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I have been a dedicated Call
of Duty fan for many years now, and although the last few titles haven’t tried too hard to separate itself from the
previous titles – I was easily able to look past that and still enjoy myself. Will it be the same
for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3?
The single player campaign starts off where Modern
Warfare 2 ended a couple years back. In case you’ve forgotten, you get to enjoy some reminders via
flashbacks in the opening scenes. These flashbacks were great because even I forgot what exactly happened
with the second Modern Warfare.
The single player is
just like any other Call of Duty (and even Battlefield) campaign – it’s fun but forgettable at the same
time. It’s almost like a big summer blockbuster movie – tons of explosions,
fun dialogue, and over the top action. The one thing I’ve ALWAYS hated about the Call of Duty campaign
is the lack of cut-scenes or cinematics throughout the entire game. Instead of a cut-scene – we get
to watch a boring ass screen and hear people talk about the next mission. I understand that this is probably
more realistic when it comes to the world of war, but you have to think of the entertainment value here, and I don’t
get any entertainment out of watching a boring screen after each level.
The campaign was fun, it had a lot of intense moments – such as the level in which you have to save the president
on the airplane… suddenly the plane hits some turbulence and everyone goes flying in the air. Although
the scene was very unrealistic (because it had you shooting while in mid-air in slow motion) – it was still
a fun and creative level. Some of my favorite levels in the Modern Warfare franchise are the ones in which
you follow Price and sneak through the levels with a silenced weapon – and this game was no different – in fact
you actually get to play as Price in the adrenaline rushing finale.
The bottom line about the single player: it was incredibly fun – but incredibly short (I finished it in just
over four hours) and dumbed down. Throw in a few more hours – and add a slightly stronger storyline
– then you’d have a memorable campaign.
Multiplayer:
There are a few new additions to the multiplayer, but for the most part – it’s the
same game that you’ve played before. I expected this, because why would they change something when
the formula has been working for them for years now?
The
few things that I wanted to talk about are some of the new “deathstreaks”, “killstreaks” and levels.
Deathstreaks:
Ok, if you don’t know what deathstreaks are – let me explain them to you.
If you are having a bad game and you die constantly without getting a kill – you are then rewarded a deathstreak.
There are a few that you can unlock and use that are new to the franchise: you start off with one that makes you run
faster after a few deaths, but the second one is what I used – even though it is pretty much cheating. After
getting killed five times without any kills – a small icon will show you the location of the person who last killed
you. It’s not just the location where he was, but it’s his actual location. I
liked that feature, even though it’s a little cheap – especially since that person isn’t necessarily the
person who killed you all five times.
Killstreaks:
The killstreaks are a lot different in this game. Killstreaks are rewards that you get for getting
kills without dying. So let’s say you kill three people without dying – you get rewarded with
an UAV – you get 5 kills and you get an airdrop… stuff like that. Well, they changed it up
a bit in this game. There are 3 different types of killstreaks that rewards you in different ways. The
first is Assault – this is the most common one that includes the predator missile, Sentry gun, airstrikes – that
kind of stuff. Nothing is really new with that one. The second one is called Support
and it includes rewards that will help the whole team – like UAV, counter UAV, Ballistic vests for the whole team that
gets dropped in. And the cool thing is that these don’t disappear as you die – so if you get
killed – you won’t start all over. So that may be nice for beginners. The
third one is called Specialist – you unlock this at level 20. This just rewards you with extra perks
as you get kills. So you can have multiple perks if you do well.
Levels:
This is where the game gets broken for me as a Call of Duty fan. Out
of the assorted levels you receive in this game – there are only one or two good levels. Every other
one is sloppy and unorganized. It’s as if they now have a map generator and have the computer create
the levels for them. There’s no creativity in any of these levels. In every Call
of Duty game before this – I can tell you the names of the levels just by looking at a picture of each map… but
that’s not the case for this one. Each one looks so similar – you grow tired of the levels
extremely fast.
The Bottom Line:
I love Call of Duty – so it hurts me to think that I am about to give Battlefield 3 a higher score – especially
since I had so many glitchy problems during the Battlefield 3 campaign. The single player was more fun
than Battlefield, but it was short and not as entertaining as previous Call of Duty titles. The multiplayer
was fun at first, but grew tiresome as time went on. This was mainly because of the sloppy levels and repetitive
gameplay. It’s still a good game, but I hope they step it up next year.
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