Rating: 3/10

Visuals:

Published by Activision Call of Duty is a game made with a large budget. As a result, the game always looks fantastic and Modern Warfare 3 is no different. While it did not do anything to set itself apart from last year’s Modern Warfare 2, the game still looks great while playing, and even better during cinematic cutscenes. If you’re a gamer that prefers quality gameplay graphics and movie like cutscenes, then you will enjoy this side of Sledgehammer Games (SHG) entry into the Modern Warfare series. Rating: 8/10

Story:

For those that checked out my everything you need to know for MW3 article: https://sidelineentertainment.com/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-3-thoughts-info-details/, you would know that I am not very high on SHG. I feel like some of their issues crept into this campaign. The story was a mess and that’s impressive considering how short it was. Call of Duty campaigns are not typically long, but this one was over in about 3-4 hours depending on how you played 6 particular missions. With this story, you pretty much know the end goal fairly early on. On top of that, SHG made the odd decision of almost exclusively telling the story through cutscenes. It felt like they wanted to make a movie and just threw some missions in there because they had to. The cutscenes were fantastic, the visuals were movie like, and the actors took their roles seriously and clearly enjoyed themselves. There were a few cutscenes that had me locked in, but the gameplay itself kept taking me out of it. Of the 14 total missions in the campaign, 6 of them were ‘open combat’ missions. Open combat missions are missions that allow you the freedom to play them how you please. Do you want to take your time, loot everything, go full stealth mode? Maybe you want to sprint it out guns blazing, burn all of your ammo and have to scavenge for guns or ammo, you can do that. There are several ammo boxes, loot boxes, and guns to be found around each map. Loadout drops are present and if you listen to the audio cues from whomever is leading your mission, they can be easy to locate. Loadout drops allow you to fully customize your class with any items that you have found throughout your run, including primary, secondary, tacticals, lethals, field upgrades, and items such as a zipline ascender. You can also come across various killstreaks to use if you search hard enough, which were often fun to use. I believe the best streak I came across was a stealth bomber, although I admittedly did not loot much at all. The reason for that is that I personally was not a fan of these open combat missions. I felt they continuously took me out the story and often felt like a chore over a fun experience. The story also lacked any kind of cohesion and just felt like a thrown together mix of ideas with great visuals to distract you from the fact that there was no real story being told. WARING SPOILERS AHEAD: I did expect a death in this campaign, but the choice was odd, and it felt pointless. If you are going to kill off a member of TF-141, it needs to be felt, there needed to be a real story arc being told for that kind of bomb. They connected Soaps death with one conversation he had with Makarov in a flash back mission/cutscene and that’s the justification for killing him abruptly and ending the game. Speaking of the campaign just ends, suddenly and badly. I also like how they just threw a copy and pasted shadow company mission in there, just like a big ole F you to TF-141 right before they kill one of their brothers in the next mission. It was a terrible ending that somehow managed to drag down an already mediocre story. Rating: 2/10

Voice Acting/Acting:

Save the best for last right? Huge props to the entire cast of this campaign. These men and women took their roles to heart, and they delivered every single time despite having a terrible script. They saved this game from being a complete dud for me. I felt their emotion, the tone was always perfect for the moment, and they were the sole reason for any immersion into this campaign. I have no idea what they were paid by Activison for their roles in this, but I promise you all it was not enough. Rating: 10/10

Final Thoughts:

I would not recommend players spending the 4 hours it takes to complete this campaign. You are most certainly better off just looking up the cinematics on YouTube. I usually enjoy COD campaigns, they are typically a bright spot regardless of the rest of the game, but this time is different. I went in excited but came out annoyed and confused. The majority of the guns you use throughout the campaign are guns from Modern Warfare 2, what was that all about? Part of what I was excited for was being able to check out some new guns that we did not see in the beta, this decision in no way helped dispel the ‘DLC’ allegations. It achieved the opposite and only had players on social media double down that this game was a $70 DLC. Disappointed would be an understatement, I hated playing a majority of this campaign, it was a chore to me. I am still looking forward to the multiplayer/full game release, those original MW2 maps are going to be a blast for me. I cannot wait to forget about this campaign entirely, maybe MW4 if it happens, can salvage this story line.