Posted by Mike Wehner
There are few first-person shooters — and even fewer video games in general — that garner as much fanatical excitement as a new Call of Duty release. Each new game in the series has sold more copies than its predecessor, and the franchise routinely breaks sales records. The third Modern Warfare title — and seventh Call of Duty game on current generation consoles — is now on store shelves, and if pre-order figures are any indication, the game will easily top every other game in the series.
Modern Warfare 3 doesn’t stray far from the games that have come before it, and with a fan base feverishly clamoring for more of the same, there’s really no reason to. The game features a single-player campaign, an in-depth co-op mode, and the bounty of multiplayer modes that have become the main draw of each new title.
As expected, the stroke of midnight brought a flood of game reviews, each echoing a similar sentiment: If you like Call of Duty, you’re going to love Modern Warfare 3. Developer Infinity Ward has taken its tried and true formula, and once again produced a fast-paced experience riddled with bullet holes and strewn with dead bodies.
As with Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops, it appears that once again the story is the weakest part of the experience. But as the laundry list of multiplayer options is undoubtedly the game’s biggest selling point, a weak campaign likely won’t prevented player satisfaction. Check out the excerpts below to see what the gaming community at large thinks of Activision’s latest military epic.
Joystiq: “It’s an incredible game, to be sure, and it’s undoubtedly another success for this franchise. Modern Warfare 3′s multiplayer is some of the series’ strongest, and the co-op offerings have been expanded tenfold. But the campaign will leave you yearning, wishing that the characters were differentiated by more than thick accents, or that the gameplay tried something more than aim, shoot, take cover, reload, rinse and repeat.”
GameTrailers: “If you’re looking for a lot of ways to kill and be killed, Modern Warfare 3 is exhaustive. With almost 20 modes available there’s something for just about everyone. The typical sabotage, capture the flag, and headquarters types are accounted for, and you can even create and share game types with others in the online vault for seemingly unlimited mayhem.”
Destructoid: “Of course, competitive multiplayer is the mode almost everybody thinks about when it comes to Call of Duty, and I can confirm that Modern Warfare 3 boasts what may be the best multiplayer the series has had to date.”
GiantBomb: “It’s paced like you’re running through an explosion factory, and after the first act I sat down, tried to put together where the story had gone up to that point, and had trouble remembering anything other than a handful of vehicle or mounted gun moments that felt more like a shooting gallery than a first-person shooter.”
Eurogamer: “It’s all about progression these days, and Modern Warfare 3 does more than most to make even the n00biest n00b feel like they’re upwardly mobile. Pretty much everything has its own layers of XP and augmentation built in: so every weapon, every accessory, every perk gets better with use as you tunnel deeper into the dense tangle of sub-objectives buried beneath the arcade-friendly surface.”
GamePro: “Also notable for players who don’t want to dive into the competitive multiplayer is the new survival mode. You and one other player can hold out against waves of attackers, earning money to buy new weapons and defenses, including explosives, airstrikes, and even friendly A.I.-controlled soldiers. As you play matches, you’ll level up and unlock new items for future matches. It feels different from the similar modes in Gears of War and Halo because Call of Duty’s lethal gunplay is so different.”
source: tecca
