It's inevitable I write about Modern Warfare 3. I'm not saying this begrudgingly the Call of Duty franchise has become a stable in the Game industry. A flag pole every November that fans can look forward to. When Modern Warefare 1 came out it took the industry by storm and every FPS has been using the franchise as a ruler since. Whether you like it or hate it if your gamer your well aware of it's presence when it's on the horizon. That all said this is the fifth installment since the game got it's revitalizing injection and I've bought over iteration happily.
The reason this inevitable blog is so late is because I originally wanted to play the single player before i wrote any kind of review on the game. I didn't want to be the asshole who only talks about the multi-player of the game and thereby ignoring all those people who buy these FPS for the single player story.
Well I played the single player for about two hours and it's like all the other Call of Duty games, AWESOME. I've only played for what i hope is a fraction of the campaign but it doesn't take Nostradamus to know that your in for good story, good shootin and occasional chance to hop on a giant gun a rip shit up. Which is more than enough to keep my trigger finger satiated.
Back to the multi-player. There is nothing drastically new from the other iterations of the modern warfare series which is a good thing. Too often games get caught up in the "making stuff new" trend and they throwaway all the good parts you loved from the last installment. I'm sure Infinitward is well aware of this because they have supplied everything you love... they just give it to you a bit differently which is just enough feeling of that new and improved thing developers are obsessed with.
The biggest difference is the unlocking system for weapons. Instead of attachments being unlocked as you level up your character they are unlocked as you level up each gun seperately. This is was a wise choice on the developer's behalf because now each weapon has even further uniqueness with since they have only changed the attachment unlocks from weapon to weapon but even the order they are unlocked. Ie for an assault rifle you'll unlock a silencer and then an underbarrel mounted grenade launcher whereas the light machine guns will be a grip instead of the launcher.
Another big change is the killstreak rewards. There are now three different sets of said rewards. There's the assault type which is the old killstreak system you know and love. You simply set up your order go kill some chaps and make it rain explosions and all manner of great murder. What's new though are the two new additions, Support and Specialist.
These two new streak rewards are set up just like the Assault but each on offers a slight twist on the old mechanic.
Support keeps your streak going after you've died instead of resetting it. The only thing is all the rewards are beneficial for you team and not so much you. That said there are some damn fine rewards including a remote sentry and a care package drop that has an osprey helicopter to defend the area so those pesky enemies don't run up and get their hands on your glorious prizes. The best package is a booby-trapped airdrop crate that appears to enemies as a care package but when they go to steal it it blows up in their face and kills them. The jokey smurf exploding present aspect of the whole ordeal is not lost on me and is in fact quite hilarious. Hilarious untill you yourself fall for it a few dozen times... then it's just annoying.
The third strike package is called specialist and this is the most original of the three by far. Instead of unlocking air strikes or getting to man the guns of various bitchin' aircraft you unlock extra perks. It sounds a bit wankish to unlock an extra perk at two kill intervals but it could actually turn out to be just what you needed. If you have a hard time deciding on which perks to assign your created class this is your answer. At six kills you could be working with six perks instead of the, at one time adequate but now paultry, three. Of course this package is only optimal once you in the higher levels and actually have unlocked most of your kill streaks... I've never used it.
With the newly added theatre mode MW3 is finally up to date with that certain other FPS game. You can watch old matches you've been in and take screen shots and make little movies. Sure a certain other title had these capabilities 6 years ago but we're not talking about Halo 3 now are we. Even though with Halo 3 the online support and heat maps and award tracking is free instead of subscription based were still not talking about it.
I only have minimal dabbling in the theatre mode having made only one screen shot and one kill clip but i can already tell space is a problem. You have ten slots to save either your screen shots or you movies that you have cut yourself. The slots doesn't seem like it will be a problem for me because I can't see myself really caring too much about making cinematic opuses but for a person who gets right into it I could see how this would appear disastrous. I mean if you're getting right in there doing some matrix camera cuts on the kill shot and really get some good Bayhem then i would imagine your going to need about a thousand slots and not just ten. Which brings us back to the subscription based Elite service I image they'll give you more slots there... FOR A PRICE.
Now that I've spoken of mostly the icing I can tell you the cake is the same you've grown to love and or need. If you're like me and have developed a strong addiction to these games over the last six years you've got nothing in store but about a zillion hours of gameplay ahead of you. The levels are just a complex and awesome as you would expect. There's ones you'll hate and ones you'll love. Those likes and dislikes will change as you get better at the game. So far my favorite is the France map because it makes me feel classy to head shot some mother effers there. amongst the little cafe tables of cobblestone streets
One last thing the G36C is back which is the best news ever because it is far and away the best gun of MW1 and was missing in MW2. I had to settle for the Aug which i thought i loved but now that I have my baby back it was a shallow false love.