When the Modern Warfare scion of the venerable Call of Duty franchise
branched out four years ago, the electrifying campaign and addictive
multiplayer cast a new mold for first-person shooters. In the years
since, this formula has been consistently refined, shamelessly imitated,
and widely adored, making it one of the defining franchises of this
generation. Modern Warfare 3 stays the course, delivering an explosive
campaign, breakneck competitive action, and challenging cooperative
play. This is an exciting and rewarding game, but the series' signature
thrills have lost some of their luster. Modern Warfare 3 iterates rather
than innovates, so the fun you have is familiar. Fortunately, it's also
utterly engrossing and immensely satisfying, giving fans another reason
to rejoice in this busy shooter season.
The campaign picks up where Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
left off. Our heroes, Soap and Price, are in bad shape, and the
villain, Makarov, is still at large. It doesn't take the pair long to
get back in the hunt, and soon you're hopping the globe in pursuit of
your quarry. You make a few forays into backwater outposts, but the most
striking situations are when you take up arms in conflicts that consume
entire cities. From New York City to London to Paris, no bastion of
Western civilization is safe, and the destruction that has been visited
on these iconic locations is visually stunning. As expected, PC players
get the better end of the deal, with sharpness and clarity that outshine
the console versions. The impressive scenery makes the action more
impactful, and the campaign shuffles you around to different fronts
within each city to make sure you can experience the battle from many
different angles. Remote air support control, on-foot firefights, and
tense vehicle sequences keep the campaign moving at a great clip in
these urban environments, capturing the expert pacing that has made past
Call of Duty campaigns so exhilarating.
As with its predecessors, the Modern Warfare 3 campaign has a few tricks
up its sleeve aimed to shake you up or make you cry out with
excitement. The latter are more successful than the former. A jet flight
gone wrong and a chase through Parisian streets are highlights, using
environmental upheaval to make you feel like you are struggling for
control in an out-of-control situation. These sections are definitely
exciting, but because Call of Duty has trained you to expect the
unexpected, they lack the extra spark of surprise that kicks exciting up
to thrilling. Modern Warfare 3 also takes a startlingly out-of-place
shot at wrenching your heartstrings, but the outcome is so obvious from
the moment the scene starts that you're left to watch dispassionately as
the characters set up and fall victim to tragedy (opting to not see
disturbing content at the outset of the campaign will likely spare you
this unpleasantness). The game is more resonant when you encounter
scenes of tragedy in the natural course of the campaign, but this is not
an emotionally fraught campaign. It is, however, an engaging and
superbly paced roller-coaster ride that brings the Modern Warfare story
to a very satisfying conclusion.
If the five-hour campaign doesn't satisfy your thirst for AI blood, then
the Special Ops mode almost certainly will. Returning after its debut
in Modern Warfare 2, Spec Ops offers 16 one-off missions that complement
the events of the campaign, letting you experience new facets of the
global conflict in which you are embroiled. From stealthily escorting
resistance fighters to slugging through a large enemy force in a
Juggernaut suit, there's a lot of variety here. Though even the longest
missions can be completed in under 10 minutes, the variable difficulty
levels help Spec Ops missions provide hours' worth of challenging
combat. Furthermore, you can now tackle almost every mission solo and
make a bid for leaderboard glory. Depending on the quality of your
connection, however, load times for online cooperative matches can
stretch to over a minute long. It's a bummer when you have to wait so
long to get into the action, but once things are under way, slowdown is
infrequent.
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