness as you progress the story never gets boring and by the end of the game you will notice that the campaign should take you roughly five hours to run through especially if your looking out for one of the forty two pieces of Intel that are lying around the games multiple levels.
Its not necessarily all about getting from point a to b though there are some rather interesting levels that are included such as missions where you infiltrate the submarine that many of us have seen from trailers, this is done by having a fast paced ride on a boat that you control whilst avoiding obstacles lying in the water and taking out enemies that will try to stop you.
You also have a mission in which you control an AC-130 and have to watch out over your team that who are on the ground waiting for you to get rid of all of the enemies from above, to do this you will be shooting at tanks and helicopters as well as ground enemy troops whilst constantly switching from the AC-130 to your troops on the ground to help progress through the mission.
Without the diversity many gamers who have played some of the other Call of Duty’s will feel that some of the missions are very samey, and that the feeling of been there done that will apply. Some of the missions in this game will feel exactly like that, but its good that certain areas have been switched around and updated to something better and interesting whilst maintaining all of that high octane action we crave.
Spec ops as also made a return this time and not only does it come with a brand new set of missions to please everybody who loved spec ops back in Modern Warfare 2, but also the mode comes packed with a new Survival Mode where you go head to head against ever enemies who constantly get harder as waves go on and on.
Spec ops can be played in solo if you wish but some aspects of the mode will require you to play with a friend in either, online, local or private co op. With all of the mission’s available you will have more fun working through them with a friend especially if you decide to take the game on in veteran. The missions themselves are of a decent quality but sometimes I got the feeling that none felt quite so epic or of the quality of those that featured in Modern Warfare 2.
With the addition of survival mode though, you get a nice little addition that takes your standard horde modes or even the zombie mode if you will, and they add a nice little spin to how people play game types such as these.
This is done by adding in the elements of letting players level up exactly how they would do in the normal multiplayer, you level up exactly the same as you would do if you was playing multiplayer as well, each kill you get will award you with points and if you look at the bottom left of the screen you will notice two random mini challenges that if you can complete them in a wave you will get bonus experience points that will go to levelling up.
Not only will you level up in survival missions, but you will also level up by playing the normal mission mode which makes things a little easier especially if you want to take on the veteran modes. It’s important to note though any levelling you do in spec ops will not transfer over to your normal multiplayer profile which is a shame.
Any experience that you earn will not only help you level up, but it also goes into your bank account in game which you can then use to purchase items that you have unlocked or items that you think may come in handy at a later date. Some items will remain locked up until you get to a higher level and once you hit that level you will then be able to purchase them for a set amount of money.
With how many fans that love the multiplayer aspect of Call of Duty you will be glad to know that the mode as returned and is now bigger then ever as it packs in old modes that gamers loved and cherished from previous games whilst adding in new modes such as Kill Confirmed.
With having two different types of playlists available to play, anybody who was a fan of the wager matches in Black Ops will love the fact that those modes have been brought over into Modern Warfare 3. You will find these under your advanced playlist tab though as opposed to the normal playlist option showing you the normal game types you can play.
When you start playing multiplayer don’t expect to be able to jump in and play any mode that you want to though as most will be locked off until you are a higher level in order to take part in them. Luckily though none of the modes require you to be that high of a level in order to jump in and play, and with how fast you can level up at the start of the game it won’t be long until you can take part in fun game types such as Headquarters or Search and Destroy.
Again you will be able to level up and unlock new items, gear and perks as time goes on which will help you when taking on the many players who will pass through, and with seventy levels to work your way through and ten different prestige’s you will no doubt be spending a lot of time playing through the game.
Whilst the single player won’t take you very long to work your way through no matter what difficulty you play on, spec ops and multiplayer mode will easily eat through most of your time and will easily warrant the price you pay for the game, these modes are well thought out and very much fleshed out with lots of different options.
Graphics – 8/10The second you load up Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 you will be met with a nice little introductory video where Makarov explains what Modern Warfare is and how the world can be altered just because of one mans vision, the overall look of the video is spectacular though and helps set the mood for the rest of the game and what you’re roughly going to expect.
When the video ends you will be met with the menu system which can easily be described as been there done that with the past two games but its still clean and effective and you will find yourself browsing the menus as fast as possible with little problem with navigating around them.
Each of the menus comes with their own sub menus which go into even greater detail and more options for you to delve deeper into, these consist of both the campaign sub menu, spec ops and multiplayer. Depending on which one you choose will depend on what options are available to you, but the overall layout and presentation is great.
