Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 AlterIWNet Pre-Final v.1.3.37a (2010/ENG) | 8 Gb

Year: 2010
Genre: Action, Shooter
Developer: Ifnitie Ward / AlterIWNet
Publisher: Activision
Platform: PC
Publication Type: pirate
Tabletka: not required
Language: ENG
Multiplayer: yes

‘Call of Duty’ is the most-played online series for Xbox 360 and PS3. The team behind ‘Modern Warfare 3’ aims to defend that crown with “the most balanced multiplayer experience ever”.

With tactical tweaks rewarding more varied approaches to the battlefield and an experience system that lets you customise weapon performance, new ‘Call of Duty’ is in great shape to face all-comers online.

The response from thousands of ‘Call of Duty’ players was loud and clear at the XP 2011 weekender where the ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’ multiplayer platform was revealed. Whoops and cheers greeted confirmation that Last Stand and Commando perks are gone, both accused of cheating players out of fair competition until now. There was also applause for the removal of shotguns as secondary weapons (though they can still be your main).

‘Modern Warfare 3’ creators Infinity Ward and partners in prime Sledgehammer have made it very difficult, if not impossible, for competitors to catch up with ‘COD’ multiplayer for 2011 and beyond. What it all amounts to is a promise of “the biggest test of individual skill ever in a COD game”.

Starting with the new Strike Packages, essentially special attacks summoned after scoring multiple kills without dying. In previous ‘COD’ multiplayer scenarios, Kill Streaks favoured players with a strong kill / death ratio, and therefore less relevant to supporting roles in objective based games such as Capture the Flag. So what used to be called a Kill Streak is now more broadly known as Point Streak, allowing for skills other than gunplay to be recognised and rewarded.

Three categories of Strike Package are available to choose at the start of each multiplayer game: Assault, Support and Specialist.

‘Assault’ is the most similar to ‘Call of Duty’ multiplayer of old, backing up solid progression through 2-18 kills without ever dying with incrementally devastating back-up, from the new IMS (Intelligent Munitions System) landmine to Juggernaut (read: Terminator) status.

‘Support’ packages are less devastating in terms of harming rivals directly, but a Support player will prove invaluable to any team in objective based challenges. Even if a Support player loses a life the Support benfits continue to accumulate, so it will be a team based decision to call in e.g. Ballistic Vests, a Remote Turret (drive this thing around on miniature tank-tracks) or a Recon Juggernaut revealing enemy positions without fear. An interesting one…

Finally ‘Specialist’ is a confident ‘COD’ player’s opportunity to stack limitless Strike Packages on the battlefield, because for as long as you’re not dying a new option is added after every two kills. It’s just up to you when you call them in, but the double-or-quits nature of this set-up means that you stand to lose everything with just one death of your own.

Strike Packages based on the new Point Streak system would’ve been enough, we feel, to have given ‘COD’ a massive online boost for ‘Modern Warfare 3’. But the game goes much wider and deeper with the Weapons Proficiency upgrades.

Weapons Proficiency upgrades are an extension of the perks system that already exists in ‘Call of Duty’. But whereas perks affect physical capability and inventory capacity in general, Weapons Proficiency upgrades only one weapon at a time. Experience points (XP) gained while playing ‘Modern Warfare 3’ online are spent on levelling up your tools of choice across nine categories as follows:

‘Kick’ reduces recoil so this will help with some of the livelier automatic weapons and machine guns. ‘Impact’ increases the penetration strength of your ammo, causing more damage to enemies hiding behind soft cover. ‘Attachments’ allows two attachments per weapon, such as dual scopes. ‘Focus’ reduces the amount of flinch suffered after taking a bullet or knife wound allowing speedier and more accurate retaliation.

‘Breath’ is similar to the old Iron Lung perk, increasing lung capacity to assist snipers. ‘Stability’ reduces weapon sway, again relevant to snipers but also marksmen favouring rifles above machine guns and side arms. ‘Range’, self-explanatory really, increases the distance a bullet can effectively travel. ‘Speed’ lets you move quickly even with heavier weapons equipped, and finally ‘Damage’ increases hurt from a shotgun.

As for perks as we’ve known them in the ‘COD’ series until now, there are six newcomers to the party. ‘Recon’ highlights affected targets on your mini map, making it easier to finish off weakened opponents. ‘Blind Eye’ makes your soldier invisible to air support and sentry guns. Similarly ‘Assassin’ prevents your thermal signature being seen, or your heartbeat detected, removes your signal from portable radar and UAV. With ‘Quickdraw’ you can aim faster down sight (all the better to snipe you with), which you may dare to combine with ‘Stalker’ that lets you run faster while aiming. Lastly for any riflemen and pistol packers the ‘Marksman’ perk makes you deadlier at long range.

Rather embarrassingly we encountered two of the new Death Streaks ‘Juiced’ and ‘Revenge’ while adapting to the new maps and gameplay modes in ‘Modern Warfare 3’. ‘Juiced’ gives a temporary boost to running speed upon re-spawn, which in turn ought to benefit anyone with ‘Revenge’ activated that highlights the last person to have killed you. Mercifully we didn’t get to try out ‘Hollow Points’ (five deaths) that increases the bullet damage for your first kill, or ‘Dead Man’s Hand’ (six deaths) that hands you a wad of C4 to use.

