Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 review (PC)

Having thoroughly explored Modern Warfare 3’s single player and multiplayer components, I can reveal that my suspicions going in were well founded.

Under the yoke of Activision, Infinity Ward in conjunction with Sledgehammer Games, have done nothing to revolutionize the franchise. Having said that, it has evolved it to a degree, which is probably the most we can hope for from a series with a development cycle of 2 years.

I initially wanted to avoid making comparisons to Battlefield 3 in this review, but given that they were released in close proximity to each other and share more than just fleeting similarity, I’m going to. In certain ways, Battlefield 3 succeeds where Modern Warfare 3 fails, and to my surprise, Modern Warfare 3 succeeds where Battlefield 3 failed: the single player campaign.

I’m not a big fan of arcade rail shooters, and that’s exactly what Modern Warfare 3 is. The gameplay feels forced and uninspired and enemies feel like animated mannequins. However, where the game does get it right is with its pacing and scripting.

I struggled to shoot my way through Battlefield 3’s monotonous single player campaign. The characters were forgettable and I can’t even remember the storyline looking back now.

Modern Warfare 3 somehow has more personality, which is probably due to the fact that you are playing alongside memorable characters from Call of Duty 4 and Modern Warfare 2. This narrative element is what managed to hold my attention and keep me invested in the story which while asinine, is rather epic if you can put yourself in the headspace of a giddy teenager.

My biggest qualm with the single player is that the gameplay seldom evolves in any meaningful way. You are constantly rushing forward shooting enemies and striving to cross that invisible line that makes enemies stop spawning; and it gets old – especially when you’ve been doing it since the original Call of Duty.

Having said that, the game is remarkably solid. Weapons feel weighty, animations are smooth, and for the most part the game is technically quite impressive, if nothing special.

Something which Modern Warfare 3 lacks that was present in previous Modern Warfare titles is clear and distinct mission types. I think back fondly to Call of Duty 4’s famous Pripyat mission which stood out among other uniquely designed mission concepts.

Modern Warfare 3’s mission design philosophy has been tweaked, and whereas previous games in the series would have individual missions dedicated to a unique play style, Modern Warfare 3 peppers individual missions with different play styles. What this does is create is more dynamic and thematically charged missions, but because it mixes everything with the standard advance and shoot formula, it all sort of blurs together and ultimately becomes an indistinct mash up of gameplay ideas.

However, many are probably not considering buying Modern Warfare 3 just for its single player campaign; so on to the multiplayer.

Again, Modern Warfare 3 does not revolutionize any of the principles which have made it the biggest video game brand in the world. Slight tweaks have been made to the core gameplay, most of which are for the better in my view, although you won’t have to look far to find disagreement here. Playing online feels a little more balanced and fair now, thanks to changes such as the removal of the Commando perk, and a fundamental change to the way kill streaks work.

Instead of kill streaks, we now have point streaks, and points can be earned not only from killing enemies, but also from capturing flags and helping your team. This system makes for a far more deliberate and structured experience, which is essentially what the Battlefield franchise has always aimed to provide.

The level design in multiplayer is also impressive, and most maps are designed to keep players moving, providing few camping spots. Players are rewarded quickly and continuously in each match, and the levelling up process is swift. A decent player can expect to hit level five within the first hour of gameplay, and in the early levels you can expect to unlock something new after each map, which is a nice way of keeping you interested early on.

While the multiplayer is fairly well designed, the PC version suffers from one crippling ailment. While Infinity Ward has listened to its community and provided us with dedicated servers, it has made them all unranked. So if you want to actually level up and unlock new things you have to play through the game’s annoying built in peer-to-peer matchmaking system.

Like Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare 3 relies on players to host matches in ranked games, which means that if you are hosting you can expect the game to eat through bandwidth, and also that the games are inherently laggy and unstable. It’s not unplayable, but its not ideal. Fortunately, there are customizable dedicated servers that you can play on lag-free, but the fact that they are unranked is a definite slap in the face to PC gamers.

Modern Warfare 3 essentially does exactly what it’s supposed to do. It reiterates and tweaks a highly successful formula. Subtle changes to the level design in both multiplayer and single player make for what could have been a great game, but a lack of any real innovation coupled with dedicated server matches being unranked ultimately lets the game down, especially considering that Battlefield 3 has unanimously been declared an absolute multiplayer triumph.