Modern Warfare 3 Review/Rant

Activision is back again with their annual Call of Duty, this years being done by Infinity Ward.  Since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, each year the reigns of the franchise swapped back and forth from Infinity Ward and Treyarch.  Though most came to the conclusion that Infinity Ward was the superior developer, Treyarch had a massive hit with last year's Black Ops and showed that they were more then second fiddle.  Taking everything that was good with Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward's release the previous year), adding in more balancing, and of course bringing back the fan-favorite Zombie Mode helped Black Ops became both a critical and commercial success.  With Infinity Ward losing two of their development leads could they somehow top last years excellent shooter?

Before I continue let me first explain why I'm not posting this review on Vivid Gamer and instead decided to post this on my personal blogger.  For starters, I won't be covering the single-player campaign since I've not played any CoD campaign beside the first Modern Warfare and realy have no desire to.  Secondly, this review is more or less just my thoughts on the game and how I feel with the few days I've spent on it.  Lastly, I will most likely be avoiding any structure and will instead just write ideas as they come to mind giving an awkward flow that I feel isn't truly worth posting on Vivid Gamer.  Because of the above reasoning and the fact that many will feel I'm merely flaming on Modern Warfare 3 (bit of foreshadowing?) I am going to do my best to avoid posting my opinions for the main site I write for.  With that out of the way, here are my thoughts.

From the moment I turned on Modern Warfare 3 I immediately felt the familiar feeling received from 2009s Modern Warfare 2.  This was for better and worse because though I have fond memories of playing the title, recent memories fill me more with disgust then anything else.  Unbalanced matches, a bevy of exploits, and the GOD AWFUL NOOB TUBES were all I experienced when I attempted to play the game approximately a month ago.  How did Modern Warfare 3 rectify my frustrations? Let me recap my first game played with my friend Roski on Modern Warfare 3. 

Me: Alright cool the game feels familiar.  Map looks pretty cool.  Let's hop into some team deathmatch.
(Game starts. I choose the default Assault Rifle class)

Me: Alrite Rosk let's do this! 

(Approx. 35 seconds later, I get noob tubed)

My Reaction

I went on to end the game at the top of my team going positive nine but it's pretty funny that the first introduction I got to MP was a quickly timed noob tube.  As I began to play a little more I noticed a considerable amount of lag which helped my growing frustration as I wasn't gaining the success I normally would in previous iterations.  Since Modern Warfare 2, I and my friends became quite skilled and hardly ever lost any matches.  It got to the point where we'd purposely try to finish matches (Search & Destroy mainly) in the funniest fashion possible so that we could all laugh and enjoy watching the final kill cams.  This was even more magnified with the following years Black Ops where we would constantly try to do ridiculous kills which sometimes resulted in us losing matches (Karma I suppose.)  Regardless though of me lacking the success achieved in other CoDs, the game felt fun and I continued to notice things I enjoyed.  Unfortunately, I also noticed many things that truly frustrated me (see the above noob-tube experience.) 

Modern Warfare 3 was definitely enjoyable after some better orientation but there were tons of things I still took issue with.  I've never enjoyed some of the more dumber techniques allowed in the game like "drop-shotting" or "quick-scoping."  Drop-shotting is frustrating (and impossible) but doesn't compare to how irritating quick-scoping can be.  What adds to the frustration (aside from the ridiculous effectiveness it has) is the fact that the developers actually programmed the game to include the technique!  Now it's easy to say, "James stop complaining!  Games are an escape from reality and there are a ton of things that would be physically impossible to achieve yet the game still has them programmed in." to which I'd reply,"I don't care about the other things! Much like Halo 2's stupid auto-aimed headshots, quick-scoping is stupid and should have been removed in the following titles or at least lessened."  These weren't the only abominations that made their return from the past games but are easily the most frustrating.

