Modern Warfare 3 Retrospective

Alright, it’s been about 4 months since Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 hit the shelves. I’ve already done a review of the game via my typical process, but I thought it would be a good idea to write a retrospective article to shed some light on longevity rather than impressions acquired over just a few weeks of play. That, and I wanted to point out a few things that I neglected to mention in the first one. Let’s get started.

I still play it, and it’s still fun, though my frequency of play has tapered off some, as would be expected. I’m a little disappointed at how often I run into cheaters of various varieties, but I guess that’s to be expected with a game with this kind of public profile, and I hear they’re working on it. It’s nice that they’re easy to spot with kill-cams, though. Also annoying are some lag, and troubles with the spawning system, like appearing too close to enemies – I expected better from Infinity Ward, but it’s nowhere near the atrocities committed by Call of Duty: Black Ops. Community playlists and downloadable content together keep the game fresh whether you choose to pay extra or not. In general, despite some hiccups, MW3 is still enjoyable and will likely stay that way up until another game grabs more of my time.

To end on a high note, the soundtrack by Brian Tyler is fantastic. Like many out there, I was a little worried when I learned that Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe would not be returning to improve on their wondrous compositions from the second game in the series. Lucky for me, Brian Tyler did an amazing job by pulling a little from previous games and bringing his own contributions to forge a masterful score. If you liked the soundtrack of MW2, you just might like this one even better. I’ll be watching to see what other music Brian Tyler creates.

What did you think of Modern Warfare 3? Has it aged well so far? Leave your thoughts in the comments and we can start some discussion.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Review

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is a first-person shooter for PC, XBox360, and PS3 by Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games that continues the globe-trotting, high-intensity, world war action, beginning immediately after the events of its predecessor, Modern Warfare 2. It is also the subject of a continuous stream of biased reviews and comments all over the Internet. Because I am a fan of the Call of Duty series, I feel I should preface this post with the following notice: before you lump me in with those that blindly defend the series without justification, let me say that my statements below about the game are backed up with experiences and analysis. With that said, my experience with Modern Warfare 3 thus far has been very positive.

More after the jump…

Video Roundup: MW3-Style

UPDATE 2: Call of Duty Elite trailer included below.

UPDATE: New Multiplayer Modes trailer included below.

With all these behind-the-scenes, trailer, preview type videos being released, showing off some of the finer points of Modern Warfare 3, it seems about time that I do another video roundup. A word of warning, though: There are mild spoilers that obviously reveal the workings of the new features behind the multiplayer portion of the game. If you’d rather be surprised, maybe hold off for now. Otherwise, read on!

More videos after the jump…

What’s your Call of Duty?

Since I’m in something of a Call of Duty mode of late, let me ask you something on that topic. The last four entries in the Call of Duty series, two by Infinity Ward and two by Treyarch, are fairly distinct games. Newer games tend to include improved technology and other upgrades, but also sometimes make some mistakes with design or other elements. With these things in mind, what has been your main choice of Call of Duty games lately?

Feel free to go into more detail in the comments!

The Bar is Set High for MW3

… as if that wasn’t clear already, this being a Call of Duty game we’re talking about. I’m absolutely thrilled that the Call of Duty series is back in Infinity Ward’s capable hands, though I’m definitely curious to see what kind of influence Sledgehammer Games has on it. Obviously, the developers need to polish Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 to a high level to live up to the expectations. In my mind, a huge part of this is using the very best of the last two games in the series, Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops, and very importantly, recognizing and fixing the mistakes of each. I’m sure the game will inevitably sell many millions of copies, but let’s get to the specifics on what MW3 should learn from its predecessors.

Webspace Migration

You may notice a little difficulty in terms of loading certain images or files for a bit here. My old file hosting service (my file webspace, not WordPress) is packing up shop, and I am in the process of migrating my files to a new server. I hope to have things back to their normal working order in a few days. Thank you for your patience. In the meantime, you can keep occupied with endless speculation about the coming Modern Warfare sequel…

UPDATE: We should be good to go for the most part. A few things may still not be totally correct, so if you see something out of whack, drop a comment!

Call of Duty: Black Ops Review

Call of Duty: Black Ops is the fourth game developed by Treyarch in the successful Call of Duty series.  Previous to Black Ops, Treyarch developed Call of Duty: World at War.  Shortly after E3 last year, I commented that I wasn’t ready to jump on the anticipation bandwagon for this game, and, now that I’ve been playing it for a while, it’s still a little tough to rate overall. I’ll start with the good news.

Let’s begin with the single player portion.  Black Ops brings more of the Hollywood action movie style of the previous games of the series, with even more drivable vehicles, big firefights and a few well done plot twists.  The music doesn’t match the Hans Zimmer compositions of Modern Warfare, but the storyline in the campaign is still actually one of the better points for this game.  It’s a tad complicated, but nicely written and executed, complete with voices by Ed Harris and Gary Oldman. I’ll not spoil the plot for you, but it’s a solid campaign.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

I’ve been playing a lot of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on the XBox 360 recently, so not a whole lot in the way of anything else has been getting done. This says something about the quality of the game too; that is to say, I like it.

As with the original Call of Duty (I haven’t played much of the second and third titles, so I can’t give an informed opinion on those), the atmosphere and gameplay in the single player campaign is excellent. The characters speak in witty and believable dialogue, and the player participates in realistic combat and a well-done (if not a bit cliche’d) plot; I won’t spoil it too much for you. It is not difficult to become somewhat involved in the story. The XBox 360 achievements are fairly reasonable too.

The online multiplayer is comparable to the original Call of Duty as well. While I have not played many tactically based shooters, in which you can be killed in a couple of well placed shots such as CoD4:MW, I found it was not difficult to catch on. One creative and fun addition to COD4:MW is “perks,” which allow the player to use a combination of special attributes when customizing his class, which give him specific advantages in battle, which I found fairly balanced. Of course, the gameplay is not without the occasional blatantly abnormal and inexplicable events, which can only be attributed to bad luck or lag. Fortunately, this is reasonably rare. Speaking of which, while playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, I usually experience very little network latency, less than some games. One feature which I was disappointed to find was unsupported in Call of Duty 4 is the ability to have multiple players on a single console for XBox Live online play, which is supported in some games such as Halo 3. While this is unfortunate, it is arguable; while I usually disagree with those that say that smaller screens make gameplay so horrible, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is one game where your sight is very important to you, and a split screen may disrupt that, as well as the atmosphere.

While Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare doesn’t bring a whole lot of new material, there are a few nice elements. In the online multiplayer, there is a challenge system which allows you to complete special tasks in order to gain extra experience points. These points, in addition to experience points earned from normal online play, go toward the player leveling up, which allows him more options when creating his own class, and unlocks more challenges to complete. I like these features both because they make gaining experience less time-consuming and more fun, and because they encourage the player to try different things.

Overall, I find the game enjoyable and well done, particularly for players who prefer tactical shooters.