Publisher: Activision
Genre: First person shooter
Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC
Rating: 7.5/10
Gamefreaks
The best, and worst, thing about the Modern Warfare series is you know exactly what you're getting. When you browse your favourite gaming store's virtual shelves pondering on a title, you're not going to hit upon a Modern Warfare title and go, "huh. Wonder what this game's all about." And yet, this has been the biggest complaint from seasoned gamers as they play through the single-player campaign of Activision's latest and greatest modern-action-combat-shooter. "But", they cry, "this is just like the last one!"
And, yes, well they're right. But we don't reckon that's a bad thing, and in fact, in the case of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, it's actually pretty OK. Oh sure, there's some whining you could do about reusing an old engine yadda yadda but come on, who are we kidding? This game looks good, plays even better and is fun as hell.
If you haven't played at least the last game in this series, you might just want to go and pick yourself up a copy of that at the same time; it's not like you can't just jump into this one, but played together you'll get a better, longer experience. The story, in case you hadn't guessed already, picks up right where MW2 left off: Russia and the US are in the middle of destroying each other. It's all a big misunderstanding of course, all orchestrated by a nasty terrorist who goes by the name of Makarov, and for the most part you play a former Spetsnaz operative called Yuri. As per MW2 though you jump between characters as the plot unfolds to ensure you see as much carnage across the world as possible.
We're not going to try and tell you here that the plot's the thing that holds this game together either; as more of these titles are released it's sort of become clear that developers Infinity Ward are really just playing a giant game of "let's make bigger stuff explode"; this time round you get to see Manhattan burning and the Eiffel Tower come tumbling down. Woo.
Given the engine hasn't changed and the story's pretty much the same, there's no surprises wither when it comes to gameplay. There's the standard "sneak around and don't attract attention" parts, the "provide covering fire" parts, the "shoot at bushes while driving a car" parts and the "bomb stuff from the skies" parts. That's all there, and nothing much has changed, but it does play well. The action is well paced and beautiful to watch, it still looks quite pretty (as pretty as it did last time, anyway), the framerate is smooth as a baby's bottom, the maps are great and it's pretty tough to beat the AI.
But that's the single player mode. It's not groundbreaking, no, but you'll be done with it in 4 hours or so anyway and you're a bit daft if you bought this game for anything but the multiplayer.
The multiplayer has 16 brand new maps and 19 gameplay modes to unleash bloody hell on, and you're going to need them all because there's so much to unlock it's not funny; the progression structure in this game is insane. The more you play, the better you get and the more you unlock. As well as unlocking new weapons, as you progress the weapons you do have gain across a wide range of attributes, such as improved accuracy, strength or a reduction in recoil.
The Killstreaks you know and love from MW2 has been completely overhauled. So much so in fact that they're no longer called Killstreaks, but Pointstreaks. As you achieve milestones or complete objectives in each map or mode your Pointstreak increases; but this time you can focus on three different areas to improve. If you're having a tough time increasing your assault-based pointstreak (because some punk keeps instagibbing your ass) you can instead choose the Support or Specialist Pointstreak categories which reward you for taking out SAM sites or helping other people make kills. When you gain a Pointstreak you can choose where to use it. This really helps open the game up and allows more than just your freakish snipers to climb the ladder and tick those oh-so-valuable boxes.
Several new modes have been added to the old favourites: "Kill Confirmed" is pretty ace and has you running round the maps collecting dog tags of fallen comrades and enemies and "Team Defender" is a new kind of capture the flag which sees double points per kill until you lose the flag. "Survival" mode is a fantastic co-op mods for one or two players where you take on wave after wave of enemies, and "Special Ops" is back for another tour which basically doubles the progression ladder and rewards you can earn across the whole game.
While there are definitely reasons to bash on MW3 and the systemic dumbing down and recycling of content endemic throughout the big releases at the moment, there's a lot to like about the Modern Warfare titles. This release is no different (in more ways than one): there's a tonne of fun to be had here and if you like the genre there's no reason why you should indulge in another sequel.
