Another month gone by, another major release, MW3. I wasn't expecting much more than MW2.5 from this release and that's pretty much what it has been. Everything leading up to its release date looked almost exactly like MW2 with some changes to maps, weapons, perks, and kill streaks, which I'll discuss in more detail later on. Overall, I've been enjoying this game fairly well. The MP could use a lot of work, but the campaign and newly added Survival Mode are both great; I think they're better than BF3's campaign and co-op combination and I'm more partial to the BF series than to CoD's.
As always, let's start off with the negatives as I have quite a few of them. As mentioned above, this game feels like a DLC to MW2, not a good start so far. The MP maps, weapons, perks, and kill streaks all look very similar to the ones from MW2.
The perks and kill streaks are probably the biggest downfall of this franchise to me. Hear me out before all of you CoD fanboys get your panties in a bunch. Most, if not all, of all of the perks AND kill streaks could have been left out of the game all together. For technical purposes, I'm going to list all of the perks and kill streaks I feel should have been left out and my reasoning why. Let's start off with the various perks.
Sleight of Hand: I think this is one of my more complex perks that I felt could have been eliminated. One of my suggestions would have been to implement a simple reloading mechanism using your controller's/keyboard's buttons/keys. For example, on consoles, simply pressing the reload button once would perform a normal, slower reload while maybe pressing the reload button twice would perform a 'quick reload,' meaning your weapon currently equipped would reload just as fast as if you had the Sleight of Hand/Pro perk enabled for your class. For the 'Pro' portion of this perk, though, maybe implementing a double tap of the switch weapon button would reload quicker than pressing it once for a normal reload. It's just an idea, but I feel like it could have been easily added to the game and would be beneficial and create a more balanced game.
Recon: Explosive and bullet damage are shown on the mini-map? Why not just do this without a perk? I mean, you have sounds automatically trigger when you reload or something. Why can't you just implement a feature that would trigger this location automatically on the mini-map without a perk? Better yet, why even have this at all? If someone trips a claymore or a bouncing betty and dies they're not going to be able to call its location out to their teammates. If they just get injured from explosive or bullet damage, that's a different story. They could just add the 'call out' feature to let their teammates know the location(s).
Blind Eye: I understand the need to add some sort of 'counter' to air support and whatnot, but how can this even be done in real life without hiding in some sort of cover or adding some sort of jamming equipment if the air support is too high to see any people? Since MW2 started this trend, I never understood it. As far as I know, there isn't any magical invisibility cloaks that can hide you from enemy air support. As for the Pro, fast lock-on for rockets and increased bullet damage to vehicles? Really? The lock-on speed should be as fast as their real counter parts can accommodate. As for the increased bullet damage to vehicles, what are they using, some sort of armor-piercing rounds or something? I understand that, but not every gun can use those.
Extreme Conditioning: This is an easy one. Do what BF did, allow the player to run for as long as they want because, in battle, I'm pretty sure you're not going to stop in the middle of a gun fight to catch your breath; you're going to do all you can to get out of harms way and save your life. The Pro allows you to climb faster. Just allow players to press the sprint button to climb faster. Perk removed, problem solved.
Scavenger: I thought about this for a few minutes and came up with a pretty decent idea. Why not just allow players to pick up ammo from dead soldiers who carry the same weapons? It doesn't matter if they currently had the weapon(s) equipped when they died as long as you carry the same one(s). Also, it would allow you to pick up their unused equipment if you have them equipped. The Pro can be removed all together.
Quickdraw: I think this could be removed all together. To balance the game, all players should have the same aiming and equipment recovery times.
Blast Shield: This one's a tough one. I couldn't really think of anything for this except to take out the Pro part all together. It allows players to resist flashbangs and stuns. Unless you're in some sort of protected room, there's really no way to resist from these, which pretty much is what happens if you're not in the same room as the flashbang or stun. The regular portion of this perk is easy: just like in Black Ops, you would be using the 'flak jacket.' This enables you to take a greater amount of explosive damage, which is fine because I'm sure these are actual 'jackets' in real life. Don't quote me on that as I'm not 100% on it, but it seems like something practical.
Hardline: Make it easier for players to get kill streaks? No, this should not even be in the game. End of story.
Assassin: Same as for the Blind Eye perk, unless you're in some sort of cover, have some sort of jamming equipment up, or are using something that's masks your thermal heat signature this is unrealistic and unnecessary.
Overkill: You should have the option to carry 2 primary weapons or have 2 attachments at any time no matter if you choose a perk or not. Totally useless.
Marksman: Dumb. This should pertain to what kind of gun/scope you have to identify targets at longer distances. You should be able to hold your breath for only a certain amount of time regardless of a perk for all players to balance the game out more.
Stalker: Your movement while aiming down the sights should be the same for all players, again, for better balance and how can someone 'delay' when claymores and bouncing betties explode? That really doesn't make much sense to me.
SitRep: Another dumb one; should be removed all together.
Steady Aim: Again, remove to balance game better.
Dead Silence: Another dumb one. Your noise level should be dependent on how you are moving. If you are walking slowly, you should make less noise than when you're running. How can you NOT take fall damage? If you're falling from any height that would hurt any person, you're going to take some kind of damage. End of story.
Those are all of the perks. I think there are only 2, maybe 3 left with them all not having any 'Pro' parts to them. This would most definitely balance the game out a whole lot more and make players rely more on skill than a perk. Now, on to the kill streaks, something else I think should be decreased.
