Modern Warfare 3

I'm breaking two of my rules by reviewing today's game, Modern Warfare 3. First, while I didn't pay full price, I still paid plenty for it, picking it up in the first week of release. Second, I'm going to spend some time covering the multiplayer.

Unfortunately, and against my better judgment, I got caught up in the hype of this latest entry in the Call of Duty series when my roommates participated in the midnight release so they could enjoy this on their respective consoles, and I figured I should give it a go too. I had been fascinated by CoD 4, which was an interesting twist on a (mostly) great series. MW2 was, in all honesty, okay, what with a story that, multiple play throughs later, still fails to make sense. But what the heck, everyone I know was getting MW3, and I did want to finish it, the needy guy that I am looking for closure, so I bought it. Don't judge me, I'm weak.

Coincidentally, weak is a pretty apt way to describe what MW3 brings to the table. While the story this go round does a nice job of tying everything from the second game in with the first, as well as wrapping things up in such a way that I thought I was reading Glen Cook's Black Company, in that there couldn't possibly be another installment in this series, that's really all the game has to offer. Gameplay wise, it feels like a very expensive expansion pack that adds a whopping 6 hours (on hard) worth of gamming experience, in a few new locations, with a handful of new weapons. It is definitely not worth it at the $60 asking price, unless you were so enamored with the previous game that you just couldn't get enough, in which case you're probably also the type of person that immediately buys all those $15 DLC map packs that mostly contain rehashed maps from the previous game, and are currently stifling innovation in the gaming industry. Also, I hate you.

For the $150 you spent on MW2, 3, and all DLCs at released prices, I bought about 40 games during the Steam 2011 holiday sale. Just some food for thought.

But if you're considering buying this game, you probably don't care about the single player portion anyways, since that's not what has actually made the last few titles so successful. This is actually the portion of the game where the devs have made some changes, some good, some bad.

The first thing you'll notice is that the philosophy driving the maps has changed pretty drastically. There are only a few open spaces, and even less long sight lines, making this a very sniper unfriendly environment. Indeed, the focus has become close quarters combat, and if that's your thing, more power to you. But if you were always a fan of finding that perfect place and showing your superiority in accuracy, Infinite Ward pretty much told you to sit on your thumb and rotate.

There are some other changes beyond just the map design, which really are just adjustments to the kill streaks, perks, and weapon customization system. Kill streaks are now broken out into three categories - assault, support, and specialist. Each behaves differently, and has different sorts of rewards. Assault resets on death, but gives you things like missiles and helicopter gunners, as opposed to support, which does not reset on death but only grants things like UAVs or supply drops. Weapons are slightly more customizable, with the addition of specific weapon perks such as less weapon sway when under attack, or other abilities that have typically fallen under the perks category in past games. A larger change to the weapon system is that now weapons have levels, 31 for your main weapons, and you must make it through those levels in order to unlock attachments or perks, but only for that weapon, as opposed to the challenge based system of the past - a change that I honestly can't tell if it's for better or worse. And finally, perks have been altered, but nothing major, though you will find some, like Bling, now exist as a weapon perk, rather than one of your 3 active perks. Those kinds of changes are interesting, but in no way groundbreaking.

 

Kill confirmed is actually one of the cool additions to this game.

If you're looking for more out of your multiplayer than what you've seen in the previous titles, there really isn't anything there. Sure, the weapon set has been tweaked a bit, and a few additional gamemodes have been added, but really, all you're getting for your money is an expensive expansion pack, one which is said to have 20 pieces of DLC on the way, and assuming they range in price from $5 to $15, that's anywhere between $100 and $300 worth of additional investment. To that I say, no thanks.

The Modern Warfare series seems to me to be a lot like the Matrix. The first one was groundbreaking, but then 2 and 3 where really only partial movies (which you had to pay full price for) with upgraded special effects and a weaker story tie-in, that overall give off the feeling of milking that cash cow for all its worth. Sticking to that philosophy, I can in no way suggest you buy this game for anywhere near the original asking price of $60. I would say it belongs in the $10 or less bin, but it might take a while to get there, since the MSRP on the first game is still $20. If you do pick it up, know that I got about 6 hours out of the single player game, but passed on all those challenge missions, and 32 hours out of the multiplayer, during which I hit the level cap once, and encountered someone with hacks about 20% of the time. There really isn't anything special about this game - it's the same thing you've been playing for the last few years - unless maybe you're hanging out with a group of "bros," and only then does it rise above being an average game, one worthy of a 5 out of 10.

So, the final breakdown:

Score: 5/10

Suggested Price: $10