MW3 is the third game in the Modern Warfare Trilogy developed by Infinity War and Sledgehammer games (with Raven Software having assisted in development) and published by Activision. The game is set directly after the event of Modern Warfare 2 (MW2 SPOILER) where Captain John “Soap” MacTavish is suffering from a knife wound to the chest in Afghanistan while him and Captain Price were there to try and did succeed in killing Lt. General Shepherd. The story centres on WW3 between the USA and its NATO Allies against Russia with a terrorist group run by Makarov thrown in. You take on various protagonists throughout the game depending on the location. For most of the game you either play as Delta force operative Sgt. Derek "Frost" Westbrook and Yuri an ex-Spetsnaz solider who joins Price on his hunt for Russian Ultranationalist leader Makarov. Despite the multiple characters you play throughout this game the story is pretty solid. For an ending story arc it is nice to see so many references being made to previous games. Characters pop up here and there which brings a bit of nostalgia and major plot twists have credible routes in the previous MW games. My main gripe with the story is its length. I played on Regular and completed the story in 4 hours 28 minutes (I didn’t do any of this BS trick of running throughout each level trying to complete it in the quickest time). For a single player part of the game the length is pathetic; however the story fitted so well and got me so engrossed that I didn’t notice nor cared. I never felt the story was drawn out just to fill time nor did I fell it as rushed and ended too quickly.
Graphics have improved slightly over previous editions but the game still has the same look. This isn’t essentially a bad thing but the game does look dated in parts and looking at textures up close can get a bit ugly. Generally there isn’t much to say that has improved. Character models look similar to those found in MW2 and there is little change to the environment. This is a big shame as it would have been nice for the teams behind MW3 to take it the visuals to that next level. It is by no means an ugly game but the game is showing its age
Like graphics the core gameplay hasn’t change from MW2. It has been a while since I played a Call of Duty game (last being MW2 which I last played about a year ago). The only noticeable difference I felt while playing the game is that some weapons feel like they pack more punch and feel less toyish. Lacking in gameplay innovation may seem like a negative point on the paper but I feel it is a testament to the Call of Duty formula. The game doesn’t feel old nor does it feel broken. The gameplay is fluid with very little to no lag (even when the Sh*t hits the fan). A big mention has to be made for the voice acting in this game. Like the previous Modern Warfare games the voice acting is superb. Roman Varshavsky’s voice acting for Makarov is again fantastic and Billy Murray managing to bring emotion to the otherwise emotionless rock that is Captain Price was well done. Spec ops makes its return in a more updated form. The missions themselves are a step up from MW2’s spec ops mode. Again the missions use campaign maps but they sometimes inter link with the campaign in exciting and interesting ways and other times offer missions that rely on teamwork. To unlock more spec op missions you must level up to the appropriate level. Now at first I found this feature fairly inconvenient as I wanted to play more spec ops missions but it did give an added purpose to the Horde style mode. Horde mode has been done before and this Horde mode is nothing new. You level up like you would do online (I will go into the online features in a moment) and unlock weapons/support assets that way. But you have to still buy the ammo and the weapon in the first place. Like a standard horde mode you face increasingly difficult enemies (and in this example you can face anything from Dogs and suicide vest wearing soldiers to attack helicopters and other such support assets. Both of these modes can be played online and offline. I personally found offline is the way to play these missions with someone else. Communication is often easier offline as not all the time people online have mics/use them. In certain situations tactics are needed to succeed. One weak point in MW3’s gameplay is that enemies have no tactical awareness (I do not mean if you flank them they do not notice). Enemies do tend to hide behind cover but when a large group of enemies are in an area some of the enemies stand/kneel in the open and fire at you even when you try to rush them. It is like the enemy do not care about dying and shows a major lack in quality AI.
The sound design in MW3 is fantastic. Some weapons sound like they have been ripped from MW2 but most of the weapons have been given new, easily identifiable audio. As mentioned before the voice acting is top notch and the score, composed by Brian Tyler, leaves a lump in your throat. The soundtrack adds to the experience providing music that perfectly sets the tempo of the certain level.
Again online feels the same which is not a bad thing. The levelling up system hasn’t exactly changed and the gameplay is still the hectic, fast paced, close quarter action fest which is still fun to play. A new mode that is worth mentioning is Kill Confirmed. The game mode is surprisingly addictive. The idea is that you have to kill then pick up the dog tags of your poor victim to gain enough points for your team to win. The reason why this game mode works is that shooting people from a distance doesn’t actually aid you team and so, I found, less people are willing to camp and sit back and take you out from a distance and more inclined to start running head on to the centre of the map where most of the craziness seems to occur. I found it just made the game even more hectic and intense. The kill/point/ whatever you want to call it streak has had slight revamp. Kills are not the only way to get rewards and now there are three types of reward packages. Assault (similar to the old kill streak system), Support (which keeps adding points over time despite death) and Specialist (similar to Assault except death wipes the points on the rewards). It is nice to see that we can now have even more control over our experience. The maps in multiplayer are of a high quality. There are some areas on some maps which are perfect for camping but generally the layout of the map forces fast players to move quickly throughout the map.
