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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PS3)

Status: Finished playing
I started playing this game on Monday 29 September, 2014  //  I stopped playing this game on: Monday 6 October, 2014
Current opinion of this game
Highly polished and bombastic - but it started to feel a bit old towards the end (of the campaign)

October 6, 2014 09:38:36 PM
Finished. I think. Well, mostly.

So, the main campaign menu states that I'm aprox. 50% complete which confuses me because I saw the end credits. Maybe it's because I didn't collect all the intel? Or maybe there's something else? Either way I'm not sure I want to continue playing. It's not that it's a bad game - it's just that after a while it really does start to feel like you're playing the same game again. Lots of "follow me, don't get spotted" kind of stuff going on.

The ending though...hmmm, that was strange. Something of a let down. On the one hand the main bad guy (Makarov) is oficially dead (which explains why the next CoD games are in a different storyline/world/timeline. I was a bit put off by the violence of the ending though. This is quite a violent game (lots of shooting, lots of executions, etc.), but the ending felt gratuitous. Now that I think about it though, perhaps it's not all that different from summer blockbuster action flicks? (e.g. Die Hard) I'll need to think about that a bit more.

What I did find neat/interesting is how they weaved in some of the prior game into this one. Notable, the "alternate" viewpoint of the "No Russian" episode that was so controversial last time around. It was a short interlude, not really all that playable, but I thought it did a nice job of tying things together a bit more.


September 29, 2014 09:47:04 PM
I don't really care how much some people "hate" on this game (or the series, for that matter). It does things VERY well, and I'm really quite impressed by how effective the game and its presentation is in making military stuff cool.

I'm playing the campaign, and I don't plan on playing more than that. The online side never really caught my attention and, at this point the game has been out long enough for me to really be a noob (compared to those that are still playing and have probably been playing since it launched).

I think I'm something like 30-35% through the campaign and I've already filled lots of shoes in lots of different places. Standout moments so far?

a. I'm playing the game while my wife is on the couch reading. I ask her to take a look at the screen as I pan the camera up - hey, it's the Eiffel tower! (it looks a bit bent and parts of it are burning). So comments that I'd better not destroy it. A few minutes later the whole thing comes crashing down.

b. I've been chasing some suspicious vans all over London, bullets fly, etc. Super intense Michael Bay-style action. In the end the van is empty. The next scene has me playing as a dad on holiday with his family. The perspective is through the camcorder he's using to record their holiday - Big Ben is in the background. Then, one of the suspicious vans comes round the corner and stops. Something bad will (and does) happen - but you experience it through the eyes of an innocent bystander. For me it was a great moment that made the whole terrorist attack seem much more important and "big". It made it more personal.

I'm kind of surprised the scene was put in and I wonder how it got there (what was the process like when it was greenlit). Was there a lot of internal controversy about it? Did some people not see the point? Feel it wasn't worth the effort?

For me, definitely worth it, and by far the best moment in the game so far.


 
kudos for original design to Rodrigo Barria