Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Although the single player campaign only lasts about 10 hours, it is well worth it! Each mission is fast paced and leaves little time for a breather. You will find yourself wanting to replay certain levels (such as the presidential plane dive bombing whilst you're trying to neutralise certain hijackers).The storyline carries on from MW2 and is just as brutal as its predecessor. As usual the acting is as good as you'll get in a game,such as William Fichtner and Kevin Mckidd.

The multiplayer again stands on its own and introduces new maps, new guns, new rewards and a couple of new game modes! Playing for 1 match or 10 you'll still feel like you've achieved something. You'll be so caught up in the game that when you hear the achievement sound it'll keep you thinking what else have i done? There are a few tweeks here and there to the old style that you'll be used to but all for the best.

The only criticism i can give this game is that there is no space for sniping within the maps that i can find. However that could easily change with DLC in time.

All in all, a brilliant sequel to juggernaut of a series.

As sure as winter follows fall, the final quarter of the year sees another in the Call of Duty franchise pop onto shelves giving fans more of what they want but with new maps, weapons, story and so on. Having been badly burnt with MW2 (where I found myself a paying beta tester for the massive problems with that game) I was wary but was able to get it cheap as supermarkets tried to lowball each other to get volume in place of profits. Part of the reason for this was that, although short, I do enjoy the MW campaigns and, wary of spoilers, this is where I started.

The campaign continues the OTT plot and takes the same model of playing several characters across various global settings. OK the device of making Makarov all-powerful and central doesn't totally work but what does work is the delivery. The game play allows for some flexibility within the "rails" on which you're on; I found I could rush direct or flank and the layout of the levels. It is gloriously over the top and it is like being in an action movie. The voice action is manly and urgent, the soundtrack is loud and dramatic and the overall effect is that you really feel you're in the middle of a Michael Bay action movie. It is very short if you're only buying the game for the campaign, but I found it enjoyable and very satisfying as a game. It manages to be incredibly cinematic but yet I never felt like I was a tiny part of something bigger (like I did with the World at War campaign) and instead it was focused, with skirmishes having global meaning and urgency but yet being tight and contained. It doesn't all work in terms of plots and events but I enjoyed it a great deal and the ending was a great build-up to a really satisfying conclusion.

The Spec Ops part of the game remains a little stuck on in terms of the missions – on hardest setting some are near impossible without 2 players but mostly you'll get through them easily enough and their standalone nature means they are not that engaging. Massively better though is the addition of the Survival mode wherein you try and hang on through waves of increasingly difficult enemies. I enjoyed this mode a great deal and it was the one I played most – the supernatural force of the zombies in the Treyarch games (which Infinity Ward have ripped off here) never appealed to me because it felt like just battling the tide. However here the "human" foes armed with guns and moving tactically (as opposed to rushing mindlessly) made me feel I could outsmart and out play them. I'd have loved the fun of 4 players in a party doing it but it does work best with 2 players in terms of the challenge and gameplay.

This leaves the multiplayer – a game mode that has eaten so many days of my time on COD4 that I would be embarrassed to write it down! I have noticed that over the consecutive games I have put less and less time into it, to the point now that the game is social for me – I play it with friends but never alone. Even with friends though MW3 is a weirdly frustrating experience. The spawns are terrible and even in domination (a very stable game mode) you'll appear in front and behind of people all the time – I guess it balances out but it is still annoying. The game play is frantic but not in a good way, streaks are difficult and (with the spawns) deaths are often random. I liked some of the changes to the pointstreaks but too much felt like a step-back from Black Ops – the theatre mode is terrible, the lack of caps/defs for objective games is poor, but these are all details, it is the gameplay that matters. Sadly it is too frantic, too random and too lacking in tactics to be fun. I used to love the mode Domination and "understood" the flows of the game so well I could even "feel" when the other team sort of gave up trying to win. With MW3 there is no "flow" to feel, no tactics to read – no point in trying to flank to the far side of the map when you'll probably spawn there in a second or two! For my money MW3 was worth it because the campaign gave me about 15 hours of fun (a few playthroughs) and the Survival mode alone saw me clock over 35 hours (and enjoy them all) but I must say I'm tiring of it all. The multiplayer is uninspired and too frantic to be fun. Infinity Ward always talk about capturing the COD4 magic, but I don't think they can – they just keep "adding" stuff and the overall effect is to detract from the multiplayer, which is a real shame. A decent game that is worth getting but neither as bad as the haters suggest nor as good as the fanboys proclaim.