When you eventually get around to starting the campaign you will notice that like previous Call of Duty games the loading screens are presented in a story format that will have certain characters talking about what the next move is, these are normally presented in a worldwide map that will see a camera pan in and out on certain areas of the world or certain key elements of the story between certain characters. The loading screens as normal are really well made and can be both informative and nice to look at.
It’s no lie that the Call of Duty engine is now starting to show its age, it uses the Infinity Ward engine which in itself is a modified Quake 4 engine and was originally made for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The engine has gone through some tweaks and changes over the years to help make the life of the engine that little bit longer, and even after all these years the engine still looks absolutely fantastic and runs at that silky smooth sixty frames per second for ultimate intense action.
Unfortunately though the campaign and some parts of Spec ops suffer from slow down issues especially when the game is forced to try and do too much in such a short amount of time, this is only a minor gripe though as it doesn’t happen all of the time and does manage to pack in an awful lot of action.
The campaign in itself is full of set pieces and nearly every few minutes of gameplay will be split up with some sort of explosive disaster which will see the camera pan and show you the spectacle of what is currently going on around you, some of these set pieces are well done and there is even a section in the game where it pays homage to parts of the older Modern Warfare games.
The character models themselves look great from a short distance but if you get close up to them you will notice the jagged edges that are used to draw around them, again this comes down to the ageing engine issue of the game, facial expressions are pretty good though and help set the mood no matter if you’re shooting somebody or standing at the other end of the barrel of their gun.
The guns are also well modelled and look just like their real life counterparts, it’s great to see new gun designs have made it into the mix as well as new attachments that may come with them for example secondary zooms which can just be flipped into position. Shootouts and explosions that come from using the guns themselves are great to witness though and you always feel satisfied about what is going on around you as you watch bullets and explosions fly past you.
Whilst the graphics are pretty good for an engine as old as it is, I think it is about time Activision started allowing some development time for a newer engine to be developed to really help push the game forward and please the fans even more then they already are.
Sound – 10/10Sound is always a massive part of any boxed product that goes onto store shelves and with Call of Duty this could be none truer. With every iteration of the game the way the sound is produced and implemented into either the story of the multiplayer is always improved throughout.
Modern Warfare 3 is no exception to this rule and places massive emphasis on the gun work and explosions that go on the game. It seems like Infinity Ward went back to the sound design for the Modern Warfare three and stripped down the audio for the weaponry. The reason I say this is that most of the weapons that are featured in game now, when fired sure sound like they pack a punch to whoever is on the other side of your crosshairs.
The voice acing is also top notch with many of the original games character actors returning to take on either familiar roles or brand new ones, British voice actors Billy Murray and Craig Fairbass both return to pick up the roles of Captain Price and a new squad member that you use for the London section of the game.
What makes the voice acting so great is that no matter what character is talking you always get the feeling that this could all one day happen, we may each find ourselves in the predicaments that these false characters find themselves in, they help bring the story to life and hit home that lives will be lost and you need to fight for what you believe in.
If that wasn’t enough either the orchestral score that plays out in the background during certain sections of the game is a real blast to hear and every single song that plays out always feels like it’s in the right spot, you can so easily go from fast up beat score because you’re running away for the militia to a very slow and sorrowful piece because you find yourself in a situation that you may not be able to get yourself out of.
It really does appear that with the upgrades to the sound in the game, could they really have gotten any better, everything just seems to hit the spot be it the music or the voice acting put into the game. Even all of the little bits of sound that are in the multiplayer seem to work well also. I think it will be hard to top the efforts made in this game when the next Call of Duty comes out, but all other games studios should take note this is how you make a game that immerses you into the story and game itself by sound alone.
Difficulty – 8/10Difficulty in the Call of Duty series as always been something fans have longed for, if you set your minds back to the earlier iterations of the franchise, some of the levels were so tough you would spend countless hours replaying checkpoints over and over only to get killed by grenade spam.
In Modern Warfare 2 Infinity Ward decided to reduce the grenade spam issue and also remove enemy spawn closets so that enemies couldn’t always spawn as you’re reloading which meant you would need to keep doing the same thing over and over until you got lucky. This in turn made the game extra easy to breeze through in veteran difficulty as long as you took your time.
This time around the grenade spam seems to still be non active, you will have times however when two grenade markers will appear on your screen in which you must navigate away from, nothing over excessive as what we have seen in the past though. Enemy spawn closets also make a return in this game but not on every single section of a level. Normally they will be placed in areas of the campaign or spec ops where you are bottlenecked or where you are timed to get through a certain area, when I say timed, I also mean you will be on a hidden timer that when it hits zero more enemies will spawn in a wave. If you can take them out quickly enough you will have an easier time in getting through then taking your time to progress.
