Call of Duty has been the main lead in the military shooter genre for far too long, has time caught up with it?
The only reason these games get so hyped up is because of it's multiplayer. These people don't really care about the story, just as long as it has guns and a lot of explosions. I'll probably one of the few people to actually go into detail about the campaign. Lets not waste anymore time, lets dive straight into this.
The campaign is basically the best way to say "sorry" to us for the half-baked American missions. No longer does the US military maintain their country against an unrealistic amount of soldiers. Now, we go to the occupied countries and attack these seemingly unstoppable forces behind the enemy lines. This couldn't be any better, now my socks are actually being blown off with these levels. No longer is a whole mission just defending a town that nobody cares about, now these defense sections are in sections that last only seconds, i thought it kept the missions fresh. They even payed homage to the first game with atwopretty cool on-rails chase scenes, though not as memorable, it's still pretty exciting. With the Task Force 141 missions, you now play as Yuri, a Russian who shares a secret doing with Makarov, the main guy everyone wants to see die. We still get sidetracked with a very useless mission where we play as the Russian Guard, protecting the Russian President on his plane. Though it had a few good sections, the on ground part was very boring and repetitive, it was mainly just shoot, reload, then Makarov came in and reminded us of how much of a big meanie face he is. Back to Task Force, Yuri is with Nikolai, one of the most useless minor characters in a videogame. Price and Soap are also back and hunting down Makarov. They do this by spending a lot of time in Africa, doing whatever, then finally getting somewhere when we actually get to Germany. Many of these levels had a forgettable stealth scenes, again trying to tie us in with nostalgia of older, much better Call of Duties. The first part of the ending was anti-climatic for no good reason, just to tug at our heart strings to no effect, though the second part was pretty damn good, putting a juggernaut suit and blowing everything up in sight, that's how you make a lasting memory.
The graphics are good, but that's really saying nothing. Just look at the last to Modern Warfares, they're the exact same thing. I'm not going to give nothing for this department, that's the definition of just plain laziness.
There are many glitches in the singleplayer (at least what I noticed) there were constant black flashes during intense firefights, I guess that means either my PS3 can't handle this game (which I can believe, my PS3 can't even handle the voices in movies) or the game can't handle itself. I'll take the first one, but Activision can consider themselves lucky. There was some texture pops, but we already know how lazy the developers (whoever they were) are. They even go as far as recycle a CoD4 building for singleplayer.
The sound is something I never really anticipate in games like these, all you need is some guys yelling into a microphone and some explosion sounds and you got yourself a CoD soundtrack. The music fit the game perfectly, but sometimes it would cut off in multiplayer, making it even more dull than it was.
Multiplayer, like I said, is dull and repetitive. You choose the strongest weapon in your virtual cache, go onto a map, kill some guys, then get some bonuses and level up. This is exactly what happens in this game. OH! BUT WAIT! There is a new Prestige Shop that lets you spend tokens on virtual bonuses in game, like extra classes, double XP, and even a way to restart at nothing once you hit 10th Prestige (I don't know who'd do that). The community is awful, nobody can just chat anymore, it has to be populated with 12 year olds and adults acting like 12 year olds. That's not the game's fault, I just chose the wrong community. There is also weapon XP now, which is useless, I'd rather complete a challenge and get a new attachment than just use it for a set amount of time. This dumbed down the challenge so much I lost my interest in videogames for a good 36 hours the first time I played it.
If you really want a multiplayer fix, play something fun and challenging, like Assassin's Creed or Portal 2, I'm not promoting these games, I just think the gaming industry might have a chance if people stopped buying these games, and just rent them if you really want to play it.
Spec Ops has returned to the panel of modes, and it includes the newly built survival mode, which is 100x more fun than multiplayer. You and a friend fight wave after wave of enemies, upgrading and buying weapons, armor, and even AI support (though than can be a little dumb). Juggernauts are unfortunately very easy for me, all you need is a predator missile and you beat them. The missions are here too, yay, I guess. I didn't enjoy them the first time because 90% of the them needed a friend to beat. That hasn't changed here either, you can play them without a friend, it's just near impossible if it's anything above Recruit difficulty. The training stages are back, two to be exact. They are basically the same but reversed and one has breaching sections. Sometimes though I felt like the hits wouldn't register on the cardboard cut outs, maybe it's just me. Anyway Spec Ops is alright in my book.
Overall, MW is the most copied series out there, but that's fine, everyone is getting duller, and so are these games, most people will keep coming back to them, a new one each year. Modern Warfare 3 does have a good campaign that tied the loose ends nicely, though that's not the part anyone cares about. Anyway, I'm sure most people around the world already have a copy, as for me, it's going back where it belongs, in the Red Box.