Between now and 8 November you’re going to see plenty of online footage for the five (out of 16) new multiplayer maps for ‘MW3’, but here are our thoughts on them so far:

Resistance, taking place in Paris, is the one with the cobbled backstreets, alleyways and small garden areas linked by many stairwells. Pro players quickly found corners to allow sighting to distant corners in both directions, so if you’re working as a team gain control while communicating where your enemy has found a sweet spot. We loved the tightly packed nature of the layout.

Arkaden, also Paris, is a shopping mall complete with chic bars and plenty of store-fronts to sneak into the shadows. It’s multi-tiered, linked by an escalator, and tactics seem to involve dominating the upper or lower floor and then baiting rivals to your position while calling out upon seeing movement. Although tall, the ground area on each floor for this map is small. So keep your head down.

Village, one of our favourites, is a more natural environment with a confusing labyrinth of a cave area making it tricky to know where your enemy has last moved. There’s a great spot behind a burned-out truck positioned at the end of a bridge leading up into the houses from where you can sight all the way through the window while in cover. There are also plenty of smaller elevated areas thanks to the rocky contours for a speedy vantage point to aid teammates engaged in a duel.

Dome you may already know from our Survival mode coverage of ‘Modern Warfare 3’ Spec Ops. With its rabbit-warren of a bunker and wire-mesh flooring of a radar tower walkway, it can be hard to spot where enemies have gone into hiding. However gaps between cargo containers, and sighting from within the darkened rooms surrounding the connecting areas, gives more of a chance.

Last, but not least, Underground is a fictitious London station area called ‘Middleton’. It is so exaggerated, with its tube trains wrecked on the platform indoors, while outside multiple London double-decker buses are parked / crashed on the outskirts. Trains simultaneously offer sneaky marksman spots while making you an easy target with nowhere to run if a grenade rolls under your feet. Only a small thing, but we liked how the curve of the train roofs gave a gradual lean to peak under doorways. First time you play this level, make sure to check out the made up names on the tube map, they’re (deliberately) ridiculous.

Only two new gameplay types added to ‘Modern Warfare 3’ multiplayer, and one clear favourite. Kill Confirmed is simply awesome; easy to understand, and so much fun that you’ll want to keep going for hours. The winning team is the one with the most kills confirmed, but to confirm a kill for your team it’s necessary to collect the dog tags off a fallen foe. You can also deny the opposing team a confirmed kill by having a teammate retrieve the dog tags from your ‘ex’.

The scoring system for Kill Confirmed is straightforward but needs explaining: 50XP for collecting a rival’s tags, and 50XP to you if a team mate collects on your behalf. It’s 50XP to deny a rival’s kill by collecting tags from a fallen teammate, but there are no score penalties. That is, it won’t go into the minus count for teams doing badly, just stick at zero which is bad enough.

In Team Defender mode the idea is for one guy to capture a flag (hard enough to begin with) and points are scored for keeping this guy alive for as long as possible. So, he’ll basically have you to thank for his carrying time XP awarded at the end of the match. Teams are likely to get fairly spread out in this game mode, with at least one gun trained on the flag and another to spot the opposition gunner trained on the flag, and… well, you can go away and figure this out for yourself because it’s giving us headaches.

And there’s still more!

All of the above affects public playlists, but if you’re involved with Private Matches there are six new game modes here, as follows:

Infection – remarkably similar to the ‘Halo’ multiplayer game type of the same name in which zombies aim to infect soldiers armed with shotguns.

Drop Zone – a territory mode in which the designated area grants points the longer you hold it, with Care Packages containing assorted support items for strategic use.

Team Juggernaut – take your pet juggernaut into battle, weakening enemies for him, aiming to be the first to reach a score limit.

Juggernaut – if you can kill the juggernaut, you become the juggernaut. Everybody is happy... unless you never manage to earn your turn!

Gun Game – borrowed from the community. Be the first to dominate with every gun, granting you progressively more powerful weapons.

One in the Chamber – kills grant ammo, so kill more until you’re out. Wonder if this includes melee strikes? It might come to that!

Closing comments…

“Robust” or maybe “Iron Clad” is how we’d characterise the overwhelming presence of ‘Modern Warfare 3’ multiplayer. But even those terms don’t really convey the integral might of what’s on offer.

The producers at Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer are laying-on dedicated servers to support the festivities from 8 November, guaranteeing smooth-running online for consoles as well as PC.

Once again multiplayer is being kept sacrosanct from Achievements / Trophies so that player skill and ranking are the only recognition for your efforts. We kind of like that, keeping it pure.

Above all, remember, from 8 November ‘Call of Duty: Elite’ is tracking your every move. ‘COD Elite’ gives smack-talkers nowhere to hide by posting every statistic online for anyone that knows your gamertag to investigate, either to laugh at or learn from.

The sense of community among ‘COD’ players will feel stronger to the power of 10 when ‘Modern Warfare 3’ arrives. This is thrilling for everyone involved, fuelling conversations whether you’re comparing notes at work, college or in the pub after a game with your Sunday League team.

Best of all, as it is plain to see, the development teams are always listening to feedback from the community and putting this back into the game. ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’ is brilliant because ‘COD’ players demand and deserve those behind it to discover what’s better than their very best.

Operating system: Windows XP / Vista / 7
Processor: AMD 64 3200 + / Intel Pentium IV 3,0 GHz / and more powerful
Memory: 512 MB RAM (XP) / 1 GB RAM (Vista)
Video: 256 MB of graphics memory, shader version 3.0 and above, nVidia GeForce 6600GT/ATI Radeon 1600XT or newer
Soundcard: DirectX 9.0c compatible
Free space on HD: 5,94 GB