The game itself comes with four difficulty settings in which can be used on Campaign and Spec-Ops mode, these range from easy to veteran, and for the first time in the franchises history it appears that all of the difficulty settings have had a slight tweaking to make them more of challenge, with easy you can still plough through the enemies with ease with little more then your knife but on difficulties from normal onwards you will need to be more tactical. Running into an enemy onslaught will only get you killed or badly wounded, it will take a really skilful player to be able to charge on the enemy and walk away unscathed.
Veteran being the hardest difficulty and in the past the difficulty that has taken no prisoners when it comes to how fast and easy you can die, you will be glad to know its not as hard as it as been in the past and if you take your time, spot enemies and take them out quickly and efficiently you will have little problem with getting through the game.
Spec-ops on veteran may prove to be a problem though as you are sometimes timed harshly on getting through a specific area or to do a certain challenge, with how easily you can get shot and downed you may find yourself replaying sections over and over with yourself or a partner seeing as how some can only be done in co-op. Normally it appears though that if you work out a strategy you will have little problem progressing onwards.
Multiplayer in Call of Duty will be as difficult as you want it to be, the later you leave it to join in the fight online the harder it will possibly get with other players having better weaponry then yourself or perks that they have unlocked which you don’t have. Obviously Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games have tried to keep the multiplayer as fair as possible. But better weaponry or custom class’s wont make up for the bog standard kits you start the game with.
Overall Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 is a challenging game in some areas, but with how challenging it can be it never takes away from the fun of the overall experience and you will stay with the game until it’s complete no matter what difficulty or mode you play the game on.
Achievements - 7/10If you’re a fan of the Call of Duty series of games then by now you will be accustomed to what the achievements normally consist of, if you’re not a gamer who has followed the franchise then let me explain them for you.
Modern Warfare 3 comes with your standard story progression achievements giving you ten gamerscore for every chapter you complete within the game, you will also get a further twenty five gamerscore for completing sets of missions in veteran which will ultimately lead to you getting the achievements for completing the game and completing the game on either hard or veteran difficulty.
There are also a few achievements that are tied to doing certain things in specific missions, unfortunately there aren’t many of these types of achievements which are a bit of a downer but it’s still good to see they got included this time around. These can come in the shape of eliminating three tanks with one shot from an AC-130 to taking out four cars with four mortar shells which will no doubt be a little tricky for some people.
Just like previous games, Modern Warfare 3 comes with no online multiplayer achievements, instead opting to focus the rest of the in game achievements to Spec Ops mode. The list here is a little more varied then that which was featured in Modern Warfare 2, and Infinity Ward have been really creative with some of the achievements on offer whilst others leave a lot to be desired.
You have achievements based on getting all of the stars available in mission mode and gaining at least one star on all of the missions available in game. With good team work and skill plus time you will find that these won’t be as bad as they sound with some of the missions being relatively easy and others having some difficulty spikes.
There is also an achievement for getting through a spec ops mission on hardened or veteran difficulty with neither you or your partner going into a revive state, obviously this will require two people to do but if you take your time then its easy enough to do.
Last notable achievements are for buying all of the items in spec ops survival across multiple games; these will come in the shape of defence survival, attacking survival and air defence survival. To be able to get all of the upgrades you will need to spend time levelling up in spec ops either alone or with your partner so that the upgrades will unlock and be ready for purchase.
Overall it’s a good list but it’s still a list we see year in year out, getting the full one thousand points will take slightly longer then the other games but it’s still more then possible to achieve everything that is possible.
SummaryAll in all no matter what you want to think of Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 3 is a superb game, it finally concludes the story and possibly sets it up for another instalment. Not only that though the campaign is just a little longer then the other games in the series over the past couple of years with that added difficulty to give a bit more of a challenge, all this means the single player is one of the best yet. It doesn’t hit the heights of the first game or the second for that matter but it’s still good for what it is.
Add in the upgraded spec ops mode you will be spending a whole bunch of time levelling up in, you will quite easily be pleased until you’re ready to go online and show off your skills and play with all of the new settings that are present. The maps could have been a little better for online play or even a little bit larger for that matter but what again is on offer is more then sufficient.
Overall Modern Warfare is a great game and it will be interesting to see where the series goes over the next couple of years.
Overall - 8/10 GreatReview written for Xbox Resouce and slightly modified for True Achievements.
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