If you are an avid player of Call of Duty and played Black Ops following Modern Warfare 2, you were able to notice many improvements the former made over the latter.  Killstreaks no longer stacked resulting in more camping, instant-tubing was disabled due to a time-delay, and graphically the game was a nice step-up from Modern Warfare 2.  Though Modern Warfare 3 has made many improvements over Modern Warfare 2, I feel as if Infinity Ward is too stubborn to recognize Treyarch (Black Ops) improvements to the CoD formula and completely omitted what they added to this newest Modern Warfare.  For example, the dive function introduced in last years game is no longer present and the tomahawk is gone replaced by MW2's throwing knife.  This may be just a personal preference, but I thoroughly enjoyed the tomahawk more as opposed to the throwing knife and felt it was not only more accurate, but more satisfying.  Also, though tubing was still present in Black Ops, it wasn't nearly as exploited as badly as it was in Modern Warfare 2 and even worse, they've introduced newer more effective ways to tube in Modern Warfare 3!!  They've introduced the XM23 which has a ton of tubes to use, though not as strong as traditional tubes, the fact that it's in the game is upsetting and seems to cater more towards cheap tactics then anything else.  Another thing that I feel regressed was the knifing/melee system in Modern Warfare 3.  The lunge is back and though not nearly as strong as Modern Warfare 2's Commando perk, it's just as broken as before.  It's incredibly easy to miss a lunge with opponents standing directly in front of you and while not as bad as MW2, it definitely feels worse then Black Ops. 

Most people will read what I've said and quickly think that I'm dismissing the game before truly giving it a chance, but that's not at all what I'm attempting to do.  I recognize that the game is enjoyable and notice many of the improvements and welcome additions added alongside returning favorites.  The riot shield makes it's return and though not as effective this time, it's definitely fun to use again.  Also, Spec Ops is back and is as awesome as ever including a new survival mode much like most horde modes of other shooters.  The introduction of different classes to compliment various playstyles is nice and definitely adds a new dimension to teams strategies.  Also, taking out enemy equipment, doing different objectives and even assists can add to your killstreak which helps reward the unsung team-players unlike previous CoDs.  Additions like support streaks further encourage teamwork and definitely show me that Infinity Ward has made some steps forward in the franchise but I truly feel they've taken some back by ignoring Treyarchs successes. 

Issues with latency are indeed upsetting resulting in many matches being one-sided due to another team having the jump on players can be resolved in a future update but some broken mechanics cannot.  This "good with the bad" has me torn because while I enjoy the new game, the last time I recall being this frustrated with a shooter was while playing Modern Warfare 2 (or the horrendously buggy and laggy Bioshock 2 MP.)  Modern Warfare 3 tends to cater more towards arcadey shooters which is really good or bad depending on how you look at it.  Some may enjoy the absurdity of it all praising it's "more fun" feel while turning a blind eye to the overwhelming amount of "camp-spots" and severely unbalanced weapons.  Also, there is an excess of vehicles littered around each map resulting in an overabundance of car-bombs not unlike a Michael Bay movie.  More then enough times I questioned the developers placements of cars or other objects in each map though I've also enjoyed some of the level designs in others.  Overall though I felt as if most maps once again catered to "campers" and lacked the balance and creativity of Black Ops or even Call of Duty 4 (which is still the franchise pinnacle IMO.) 

I am enjoying what Infinity Ward has done with the newest game but I can't ignore the issues I've dealt with.  The new game modes like Kill Confirmed are fun additions but don't make up for the hair-pulling frustration I felt through much of my time.  Had Infinity Ward taken what was great about Modern Warfare 2 and what was great about Black Ops, I could easily see myself loving it and singing it's praises.  As is though I'm not really satisfied and feel that it's really nothing you haven't experienced before.  Perhaps with a future update or some balancing my opinion may change but for now, my feelings are indeed mixed.

Thanks for reading my rant/review on the newest Modern Warfare.  Please leave a comment if you feel inclined to!