Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011)

To say Call of Duty's Modern Warfare games were a major success would be an understatement of note. Now, before I continue there is something I wanted to address really quickly about my Modern Warfare 2 review. The game was developed by TWO studios. I only mentioned Infinity Ward, but they were assisted by the team over at Sledgehammer Games.

Right, with that out of the way, let's get to my thoughts on Modern Warfare 3.

Concluding a Trilogy

The third instalment in the original Modern Warfare trilogy had a rocky start. For starters, there was a legal dispute between Jason West and Vince Zampella (the co-founders of Infinity Ward) and Activision and they left the company along with several other devs.

Activision subsequently brought in Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software to work on the game.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was released in November 2011 for PC, PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii and was met with positive reviews (except the Wii version which got a more mixed response).

The Story

Picking up immediately after where Modern Warfare 2 left off, the search for Makarov is still ongoing. The Russian invasion of the US is in full swing and Task Force 141 has been disavowed with Price and Soap being placed on a watch list. Of course, Makarov is still causing chaos and when he kidnaps the Russian president, things kick into overdrive.

If I say anything else, I'll spoil the game for anyone who hasn't played it.

What did I Like?

• Makarov has a much stronger presence here which is great because gamers are treated to one of the most intimidating villains ever.
• The gunplay and combat are ridiculously satisfying, as always.
• Music and Sound design are great and will get the adrenaline going every time.
• Graphically, the game looks absolutely phenomenal!

Was there Anything I didn't Like?

....No, not really. There weren't a lot of things that I can think of that I particularly disliked. I enjoyed playing Modern Warfare 3 quite a bit, although, it does feel like it's a bit short. In fact, it almost feels shorter than Modern Warfare 2 in a lot of ways. A lot of that has to do with the way that the game is paced. It's very well-paced, but the pace is also ridiculously fast which makes the game feel very rushed in places.

Now, while Makarov is an intimidating antagonist, his motives are very vague as well. This makes it a bit harder to relate to what he's going for which is a key factor of understanding his character. As it is, he just comes across as a power-hungry megalomaniac.

Modern Warfare 3 had it's Own Trigger Warning

One aspect of Modern Warfare 2 that generated a lot of buzz was the No Russian mission. As I said in my review of that game, one of the main concerns was that young kids would play the game. Now, I gave my thoughts on that whole thing already, but a brief recap would be that I found it to be rather childish and that parents should be parents and keep an eye on their kids.

Now, both 2 and 3 came with trigger warnings. Modern Warfare 2's warning related to the No Russian mission. There are three missions that I can think of where the trigger warning for MW3 could apply. The first is called Back on the Grid, this mission sees you, Captain Price, and Soap McTavish infiltrating a compound in Sierra Leone to capture a mysterious and important shipment belonging to Makarov.

Mission 2 is called Return to Sender and sees Task Force 141 travelling to Somalia to interrogate an arms dealer.

I'll talk about the third in a minute, but the reason behind this thought process is simply political correctness. What do I mean? Simply put; you'd hear a lot of people crying racism about these two missions - you're a group of white soldiers killing pretty much every black dude you come across, after all. I freely admit that I may be reading too much into it, I guess that's what happens when you're constantly seeing this sort of nonsense in gaming 'news' media.

The last one, and this is the one that the CoD Wiki mentions in relation to the trigger warning, is the Davis Family Vacation. It's not a mission of the typical sort, instead you're playing an American dad with a camcorder on vacation in London with his wife and daughter. The little girl is super excited to see Big Ben and you can't help smiling at the whole thing - until the charity truck pulls up and explodes. The explosion is part of a chemical attack planned by Makarov.

The whole thing is absolutely heart breaking. You see the little girl basically disappear and the shock wave knocks you over. It looks like something out of a found footage movie as the camcorder films the blaze for a few seconds before cutting out. It's not as uncomfortable as the No Russian mission in Modern Warfare 2, but it isn't something that I look forward to seeing in my MW3 playthroughs.

Modern Warfare 3 is Definitely Worth Playing!

Overall, I loved playing the Modern Warfare trilogy again; it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed re-visiting the series. Oftentimes, the third entry in a series isn't as good as the first one, but MW3 is one of those rare exceptions to that rule.

Modern Warfare 3 is a game that's definitely worth playing and I highly recommend trying it if you haven't already.