Thank You : tvnz.co.nz
Genre: First person shooter
Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC
Rating: 7.5/10
Gamefreaks
The best, and worst, thing about the Modern Warfare series is you know exactly what you're getting. When you browse your favourite gaming store's virtual shelves pondering on a title, you're not going to hit upon a Modern Warfare title and go, "huh. Wonder what this game's all about." And yet, this has been the biggest complaint from seasoned gamers as they play through the single-player campaign of Activision's latest and greatest modern-action-combat-shooter. "But", they cry, "this is just like the last one!"
And, yes, well they're right. But we don't reckon that's a bad thing, and in fact, in the case of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, it's actually pretty OK. Oh sure, there's some whining you could do about reusing an old engine yadda yadda but come on, who are we kidding? This game looks good, plays even better and is fun as hell.
If you haven't played at least the last game in this series, you might just want to go and pick yourself up a copy of that at the same time; it's not like you can't just jump into this one, but played together you'll get a better, longer experience. The story, in case you hadn't guessed already, picks up right where MW2 left off: Russia and the US are in the middle of destroying each other. It's all a big misunderstanding of course, all orchestrated by a nasty terrorist who goes by the name of Makarov, and for the most part you play a former Spetsnaz operative called Yuri. As per MW2 though you jump between characters as the plot unfolds to ensure you see as much carnage across the world as possible.
We're not going to try and tell you here that the plot's the thing that holds this game together either; as more of these titles are released it's sort of become clear that developers Infinity Ward are really just playing a giant game of "let's make bigger stuff explode"; this time round you get to see Manhattan burning and the Eiffel Tower come tumbling down. Woo.
Given the engine hasn't changed and the story's pretty much the same, there's no surprises wither when it comes to gameplay. There's the standard "sneak around and don't attract attention" parts, the "provide covering fire" parts, the "shoot at bushes while driving a car" parts and the "bomb stuff from the skies" parts. That's all there, and nothing much has changed, but it does play well. The action is well paced and beautiful to watch, it still looks quite pretty (as pretty as it did last time, anyway), the framerate is smooth as a baby's bottom, the maps are great and it's pretty tough to beat the AI.
But that's the single player mode. It's not groundbreaking, no, but you'll be done with it in 4 hours or so anyway and you're a bit daft if you bought this game for anything but the multiplayer.
The multiplayer has 16 brand new maps and 19 gameplay modes to unleash bloody hell on, and you're going to need them all because there's so much to unlock it's not funny; the progression structure in this game is insane. The more you play, the better you get and the more you unlock. As well as unlocking new weapons, as you progress the weapons you do have gain across a wide range of attributes, such as improved accuracy, strength or a reduction in recoil.
The Killstreaks you know and love from MW2 has been completely overhauled. So much so in fact that they're no longer called Killstreaks, but Pointstreaks. As you achieve milestones or complete objectives in each map or mode your Pointstreak increases; but this time you can focus on three different areas to improve. If you're having a tough time increasing your assault-based pointstreak (because some punk keeps instagibbing your ass) you can instead choose the Support or Specialist Pointstreak categories which reward you for taking out SAM sites or helping other people make kills. When you gain a Pointstreak you can choose where to use it. This really helps open the game up and allows more than just your freakish snipers to climb the ladder and tick those oh-so-valuable boxes.
Several new modes have been added to the old favourites: "Kill Confirmed" is pretty ace and has you running round the maps collecting dog tags of fallen comrades and enemies and "Team Defender" is a new kind of capture the flag which sees double points per kill until you lose the flag. "Survival" mode is a fantastic co-op mods for one or two players where you take on wave after wave of enemies, and "Special Ops" is back for another tour which basically doubles the progression ladder and rewards you can earn across the whole game.
While there are definitely reasons to bash on MW3 and the systemic dumbing down and recycling of content endemic throughout the big releases at the moment, there's a lot to like about the Modern Warfare titles. This release is no different (in more ways than one): there's a tonne of fun to be had here and if you like the genre there's no reason why you should indulge in another sequel.
Thank You : tvnz.co.nz
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