The Inevitable MW3 Thread

[Sephirius]

It's out, so... opinions?

Firstly: Thank god stacking killstreaks are back. my number one hated thing about Black Ops is now gone.

Secondly: Yes, the weapon sounds have been hollywoodized, but they are so much better than Blops.

Thirdly: Campaign has been a blast thus far. I loved the Spoiler

Air Force One: Russian Version

level.

[Moby Halcyon]

I finished the campaign last night. While it wasn't as bad as MW2, I felt that the game fell apart after Act 2. The game is wonderful (relative to the series, I guess) to that point, but the Castle and Salt Mine missions are pretty bland in comparison to the set pieces before it. That said, the final level makes up for it - the initial walk up into the hotel is a great change of pace from running from cover to cover and the scripting for the final third is amazing.

While MW isn't exactly know for having things like coherent characters, the nerdy shout outs for people like MacMillian and Kamarov showing up were neat. That said, where the hell did Frost go? He's such a nonentity that he disappears between Berlin and the Salt Mine.

[Tolya]

I am playing through the game right now. The game is better than MW2 in the plot department, but it's still an illogical wankfest. If you can ignore that you'll have fun.

In its basics, it's still the same game as MW1 and MW2. Funny enough, even the graphics are the same as MW2.

[Edward Yee]

I am playing through the game right now. The game is better than MW2 in the plot department, but it's still an illogical wankfest. If you can ignore that you'll have fun.

Does its plot progression at least follow (relatively) plausibly from the "premises" (the situation as outlined at the beginning of the game), however stupidly they were arrived at?

[Tolya]

I am playing through the game right now. The game is better than MW2 in the plot department, but it's still an illogical wankfest. If you can ignore that you'll have fun.

Does its plot progression at least follow (relatively) plausibly from the "premises" (the situation as outlined at the beginning of the game), however stupidly they were arrived at?

Well... yeah. Kinda. Plot is wee bit more logical than in MW2. There are still some idiocies, like the fact that
Spoiler

for some strange reason Makarov kidnaps Russian president to get the launch codes for ballistic missiles, but nobody stops to think that with his resources he could just take over a missile base and launch them manually

Perhaps the main reason for the better plot is that they are wrapping up the story. So, while the initial setup is batshit crazy, everything gets resolved in a way that didn't cause too many WTF's (and that's not WhaT iF's).

[Tasoth]

Oh ho ho, I am going to attempt a review for those of you who are still on the wall about buying it. Here's a short summation of the MP: The best MW2 mod I have ever played, hands down. If reading that makes you happy, go and get it. If not, I'll enumerate the reasons I am dissatisfied with it.

To start, it's just the MW2 engine, down to the exact same menu lay outs. The only thing different is the art resources. I noticed this immediately once I fired it up.

Multiplayer:

We'll work our way down starting with game modes. Your old favorites are still here, with Free-for-All, Team Deathmatch, Sabotage, Demolition, Search and Destroy and Domination all having two flavors of Core and Hardcore. They added two new modes: Kill Confirmed and Defender.

Kill Confirmed is TDM with the added conceit that having to collect dog tags from downed players will cut down on camping. Since everyone is already running around like hopped up four year olds with guns, the only thing the tags add is an easier means to ambush people trying to recover the tags. You are credit kills for shooting opponents, but you do not get team points until you collect the tags. That's it.

Defender is, well, I am not quite sure how it works. I assume your team gets points on a set interval because picking up the flag and holding it doubles your team points. So it's TDM with an incentive to camp a good area and lob grenades/noob tubes/bouncing betties everywhere. Not my cup of tea.

Maps! OH BOY! There are maybe one or two larger maps, but most of the others feel like they are far smaller than most from MW2 or Black Ops. You can easily run laps around a stage and get back to your starting point in short order. You might even be able to do this without seeing anyone as the spawn system likes to either spawn them away from you, immediately behind you or spawn you right in front of the whole team. Consistently. Additionally, there is a lot more clutter in the maps, which makes it far easier to shotgun and run & gun the entire stage. It also makes quick scoping significantly more difficult, to my enjoyment. This doesn't mean that it doesn't happen, but the areas where you have a large space in front of you are limited and spread out.

