You know how people rip on Dynasty Warriors games for never doing anything different, no matter how they re-skin the series? That style of criticism has recently hit the juggernaut Call of Duty series.

Essentially the same game we have been playing since 2007, Modern Warfare 3 is the final part of the overarching story that began four years ago, while adding some new tricks to the multiplayer. However, with a new developer behind the series in Sledgehammer Games along with the remnants of Infinity Ward, what will become of this game?



The campaign takes place right after the conclusion to Modern Warfare 2. Soap, the main character from the first game who somehow gained and lost the ability to speak in one game, is being taken care of by his comrades in war Captain Price and Nikolai. Meanwhile, Delta Force is trying to fight back the Russian invasion of New York City. Along the way, there will be the usual world-hopping in the search for Makarov, the man who started World War III, and also playing from multiple perspectives. Nothing really special or different, but what I will say is that the game has one of the most satisfyingly brutal deaths I have ever seen at the end.

Every other year, I make mention of how incompetent Treyarch is when making their Call of Duty games, and that incompetence seems to have bled into Modern Warfare 3. One of my biggest complaints about Black Ops last year was that it didn't feel concussive enough when you got shot. In past games, up to Modern Warfare 2, it felt like you really did with some good sound design and a jolt from the controller. That wasn't the case with Black Ops, and it isn't the case with Modern Warfare 3. You really do feel like a sponge, which actually takes some of the tension out of the game.

Many of the same problems still remain. The game will often momentarily shut off its hit detection for a particularly annoying enemy or set of enemies, weapons are slow to reload at the worst possible time, and the campaign will often put you in no-win situations unless you do exactly what the game wants you to, which sometimes isn't immediately apparent. One level in particular towards the end of the campaign is the worst instance of fake difficulty I have ever seen in a CoD game.


Peek-a-boo...

In fact the campaign is also a reminder of my waning love for Call of Duty. It was annoying to see that the campaign was only six hours long in the first two MW games, but it was refreshing to see it lengthened to eight to ten hours in Black Ops (pretty much the only good thing I had to say about that game). In MW3, the length has been restored to the now-standard six to eight hours, but the ending is brutally satisfying...if you can get around the fake difficulty that permeates later levels of the game.

Unlike the campaign, the multiplayer has undergone a couple of changes since Call of Duty 4's groundbreaking persistent multiplayer in 2007. The wager matches (that I liked) in Black Ops are absent, as is the zombies mode (which I despise). Instead, there is the Special Ops mode which made its debut in Modern Warfare 2, which is kind of like zombies, but not as brain-dead (no pun intended).

The multiplayer is just as addictively frustrating as it always has been. A social player like me will have tons of trouble against the legions of get-a-lifers who play the game, and it feels that the divide is even worse than before. If you don't play Call of Duty online at least 17 hours a day, then you don't have a snowball's chance. I don't hate CoD's multiplayer, I hate CoD's community.


That last statement leads to this in the community...

Personal diatribes aside, the multiplayer has gotten some needed tweaks, like a couple new game modes, redesigned perks and Strike Packages. In addition, guns level up along with your player, so it really does add incentive to be proficient (or at least competent) with the entire range of weapons. For the first time, I found myself using all five custom loadouts available to me, and using all kinds of different weapons. This is worth commendation to get me (and hopefully other players, though it's unlikely) out of their comfort zones.

However, everything else is exactly the same run-and-gun that people have grown to either love or despise over the years. There are no legitimate strategies (camping is not legit), all you can do is keep moving, running and gunning, hoping that you get the first shot and at the right time. It will only get worse once the cheaters and the modders start having their way.

The aesthetics of the game are not even worth mentioning. Call of Duty's engine is really starting to show its age, especially since at its core, it's still a heavily upgraded and modified Quake III engine. Not to mention the set pieces, while bombastic, didn't leave any sort of impression on me. I didn't feel any emotion for the characters, I wasn't thrilled by the on-rails segments, it's just the same old thing. We've come a long way since the nuclear blast in Call of Duty 4, and the “No Russian” sequence in Modern Warfare 2. The bag of tricks has run dry for this series.


NO IT IS NOT! YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!!

Despite all the negative things I've said, Modern Warfare 3 is by no means a bad game. It's just the same game that has been churned out since 2007, with no innovation to be seen at all. It's a darn shame too, because Call of Duty used to be an excellent series. Now, it's just no fun. This is worse than Madden: at least they make an attempt to change things in that series. Call of Duty is starting to fall into the Dynasty Warriors classification: nothing ever changes, everything is ordinary. While not as bad as Black Ops, it still leaves a lot to be desired to reach the plateaus that Call of Duty 4 hit.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is worth nothing more than a 7 out of 10.