November 12, 2011

CoD: MW3

Carolyn picked up the latest Call of Duty game for me Monday night at her store's midnight premier event.  I've played the game quite a bit off and on this week and all I have to say is WOW.

The current trend in video games is to tell a story as you play the game.  Well, it's technically been a "trend" since sometime after Super Mario Brothers.  The trend I'm talking about is the developers actually doing a good job at telling a story.  A couple times as I was going through the game I called my wife in to watch.

I won't post any spoilers, so don't worry.  The subject matter can be quite disturbing and the game gives you the option to play in more of a "safe mode".  Don't do it.  Some of the story will definitely be dulled down if you do.

The game has three main play modes: Special Ops, Campaign, and Multiplayer.

Special Ops has two sub-modes: survival and mission.  In survival you start with a single pistol and have to survive waves of enemies.  You earn cash to spend on new weapons and you can do a limited amount of looting of enemy corpses for weapons & ammo.  The missions can be performed solo or with a partner.  The more you play you level up and get access to more weapons and missions, not too unlike multiplayer.

The Campaign mode is the basic single player mode that progresses through the story.  I managed to play through twice, first on Veteran and then on Recruit to finish achievements.  Once again they have some sort of scavenger hunt achievement, this time for pieces of intel.  You pretty much have to go out of your way to find all 46 pieces.  Only one or two of my gaming buddies have even completed the campaign mode and then only on recruit.  This gives me some bragging rights.

Multiplayer mode is what most people flock to.  In my group of gaming friends I am the lowest level and generally suck the most at playing.  One guy has close to a 3:1 kill/death ratio, while I'm right about .5.  Meh, I'm having fun.  In the last CoD game you earned points you could spend to purchase and upgrade your weapons.  This time around you earn weapons as you level and the only way to upgrade them is to use them.  The weapons themselves level up.  I like this addition since you basically get rewarded with the equipment you use and don't end up wasting earned resources on weapons you end up not liking.

If you like first-person shooters, I highly recommend Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

No comments: