The Modern Warfare series has been a successful juggernaut for the Call the Duty franchise. As the eighth Call of Duty instalment, Modern Warfare 3 hopes to achieve high standards in the FPS genre. Developed by Infinity Ward, and co-developed by Sledgehammer games and Raven Software, Modern Warfare 3 continues the Modern Warfare story, expands the cooperative modes, and continues the addictive multiplayer action. Does Modern Warfare 3 improve upon its predecessors, or will it fail to meet expectations?

Taking place right after Modern Warfare 2 where Soap, Price, and Nikolai are still on the run after killing General Shepherd, and the main antagonist, Vladimir Makarov, still at large and planning a full scale invasion of Europe.  Whilst this is going on the same time Russian forces continue their fight on American soil; all these events culminate in World War 3, where the only hope is to eliminate Makarov once and for all.

Taking place in multiple locations around the world: India, New York, Russia, England, Paris, etcetera, you take the role of various soldiers on the battlefield, with the majority of the game spent following either Frost or Yuri, but other characters include an SAS operative Marcus Burns, and a security agent for the Russian president. You’ll follow these characters though many different scenarios, some of these include surviving a Russian ambush, destroying a Russian submarine, retaking control of a plane, you get the gist. As the story continues it begins to start piecing itself together, and reveals quite how this snowballing of events occurred. In the end the story fills in all the plot holes that Modern Warfare 2 had. It’s got a nice pace and good variety of situations, although some of the situations you find yourself in many not be as fresh or creative, but they are entertaining. Essentially it still has the same Hollywood style action to keep the player entertained.

Just like its predecessors, Modern Warfare 3 is still a first-person shooter, imagine the backlash if the even thought f changing that! Gameplay is practically untouched in comparison to previous Call of Duty games, with a few tweaks in each of the three modes. Once again you have three modes of play; Campaign, Special-Ops, and Multiplayer. Special-Ops adds a new mode called Survival to its repertoire, and the Multiplayer has been tweaked slightly.

Featured in Modern Warfare 2, Infinity Ward has expanded on Special-Ops a little more. Survival sees one or two players fighting endless waves of enemies, with every wave becoming a little more difficult, very similar to Hoard mode in practically every the game under the sun. You will earn cash for killing enemies, surviving waves, killing stylishly etcetera, with that cash you’ll be able to buy new weapons, upgrades, supports, and equipment; this mode even supports all 16 multiplayer maps! On top of that players can still experience spec ops, these challenge missions test your skills by pitting you against specific challenges with time restrictions. The co-op modes in Modern Warfare 3 now also support experience levels, when a player levels up (just like multiplayer) he/she can earn new rewards, maps, and challenges for spec ops and survival.

Multiplayer is what gets many addicted to Call of Duty, in Modern Warfare 3, the multiplayer mode has been revamped to balance the game out just a little more. Most of it has been left unchanged though, like leveling up, creating a class, challenges, modes, to name just a few. There are some features however that have been tweaked in multiplayer; Killstreaks are now Pointstreaks. Pointstreaks increase by killing or completing objectives, like capturing a flag or planting a bomb, and there are three types of Pointstreak packages: assault, support, and specialist. An assault package has offensive rewards like a predator drone or missile, whilst a support package has defense rewards like advance UAV or care package and do not reset, and the specialist offers perk rewards to give player an edge on the battlefield.

As always there are a variety of weapons on offer, weapons that now must be leveled up to gain attachments and, the all new, proficiency perks. Proficiency perks help you to have more control of the weapon you’ve chosen, some proficiency perks would include assists like reduced recoil.

For those who have prestige in both previous Call of Duty games and Modern Warfare 3, an all new prestige shop has also been set in place. The prestige shop allows players to gain extra rewards via tokens when the player prestige. Some rewards double XP, or allow an extra custom class, and the creation of unique titles, these are but a few of the rewards to be unlocked. Also the perks of Modern Warfare 3 have also been changed, there are quite of few perks that have been removed or replaced in a different section with a lesser affect and new games modes have been added, such as Kill Confirmed where players must collect floating dog tags to register the kill, and Team Defender where players must fight over a single flag.

The multiplayer portion of Modern Warfare 3 is addictive, but it still feels unbalanced and shallow in many aspects. Many of the guns feel unbalanced and unfinished, the addition of proficiency perks further make these already unbalanced guns into a complete mess; even the pointstreaks are too easy to gain. This especially happens with the support package, and some overpowering rewards like juggernaut. There is also a big issue with the maps being a little smaller than its predecessor and the spawn points having some weird and unbalanced placements.

Modern Warfare 3 uses the same, but improved, IW engine now dubbed MW3 engine. There are little touches here and there to improve it graphically, nicely enough the game is able to handle more action, events, and runs at 60 frames per second. These are all huge improvements over Modern Warfare 2, but sadly it’s starting to show its age and the graphics are not as impressive as they once were.

Voiceovers use the same cast, Kevin McKidd and Billy Murray reprise their roles as Soap and Price, and even new actors like Timothy Olyphant play the voices of new non-player characters. No matter who they are, and who they play all of them play their roles well and give each character life. The soundtrack features an epic orchestral score that fits well with the whole Modern Warfare theme. As one audio package, Modern Warfare 3′s presentation is set on a high standard even with graphics that are starting to show their age.

At the end of the day, Infinity Ward’s creation comes full circle. The story is a thrill ride with over-the-top situations and a good plot. Gameplay is basically the same untouched experience since Call of Duty 4, but has been enhanced, for better or worse, in multiple ways. The addition of Special-Ops and the new survival mode is great feature to have, and multiplayer still offers the same addictive experience that everybody loves, but it does fail to impress in the end due to quite a few problems and issues. Presentation wise, Modern Warfare 3 is starting to show it age, but manages to still have some impressive moments. The voiceovers have an all-star cast of people who play their roles and character perfectly and even the soundtrack has an epic orchestral score that people will love. Overall, Modern Warfare 3 is a good game that has a lot to offer in terms of story, gameplay, and presetation, but the shallow and unbalanced multiplayer and ageing graphics do put a dent into this ageing franchise and series.

Final Score: 4/5