I've been saying this since MW2 came out. They should have stuck with the winning kill streak formula that was the original MW: 3 kills = UAV, 5 kills = air strike, and 7 kills = helicopter. All of these other kill streaks make players focus on getting them to get their kills instead of using skill to get gun on gun kills. It also actually encourages and increases camping, which is one of the biggest problems and a staple of the CoD franchise. OK, with new MW games I think you could add maybe a Counter-UAV and maybe a care package that has one of those kill streaks or ammo, but maybe make it that it refills ammo for your entire team. All air suport should be able to be shot down, too. Having a counter for everything is a MUST for any FPS MP game like CoD. This leads me into the weapons.
First off as I was talking about air support should be able to be shot down, you should have 2, MAYBE 3 options for rocket launchers: a free-fire launcher (RPG/SMAW), a lock-on launcher (NO, I REPEAT, NO JAVELIN!), and MAYBE a dual launcher that can do either free-fire or lock-on.
Handguns and machine pistols can pretty much stay the same. The majority of them are fine and actually require some skill to use well.
SMG's are pretty decent so the majority of them can stay, but we NEED THE MP5 BACK!
LMG's are fine, too, so they can stay.
Assault rifles are also pretty good so they can stay as well.
Sniper rifles are fine, but any type of 'auto aim' needs to be taken out and it should be a lot harder to snipe so it discourages 'quick/no scoping' in CoD as this DOES NOT happen in real life. Sure, snipers can fire shots quickly, but you will not see one doing 360 no scopes across the map.
With any weapons, variety is key. A good mix of weapons should be available and they need to have a good mix of attributes for each weapon. DO NOT OVER OR UNDER POWER WEAPONS! In Black Ops, the Famas was overpowered and it took away from the game. Even in BF3 the UMP45 was too powerful in the Beta, too weak in the retail release, but it was patched and now it's somewhere in the middle.
That leads me to the next topic: developer support. This is key to any MP game's success. You need to continually make the game better. Patching glitches and making sure weapons, any available perks and kill streaks are all legitimate and realistic are all essential keys to success. Don't allow hackers and modders to ruin the game by exploiting these things early on. Also, discourage camping in any way possible. I'm not sure how this could be done, but something needs to be done about this. It is getting WAY OUT OF HAND. Encourage slightly more movement and team work, but don't make it so that you always have to be moving. Sometimes you need to slow down and take a break to reload, get a better understanding of your surroundings and situation, and/or get your health back up. That last thing may need to change, though, as you don't regain health in real life in you get shot or an explosion is nearby. I understand why it's there, though, so no big deal.
I think my last gripe would be the lag in all CoD games. This is getting RIDICULOUS. This ties into the hit detection as well. If you don't have a full four bar connection, you're at a disadvantage to anyone who does. It will throw your connection off by just enough to let players with a full connection to shoot you faster. And what's up with bullets/launchers disappearing when you're shooting and someone kills you? They wouldn't disappear in real life so why in the game? Oh yeah, the lag. When you watch the kill cam it doesn't even show you shooting, but in the actual gameplay you are. This needs to be addressed ASAP!
OK, I think that's all of my gripes about the game so far. Sorry, I went off on a bit of a tangent there talking about how to get the game better, but now onto the things I enjoyed.
The campaign, I felt, was better than BF3's as it was longer and I've enjoyed all of the MW campaigns. The story was pretty awesome, I must say so myself, and the ending was a perfect ending to what has been a wild ride in the 3 games so far. I won't reveal any details to anyone who hasn't played it yet, but I definitely recommend playing through it.
The Spec Ops/Survival Mode is awesome as well. I haven't really played the Spec Ops, but we all know what that's like from MW2 and that was cool there so I don't expect much less in MW3. The Survival Mode is real cool, though. I've been playing that off and on with a buddy and it's real fun. It kind of sucks that you can only play with 2 players, but I think it would be a lot more fun with up to 4 players. Not a great big deal, though. It definitely adds a whole new level to the game and allows for a break from the MP and Spec Ops as well as the campaign. The co-op in MW3 is definitely a better co-op mode then in BF3. I tried that with a friend and it wasn't as I expected or that great. I'll save a BF3 VS MW3 thoughts post for another time, though.
Now onto the MP. With all CoD's, it's going to be a fast-paced game on smaller maps so it's usually fun. I say usually because sometimes it can be really irritating if the lag starts getting bad or if there's a lot of campers and/or noob tubers. I despise both of them so it does annoy me sometimes. Not that often, though. I do pretty well more than I do pretty bad. I care more about my W/L over my K/D so that's what I care about in the end, the win. I'm a very team-oriented player (which is why I prefer BF) so I'm looking to win over get more kills than deaths, but that usually happens anyway so I don't worry about it too much.
I usually play Hardcore Kill Confirmed in MW3, which was an awesome game mode addition on IW's/Sledgehammer's part. Although people are starting to camp more in it, it's still a fun game mode to play for me and my friends. We have a blast and we don't lose too often so it makes the game that much more enjoyable. I like how people have to go get the tags to either confirm or deny kills. This game mode is all about team points. The more you have, the quicker you will win.
I think that's about it. Overall, I thought it was a good, solid game.
GameSpot Score: 8.5 (Great)
Metacritic Score: 88 (79 reviews)
User Score: (6.7) [Damn, I don't think it's that low, but wow.]
My Score: 8
HAPPY GAMING!
GeNiO
