Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

GUNS! EXPLOSIONS! MORE GUNS! HEROIC MUSIC! OH, ARE THEY… Yes, they are, EVEN MORE GUNS! That’s right, in case you’ve been too busy touching yourself while playing Skyrim to notice, Modern Warfare has finally completed its four year long journey to a complete trilogy. It’s already achieved the biggest Entertainment launch in history with over $400 million (FOUR. HUNDRED. MILLION!) worth of sales in 24 hours. That’s only the USA and UK as well! So… is it any good?

YES! Of course it’s good. Come on, this is a surprise to nobody. There are definitely some haters out there, some of whom will likely pounce all over the comment section, but Modern Warfare 3 is a good game. An excellent game. A superb game. A terrific ending to the trilogy and a marvelous game to experience in nearly every way. It’s such an enjoyable game with such a huge following that it’s actually incredibly difficult for me to review it! However, for you, three people who will ever read this, I will power through it and hopefully not pull a Laura.

From that last paragraph alone, you’re likely to skip down to the bottom and look at the score and go about the rest of your day. However, I am now going to address what have been widely regarded as the games biggest failing: “It’s the same as all the other ones.” Which is occasionally, and very cleverly, expressed on The Internet with the phrase “It’s just a £40 Modern Warfare 2 map pack.” I disagree. Therefore, the following paragraph will be me explaining why I take that stance.

This is what we humans call a ‘franchise’. A franchise is, by definition, “A media franchise is an intellectual property involving the characters, setting and trademarks of an original work of media (usually a work of fiction), such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game. Generally, a whole series is made in a particular medium, along with merchandising and endorsements. Multiple sequels are often planned well in advance” [citation]. Call of Duty is a franchise, and Modern Warfare is a series within that franchise. This means that whole characters and story remain consistent and they are placed in new situations with a continued story. This is Modern Warfare 3. There is a whole new campaign to complete, with a conclusion to the previous two Modern Warfare games (it worries me that I have to state that), another entirely new set of Spec Ops mission, and a multiplayer mode which consists of nothing but brand new multiplayer maps. Three modes. All brand new. With added gameplay elements. Okay? We clear on all that? Brilliant! Haters section has now been tackled. On with the review.

The campaign is short. I’ll break that news as quickly and as bluntly as possible because it is somewhat predictable to the franchise. I would say the average length would be around six hours, but a dedicated shooter fan could probably gun their way through in about four hours. However, the campaign does make up for its brevity by being as intense and exciting as possible. There are more twists in the story than M. Night Shyamalan’s entire movie career, with one particular ten minute long section of it leaving me speechless with my mouth agasp to the point I stopped drinking energy drinks for the whole time. The story and conclusion has been mildly improved by being more coherently told than Modern Warfare 2’s slightly skewed idea of plot execution, which was welcomed by me with open arms and a tear in my eye. An amazing, heart-pounding, Red Bull-chugging, non-stop thrill ride from start to finish and I honestly can’t think of anymore metaphors to describe it! Therefore, campaign is now reviewed. Cool? Cool.

Spec Ops is back and doing what it does best: epic co-op fun. Make sure to tackle these with either a friend who you whole-heartedly believe would attend your funeral even if they found out you were sleeping with their partner, after running over their dog, and then taking money from their wallet and spending it on prophylactics and new tires to repeat the process until your death, OR a friend who you are happy to get rid of as soon as you’ve gathered all of the stars, because these Spec Ops missions can be a true challenge. If you plan on going for Veteran expect to have many hours ahead of you because there are no mid-mission checkpoints and some missions can take up to 15-20 minutes and dying at the final hurdle sends you both all the way back. The missions themselves, though, mostly revolve around getting from Point A to Objective A, then getting from Objective A to The Finish. It’s the standard Modern Warfare co-op affair, but it’s exactly what made the mode so epic and popular in the first place so it’s no bad thing. Plus, they’re all new missions for Modern Warfare 3. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT! I loved them all. I almost lost a friend in favour of them, and if you palm this mode off as a waste then you are missing out. NEXT.

What about the multiplayer? IT’S AWESOME! There have been quite a few edits from previous Modern Warfare/Call of Duty games so I’m going to go ahead and just lazily list them because there’s too many to break down one-by-one: There are now three flavours of killstreaks which are called Assault (your streak attacks the enemy. I.e. Predator Missile), Support (your streak benefits your team. I.e. Sam Turrets), and Specialist (your streak adds extra perks to your loadout with every two kills). You can now level up individual weapons which will not only gain you attachments and camos, but also allow you to gain extra perks for that particular weapon (which include reduced recoil, duel attachments, reduced flinching when shot and MORE!). Killstreaks are technically now point streaks so capturing flags, domination points or destroying enemy equipment all count towards your overall streak. There are also new killstreaks among all three varieties, new weapons, new attachments, new leveling systems for almost every facet of your loadout and (as of the moment of posting) the multiplayer has not been hacked yet. That last one shouldn’t really need to be mentioned, but tragically it does. BOOM! Multiplayer done.

Am I done? I’M DONE! YES! There you go, Modern Warfare 3. Go. Buy it. Rent it. Borrow it. Just play it and enjoy it for the manic, brilliant experience that is it. I just hope they don’t make a Modern Warfare 4. That would taint the series. This was the perfect ending.