Weapons! With the loss of stopping power, it seems like all the weapon damage has been ramped up. SMGs and machine pistols are the decidedly superior arms as they have a high ROF, great at short range and the maps cater that game play. ARs seem to be less effective and MGs are few and far between. Still the same game of 'This new gun is just like a prior gun but BETTAR!' which causes you to ditch an earlier weapon for a weapon that fills the same role with better stats. To my distaste, they kept the MW2 method of 'Get x kills, unlock y' where Y is now add ons, paint schemes, red dot sights and, wait for it, WEAPONS PERKS! You heard it, not only do you get perk 1-3 for free, you can earn a fourth one to tack onto your weapon! I think most primaries have 31 levels of grinding for you to undertake to earn the gold scheme and a tag/icon! WOOOO! Oh, they brought the riot shield back.

EXPLOSIVES! They've been nerfed, given a smaller blast radius. Getting kills with rocket splash damage is now much harder compared to MW2. Noob tubes are still murderous.

Customization! You liked designing your own Icon in Black Ops? Well guess what, FUCK YOU. Back to MW2's 'complete a challenge, get an icon/tag!' Yay. When you select weapons, they do show a second, smaller bar beneath the selected weapon's stat bar that lets you compare the change. That's an improvement. You can also now select between one of three types of point streaks: Assault, Support and Specialist. Assault is what you know and love from CoD: Earn points towards a killstreak reward while alive by killing, it resets when you die. Assault focuses on killstreaks that rain death and destruction on the other team. Support is new, and I like the idea: It doesn't reset until you've gotten all of your killstreaks, even when you die. So you can keep building towards high end killstreaks the entire round. The only downside is they are more defense oriented. Specialist operates like Assault only it lets you swap out perks at a certain number of kills. You can now cycle through your available killstreaks and call what one you want in. Which is nice after four games without it.

Connections! Oh yeah chief, it matters. I've had more 3 bar games while connected to a game that pinged at less than 50ms with an open nat than I could care for. And if you're not running four bars, everyone with a better ping is going to out shoot you. Connection can mean the difference between the same gun being effective or not during a game. The ping also fluctuates waaay too much. You can start at four, but you'll yo-yo between it and 3 or 2 bars.

All in all, I think Black Ops is a better game, shit registration and all, and I probably won't buy another IW CoD again. Shame it took me this long.

I'll post the SP plot if anyone wants, later.

[CaptHawkeye]

Survival mode was fun for a little while. Then enemy health ramps up massively after about wave 15 and makes any gun less than a machine gun pretty much useless. Mods are also limited in the game mode so overall, MW3's take on a Horde has been less than stellar.

Other than that it's the same exact game. Maybe i'll stop mooching off my friends and buy it in a few years. Maybe not.

[Ziggy Stardust]

I am just happy they have a split-screen option. Playing online multiplayer is fun and all, but for me the best part of the first person shooter experience is having a few friends over, drinking some beers, and shooting each other. I despise the trend among FPS that replaces split-screen with online entirely. I don't want to have to connect multiple TVs and gaming consoles on a LAN just so me and my buddies can fuck around.

[Edward Yee]

Well... yeah. Kinda. Plot is wee bit more logical than in MW2. There are still some idiocies, like the fact that
Spoiler

for some strange reason Makarov kidnaps Russian president to get the launch codes for ballistic missiles, but nobody stops to think that with his resources he could just take over a missile base and launch them manually

The funny thing is, this is a plot hole that could easily be patched:Spoiler

Makarov's group is only able to actually threaten so many missile bases, and thus a certain number or set of nuclear-armed missiles, all of which Makarov believes to be hardwired to prevent initiation without the codes. Better yet for plausibility's sake, President Vorshevsky would have had two valid reasons to order that the Russian nuclear arsenal be so protected: the falling-out with Makarov mentioned in MW2, and both Zakhaev's forces and the SAS/USMC joint task force successfully invading a missile launch base and gaining control of its missiles.

[tim31]

Spoiler

"He killed Soap. He's gone, Mac."