Call of Duty is the best one yet, says our reviewer.
MW3 Has Arrived, Better Than Ever.
By Tyler A.
People love to hate it. Yet, year after year, the Call of Duty video game series continues to out sell it’s competition by almost a three to one ratio. And this year is no exception. According to wikipedia, only a week into the newest installment of the series, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has already sold upwards of 800 million dollars, 400 million of which was sold within 24 hours of release. Making it the highest grossing release date in video gaming industry history.
Modern Warfare 3 comes to us from the famous Infinity Ward gaming studio, the developer of Modern Warfare and it’s sequel, Modern Warfare 2, both of which became the best selling game of all time. Infinity Ward was joined by co-developer, Sledgehammer Studios, the creators of the largest online game in the world, World of Warcraft.
The game itself is presented by the IW 5.0 gaming engine, which was the same engine used in the previous installment, Modern Warfare 2, in 2009. This means that we unfortunately will not be seeing an improvement in graphics. While the game may not render at as high a resolution as some of its competitiors, the IW engine continues to lead the way in the responsiveness and quick reaction to player controls, this is made possible by sacrificing some of the display quality. Which allows the the game to run at an impressive 60 frames per second on the console versions.
Modern Warfare 3’s single player campaign is riddled with similar highs and lows to it’s two predecessors. It does have an amazing story line which finally wraps up the story that began in 2007 with the nostalgically famous CoD:4 Modern Warfare. The story line is immersive and has a solid blend of action, gameplay and cinematic cutscenes. However, since the game runs on the same engine as it’s infamous sister, CoD MW2, we do see the reimergence of some of the same problems. The enemy in-game spawn system is still sporadic at best. Which in some cases will cause the player to fight against endless waves of enemies, until he or she chooses to move along. A well seasoned Call of Duty player will find the single player campaign to be fun, emotional and fullfilling, aside from some minor technical issuses.
If we are to consider the MW3 single player mode to be good, then the improved multiplayer mode is fantasic. Any Call of Duty player can tell you that the predecessor to Infinity Wards new game, Modern Warfare 2,’s multiplayer was fun at the best of times, and infuryating at the worst. A mixture of bad balancing techniques during development and little to no developer support post-release made Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer infamously bad. However, at least for the time being, Modern Warfare 3’s multiplayer seems like huge improvement over the previous game. The online multiplayer mode will have you addicted with it’s fast paced, energetic gameplay, and its interactive ranking system. The multiplayer mode comes with a record breaking sixteen different maps to play, along with over 50 new and returning weapons to unlock. All new acheivements and challenges will always keep a new goal in your sights, and have you not wanting to put down the controller. One of the most noteworthy intuitions that is helping Infinity Ward redefine the genre, is the weapon leveling system. Which allows you you level up your weapons separetly from your personal rank to speed the process of unlocking new sights, camoflauges and attachments for your favorite guns.
Despite some simliar flaws to it’s predecessor, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 takes the series in a whole new direction, with it’s immersive story-line, amazing response time, which makes up for the lack of full HD rendering. As well as the groundbreaking innovations found within the online multiplayer experience. This game will provide hours of entertainment for the novice and pro player alike.
Tyler A. is an avid gamer and frequently beta-tests games for developers.
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