Singleplayer - Short (~6hours, super fast-paced. Maps are extremely linear like usual. Veteran's not that hard, you just have less health and die very easy. The plot line is okay, but COD isn't really a game that excels in its storyline.

Multiplayer - Most people say it plays like MW2, which it does. Guns: Customization has been much improved - more attachments, new "proficiencies" (e.g. kick, damage, range). Unlocks go by weapon XP (which comes from kills AND challenges) till Level 31, which unlocks the Gold Cameo.

Explosives: The blast radius has been greatly reduced, so grenades are pretty ineffective. Noobtubes are nerfed, but still usable (but barely anyone uses them)

Killstreak setups: 1. Assault - streaks still stack, but it is MUCH harder to get high streaks. 2.Support - streaks remain after you die, so Stealth Bombers and EMPs become pretty annoying for most people, 3. Specialist - the perk bonuses are probably the most fun MOAB - 25 gun killstreak fun, only if you can get it. If you're used to high killstreaks in MW2, it's much harder in MW3.

Maps: are very small, and not sniper friendly. The DLC has a couple more sniper friendly maps. Host migrations: have been fixed, and don't take that long, which is a real improvement.

Theatre Mode: Allows you to continuously record gameplay (or turn it off), and upload up to 30s on free ELITE (to youtube or Facebook) (but uploading on ELITE has problems - the first couple seconds of a clip are always cut out, and many clips won't render at all) You also can't see the 1st person view of another player (only 3rd person)

GameModes - a couple new ones (Kill Confirmed), and community playlist, which are updated, so a new mode regularly appears (e.g. Drop Zone, All- or-Nothing, etc.) There's no Combat training, no ballistic knives, crossbows or dogs, like Black Ops. I wish they brought those back.

Faults: Grenades are hard to use. Some overpowered deathstreaks (Dead man's Hands). Some OP weapons (Akimbo FMG9s) but continuously patched (like the Striker). Overpowered Support Streaks (Stealth Bombers and EMPs). No Commando, but knifing is not as good as MW2.

Spec Ops Survival: Survival mode is pretty fun- troops, helis, and Jugs. You can only play alone or with a friend, (not 4 people like Black Ops, but I guess the small maps are the problem). The survival maps are the MP maps so there's no unlocking rooms. The weapons are the same as MP, but guns, especially snipers respond slightly differently than MP. And as a warning, some people get bored pretty fast with Survival.

Spec Ops Missions: 48 stars to complete, much easier than MW2, but the long ones are annoying if you die halfway and have to restart.

ELITE: Get it if you plan on getting all the DLCs, otherwise, you could buy another game with that money. If you don't buy it, you can still have most of the free ELITE benefits.

OVERALL: SPs fun but short. Survival is fun, but can get boring fast. SpecOps are the usual. MPs good, but has its faults. It's better than MW2, but don't keep your expectations too high. Many of the MW2 problems have been fixed, but there are still many problems. Try not to get frustrated with its faults, and have fun (I know, sounds stupid) otherwise, you might hate the game. Plus, if you don't play online, get another game, since Multiplayer's the main focus of MW3.

MW3 is probably the weakest game in the trilogy, but is still a pretty good game. After the first two MW games. expectations for this game were through the roof and that was probably one of the reasons people overreacted a bit when it came out, admittedly this game isn't as strong as it's predecessors but is still a good game, the campaign is short and unfortunately it doesn't have as many memorable set pieces as the previous games, with only two of them being stand outs for me, the score is good but again not as good as the previous ones, gameplay is the standard stuff, not many changes from MW2, the story is actually better than MW2 in my opinion, with the stakes actually feeling pretty high and the game has a pretty satisfying conclusion. Even though MW3 was weaker than what came before, I would still recommend this game solely to see how this particular storyline is concluded.

If you are sick of MW2 (Modern Warfare), then don't buy MW3, its not the game for you. There are new maps (there are some nice maps but the rest are avg), new guns (smg seems to be the popular gun) and new game modes ( kill confirm is like a blitz of people running around like headless chickens) and a new kill streak system (improvement) but not much innovation in terms of graphics, single player campaign (4 hours game time to complete) and game play is more or less the same. The developers of the game have stuck with the same formula that made mw1 and 2 so popular but they have refined and made certain tweaks to the Multiplayer arena that fan boys will love. As for me I didn't buy this game (I played on a friend's PC) as i knew what to expect already from all the you-tube vids out there. I was already disappointed with Black Ops so i decided to put a hold on getting mw3. Will get this game on Steam when there is a sale but for fans who have played more than 800 hours on mw2 and still want more, then mw3 is the game for you.