Recent reviews by Logan

Modern Warfare 3: A well thought-out critique of Campaign, MP, MWZ

Please allow me to preface this by making my position clear. I do regret my purchase of the $100 package. As things are, even $70 is far too much to ask.

I hope to outline the potential this game could have exploited and contrast it to what we were delivered.


Campaign:

Operation 627's opening scene had me quite literally giddy in my seat. For a moment the sense of cinematic magic was back! For the most part, this feeling persisted through the level. The sense of newness washed away as I drew more and more comparisons between this mission and the old MW2 mission "The Gulag." The original MW2 mission felt meaningful - a risk taken to save a dear companion. This time I ended up saving a psycopathic murderer, eh?

No other linear mission in the campaign drew much awe or gravitas, sans the stadium attack mission (Which was fairly good!). I strongly feel that the writing staff do not understand how to draw their audience into a story and create an enviornment the player feels invested and rewarded for participating in.

The greatest potential in this campaign, I felt, was in the Open Combat Missions... the greatest folly as well. The pitfalls have been stated by many others, so I will focus on what *could* have happened. What if we had been given an open-world style game like "Far Cry" or "Ghost Recon?" Imagine being able to customize your own weapons from campaign unlocks, hit checkpoints to save your progress, and operate in a proper open-world enviornment? That's what I hoped for, at least. "Infinite replayablility" would have only required the most minor of project scope expansion.


Multiplayer:

I honestly do not know where to begin with this. To put it bluntly, I feel MW3's multiplayer is a worse verson of COD: MW2 (2009). MW2 made a clear attempt to close the gap between very high-skilled players and 'noobs' with their death-streaks and accessible perk system. MW3 seems to do the opposite by locking UAV protection behind an over-complicated and poorly-explained unlock system, giving advantage to MW2 players who are bringing in full-kit guns (I have unlocked everything, however I am trying to play with MW3 guns), while not introducing any compensatory measures such as the old death-streak system. To mention nothing of folks feeling this game has PTW skins and bad TTK.

With regards to the map selection, please bear with me when I say that the MW2(2009) maps were not perfect. With that said, those maps were designed around the player speed, manuverability, and weapon choices of the time (2009). To take those maps, shove MW3's manuverability and weapons systems in without any map revision, and to offer no maps specifically designed for the title feels lazy. Exceedingly lazy. The art team did an amazing job porting the maps over, 100%. But, where's the fresh feel? Where's the creativity from the devs that make this game their own?

*Insert rant about "Arsenal" system for unlocking equitment*
Moving on...


MW Zombies:

I was most excited for this experience! Zombies was my childhood, my summers spent with friends, my safe PvE experience growing up.

This new game mode... has zombies? The feeling of seeing how far I can get is gone. Replaced is a sense of pure grind. My hype was born from a love of CoD zombies and DMZ. I imagined being able to extract pack-a-punch weapons which I might then return with, essentially continuing the one-hour game time to my own limit - much like in previous Zombies titles. I imagined retaining my perks on extract, for the same reason. I imagined being able to upgrade my guns at a buy-station like in DMZ.

So how can this game be salvaged? The campaign won't be, I hold no illusions of that. MP can fix it's TTK issues (and I'm sure they will), add a death-streak (I'm sure they won't), and create new maps with MW3 flow in mind (ahem MW2 bonus maps ahem). Zombies? Allow us to extract with our stuff. Make collecting and leveling up our guns mean something. DMZ was so popular because you spent multiple sessions working toward something. The same happens in MWZ, however that process is convoluted and needlessly frustrating.


In closing, I regret my purchase. For $25 I would have bought this as DLC, no doubt. This game is not worth $70.


Whoever is steering the boat at Activision HQ should look up the term "Opportunity Cost." I hope your metrics account for the many folks who will never purchase your titles again - myself included.


Thank you for reading, please share your thoughts.

The Onward community is cannibalizing itself while PCVR players decide if 1.8 is a good thing or a bad thing. The game sucks now. I could write a doctoral thesis on how much of a blunder 1.8 and Quest crossplay is. The waters are muddy and astroturfing is rampant. As this game is today, were I to not already own it I would not purchase Ownard. I will not be purchasing any Coatsink (publisher) or Downpour Interactive (developer) games at any point in the future.

I submit that you should not purchase this game either.