Overall MW3 is a solid game. It may not be up there with the greats but it is by no means a rubbish game. The single player is sadly short but it is by far the best storyline out of the three MW games and it is one of the best modern warfare FPS storyline I have played. The score and voice acting is fantastic and there is a vast amount of fun replay value with spec ops and the multiplayer. Sadly there is a lack of detail in textures and the enemy seem either suicidal or poorly trained with their lack of tactical awareness. Like the tag line to this review says “better late than never” and, for me, that is true for this game. I almost passed up on this and I am glad I didn’t. It is a fun and enjoyable game that brings to a close a fantastic trilogy.
New Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 images featuring some of the classic maps Scrapyard and Terminal have apparently leaked online.
Just like you remember! EXACTLY like you remember... now give us another $70 so you can play what you were playing years ago with slightly better graphics!
They've kicked this dead horse to the point that they're relasing re-remakes. "No, this isn't the same as the Modern Warfare II we released before, this one is an actual remake instead of a reboot!"
The maps on Modern Warfare 3 were the reason I lost interest in CoD all those years ago. They were horrifically designed.
Well there's a number of reasons really but if I can pinpoint the exact moment the series died to me it was with the MW3 maps
This franchise needs a break man. Imagine if all these CoD dev teams actually working on new IPs, not just call of duty.
Sales would have to drastically decline for that to happen, which unfortunately there are zero signs of that happening...the battle passes probably make more than most games ever do in lifetime sales
So this is Modern Warfare (2019) 3. Great job Activision. I've stopped playing because of this nonsense. Plutonium is the way to go now.
Jacob writes: "Upon release, Modern Warfare 3 was hailed by the critics. They raved that it exceeded the hype, met all expectations and was one of the best first-person shooters going. It appeared Call of Duty was still king of the castle and it had the sales to back the claim up too. And yet, player reception was remarkably muted. On Metacritic, the game sits at a paltry 2.9 user rating."
Fall 2011 will always be a time that I remember. I had come off of playing 4 straight Call of Duty games; MW, WaW, MW2, and black ops with a group of my friends. MW2 was and likely always will be my favorite. I had poured months of game time into the series, so it should have been easy for Infinity Ward to sell me on the game over BF3. I had played some bad company 1&2 before, but it hadn't quite grabbed me like call of duty did. Leading up to the release of BF3 and MW3, one stood above the other in my mind.
BF3 was all out warfare that I had never seen before, and the graphics looked so good! In contrast, MW3 looked like MW2....but maybe even worse. I decided to try the beta for BF3. That's when my mind was made up - the chaos of Operation Metro consumed me. Putting in over 20 hours into the beta during the couple day period. I told my friends they had to try it. A couple did, but only one of them got hooked the way I did. The rest were still on the COD hype train and didn't want anything to do with Battlefield.
When both games released, the public perception was clear. Although MW3 certainly sold more, there isn't much of a question in many people's minds which was the better offering. MW3 was a drab rerelease of MW2, while BF3 is one of the best games in the series, and one of the best FPS games of all time.
Some of my friends got sick of MW3 fairly quickly and switched to Battlefield, but there's still some of them that never got to experience the greatness of that game.
I have since switched back and forth between the series' depending on how poor each offering is, but I have to say, I still get much more excited about Battlefield games.
I could talk about my experiences in BF3 for hours, but I'll end it here for all of our sakes ;)
I remember telling my friends back in 2007 "keep battlefield 3 on your radar boys!"
You know what’s weird, I have played all cod’s since.. well cod 4. Put thousand upon thousands of hours into them. Loved mw1. Loved WaW. Loved MW2. Loved blops. Hated, hated mw3. Still couldn’t never put my finger on why.
Really the only ones I hated were ghosts, IW, Aw , Cold War and MW3. (And maybe vanguard)
A rep from Activision has confirmed that all reports about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Remastered being in the works are false.
It would’ve been nice to be able to finish the trilogy in remastered form but at the same time, I’m not super surprised - by the time 3 came around they’d milked MW to death and it was the weakest of the 3 by far.
Every few years I replay one of the old cod and I like them for some fun, it would be nice to have it remastered when I get back to it in 5-10 years.
looks like you have plenty of time to remaster it yourself if its that important.
Imo, this was the worst call of duty title. It's the only title i sold 3 days after purchase and never looked back.
I still go on black ops from time to time.