Welcome back shoppers! I’m finally here to bring you more content, and I have more ideas than ever. Today, we will talk about Modern Warfare 3 (MW3). I have a LOT to cover on this topic, so let’s get right to it.

MW3 was developed by Infinity Ward of course, but had the help of another company this time around. Sledgehammer Games was brought on-board by Activision Blizzard, who publishes and owns Infinity Ward, along with the entire Call of Duty series. Infinity Ward couldn’t develop the game alone due to the fiasco that happened with the former CEOs of Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella. Along with those two, over half of the work force over at IW left with them to found a new studio under the EA Partners program. Their new studio is called Respawn Entertainment, and their new game is due to release in March 2013. It is hoped to be the Call of Duty killer by many in the community, including myself.

I believe that the entire Call of Duty series has, lately, been a yearly recap of the same thing as before. This cycle started with Modern Warfare 2 (MW2). This game was entirely different from anything the series had seen before, and it was a change I wasn’t welcoming to, having come from Call of Duty 4 (CoD4) and World at War.

The next year, Black Ops had the same kind of thing; it was completely different from anything we’ve seen so far. Yet the game introduced so many new features that MW3 didn’t want to use. For example, the extreme level of customization was a brand new thing to the series and was incredible. MW3 decided to go the easy route and take everything from MW2, and add a new “touch” on it.

The single-player in MW3 continues right where MW2 ended with its ridiculous cliffhanger. The game does a good job of introducing new characters and how they all tie in to the story, but the story feels rushed. You can definitely tell Infinity Ward weren’t expecting CoD4 to be as popular as it was, and they didn’t think it through until they had a sure-fire source of revenue so that they could do whatever they wanted and still be the highest grossing entertainment launch of all time, which is ALWAYS set by Call of Duty games. However, by the time Grand Theft Auto V comes out (hint at a future installment), that will most likely change.

This time around, the only time you look through Soap’s (the main character of CoD4, and got to be playable at the end of MW2) eyes is in the introduction to the game. The rest of the story, you mostly play as Yuri, who is an associate of an old friend Nikolai. You also play in the U.S. Army as “Frost.” There are a few extra characters as always, like the typical AC-130 gunner, and Captain Price.

The Spec Ops game mode is much improved from MW2. Apart from the mission-only modes from the previous entry in the series, there is a survival mode. It is a lot like the zombies mode from the Treyarch entries, except the enemies shoot back at you. They are also living beings. The mission modes are much more fun than MW2’s.

The multiplayer aspect of this game is the main component of every Call of Duty game. This is also the part of the game I have a HUGE problem with. Almost every part of the multiplayer game is ripped from MW2. Of course there are new maps and sort-of new weapons, but the game play aspects, HUD, and menus are essentially the same.

The hype behind this game made it out to be the perfect Call of Duty game, with Infinity Ward employees lying about stuff that would be in the game (no last stand, but they put in final stand… what?). The weapons are unbalanced as well. Why is it that none of the developers can get anything right? It’s just a train wreck in my opinion. I didn’t like Black Ops, but that game is 100 times better than MW3.

In conclusion, this is most likely the last game of the Call of Duty series that I’ll buy. Unless Black Ops 2 comes out and it’s better than the first, then I might buy it. There’s always that hidden factor of rage and frustration that will always be included in Call of Duty games. It’s inevitable.

Thanks for shopping with me today. Stay tuned for the next entry in the blog series where I go over my new computer. See you then!

Blog by Ron Compton