It’s the game that needs no introduction. Except it does, because we have this space to fill. So here’s why we’re both wildly excited, and mildly concerned, about CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3.
As inevitably as night following day, Call of Duty returns this November the phenomenally successful Modern Warfare sub-series. The world is deep in the grips of all-out war and the NATO forces aren’t doing so well. This installment sees us fighting on more familiar fronts, in locations like New York, London, Paris and Germany.
Much of what we’ve seen so far has focused on New York, and continue the series’ tradition of massive set-pieces with the added bonus of impressive environmental effects. At E3 we saw Navy SEALS hijacking a submarine to help take down an attack fleet off the coast of NYC, and later the combat moves to the ground in downtown New York, heading up to the steps of the Wall Street Stock Exchange.
The visuals have been ramped up again and the new environmental effects – such as astonishing water in a speed boat chase, or falling masonry in the New York City sequences – really add to the grandeur of the events unfolding.
Openly epic
There are plenty of reasons to be excited about Modern Warfare 3, aside from the bigger action sequences and higher visual fidelity. There are more chances to meet familiar characters, with the return of Soap MacTavish. And there’s the chance to fight through more open and epic locations than ever before. This appears to be a singleplayer campaign that, while still tight and compact, is delivered on a scale that the series hasn’t quite achieved to this point.
Of course, there’s also the return of Call of Duty’s main draw, the multiplayer. CoD fanatics will cry out for more of the series’ trademark speedy and accessible yet complex play that will allow them to assert their superiority over the anonymous masses over the internet via Xbox Live, PSN and Steam.
Also making its full debut this time is the Call of Duty Elite service, which will allow you to keep up with your CoD comrades even when they’re not jacked into the game via their platform of choice, adding a whole bunch of extra communication and statistics tools well beyond what we’ve seen before.
It looks set to be a shining beacon for Call of Duty, then – one that should even impress those who were a little disappointed with what Black Ops offered, and are wishing for a return to the Infinity Ward-built efforts which have always had the edge in terms of playability in the past.
Upper limit
But while it’ll offer incremental improvements on the experience that Infinity Ward brought with Modern Warfare 2 and Treyarch refined again in Black Ops, and the Call of Duty Elite service will definitely add an extra, more social dimension to proceedings, there’s still a feeling that Call of Duty has reached its limits in terms of how it can define the military shooter genre.
If we strip away the cosmetic updates and discount the Elite service, which was developed by Beachhead separately as a service that will serve multiple COD titles in the future, what have Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer really given us this time?
Once the spectacle of the New York skyline crumbling under A10 missile fire and escaping a sinking submarine are done with, we’re left with a core game that’s pretty much more of the same. You might be okay with that. That’s fine.
The greatest innovation we’ve seen in the Call of Duty series since Infinity Ward shook it up with Modern Warfare back in 2007 was the zombie mode, which Treyarch added with World at War. It’s fun, but hardly an earth-shattering addition to the series, and is in no way as important as Modern Warfare was. This is compounded by the ubiquity of zombie games in varying forms ranging from the supreme Left 4 Dead series to the slightly bizarre Yakuza: Of The End zombie spin-off which SEGA has just released in Japan.
And, predictably, zombies return in MW3′s Survival mode, only adding to the sense that there’ll be nothing new on offer here. Call of Duty has sat atop its genre for almost a decade now – and I can’t help but feel like it’s time for a bit of a change of pace. Nevertheless, Modern Warfare 3 is shaping up to be another fun addition to the series, one that’s sure to sell millions of copies as long as it keeps giving us FPS gamers what we want. After all, if it ain’t broke…
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will be released by Activision, Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games on November 8th 2011, for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.
No comments:
Post a Comment