Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

I am not a fan of the First Person Shooter genre, there I said it. FPS' have been a genre that has been flooding the video game market since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare hit stores four years ago. Seeing myself as not a big fan of the series it surprised me how much I loved that game, how different it felt from it's past games, and how great the multiplayer is. Now we have had four more COD games since then, each also feeling different than the last and actually being great additions to the series, Black Ops, while not being as impressive as COD 4, was still a great game.

Fans of the series are always hyped for the release of a new Call of Duty but after a few months they complain about how much it sucks, they just can't compare to the impact that COD 4 had because of its sudden change to the formula, MW2 being the exception. Now we have a new COD and it's the most hyped game since MW2, this is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 for the Playstation 3 and XBox 360.

Graphics

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 still uses the same engine as Call of Duty: Black Ops so there isn't much of a difference in graphics. During the campaign mode the graphics look amazing seeing all the explosions and the levels actually made me say "wow" once or twice. While you're in the multiplayer though, that's a different story. If it weren't for the fact that I've never seen these maps before I would have thought I was still playing Black Ops. The graphics are good but nothing close to what Battlefield 3 has dished out with its Frostbite 2 engine.

Gameplay

Whether you love it or hate it the gameplay formula for the COD franchise has had the same gameplay for the past five years or so. This game is no different, like I mentioned above: I can easily mistake this game for Black Ops if it weren't for the maps. That's not really a bad thing though, "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and Call of Duty's gameplay is not broke, far from it. The gameplay of this game still consists of some pretty fast and intense firefights that rely on skill, luck, and (most of the times) the ability to camp. The gameplay is fast and frantic, it controls fairly well and it's easy to get into.

The multiplayer is really fun, like it's always been but it's not the best in my opinion. The change to the killstreaks, now known as pointstreaks, are nice but didn't interest me much. The game has the same game modes it has always had with only one or two new modes thrown in there. Kill Confirmed is just a team deathmatch that has you picking up the dog tags of the opponent you killed for the points. Team Defender is basically capture the flag with a twist: the first player that dies in the match drops a flag now the teams must duke it out to get the flag, the one with the most points at the end wins.

The one thing that I think was the best thing out of the whole package was Spec Ops. Spec Ops is a cooperative game mode that lets you take on missions from the campaign with a friend through splitscreen or online. The missions are fun but what really shines through is the survival mode, survival mode is basically Zombies but faster and a lot more fun in my opinion. The way you handle the weapons and perks you get is great and the pace is a lot more frantic than Zombies so i really like that.
My gripe with the multiplayer is that the multiplayer feels empty, it feels like it doesn't have something different to offer than any other shooter out there. I loved Black Ops because of the addition of the wager matches, I loved these so much that I played them more than the regular multiplayer. It was a cruel joke in MW3 that you can start a match of One in the Chamber or Gun Game but only as a private match, total bummer.

The game controls exactly the same as the last CODs before it, all the button layouts are the same. Although its all the same there are a few things that bug me that aren't necessarily tied to the game but to the console itself. When I would spring in the PS3 version my thumb would get cramps from the way that the control stick is convex and not concave like the XBox 360 version. On the XBox 360 version I found it difficult to to aim and the XBox controller has always been uncomfortable to hold. The game still plays fine, just how it's supposed to, so I guess those were just complaints for the consoles themselves that sadly affect the gameplay of the this game.

Story

First Person Shooters aren't exactly known for their stories. An RPG hasn't had an involved story line since GoldenEye 007 on the NIntendo 64 but this one manages to do a nice job with its campaign. I have played the last to MW games and basically I'm still invested in these characters, and while the multiplayer is fine, the real reason I got this game is for its story, I wanted to see how it ends.

The story is, again, about Captain Price and Soap trying to stop a threat from Russians. The story gets a little confusing but it's very good. The idea of having the setting in World War III was a great idea and worked well for the campaign. The story is about four hours long, I don't want to spoil anything but it's basically a very nice way to end this trilogy.

Presentation

What matters the most in the presentation of a COD game is its maps. One of the things that I have always enjoyed in a COD game is its multiplayer maps. They're usually well made and very fun to find secrets and ways to get the upper hand on your enemies. I'm sad to say that the maps in MW3 aren't on par with the older series' maps. In fact i would go as far as to say that these are the worse maps in a COD game, with an exception. I don't like to play in these maps because there are too many destroyed items scattered around. The maps are the perfect camper territory because it is so hard to tell whether someone is hiding behind a car or a pile of rubble. These maps just plain annoy me.

On Spec Ops Survival mode though, these maps fit well. It's strange, but the overly crowded map lend themselves well to survival mode. It works wonderfully and it feels like the maps were custom made for this game mode.... Actually they might have.

Overall

Like I said: I'm not an FPS fan, but I do enjoy the genre. I love to pick up a COD game whenever I'm bored and have a couple of quick matches online versus someone. The graphics aren't all that impressive though and the multiplayer is basically the same thing all over again, making it easier to confuse this game with every other FPS out there. The lack of wager matches was saddening but glad Spec Ops is there to take it's place, the survival mode is amazing, I might just keep playing that. These are probably some of the worst maps I've ever seen in a COD game even though the maps do well in survival it's not really enough. I actually found myself yawning during the campaign a couple of times even though it was still a good story, despite the repeated gameplay for every level, but come on, it's Call of Duty. Overall this game had a tough bar to reach and sadly it didn't. The maps are badly designed, the mutliplayer is boring and it's the same as every shooter out there, the Survival Mode is actually pretty cool, a shallow yet interesting campaign that lasts only about four to five hours, and the lack of wager matches make this game tough to buy at the price of $60. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 gets a 6/10. I mean come on, I wasn't even looking forward to this game and I was still disappointed.