Call of Duty: Modern Warfare(2011) Review

This game is to me the dumb and bombastic game that Modern Warfare 2(2009) is remembered for being. Back when it came out, I avoided it like the plague due to me being so anti CoD by that point. I did finally play it years later and found it to be just there. Upon replaying it a few years ago and doing it again now, I've come to appreciate MW3(2011) as a game so ridiculous that I can't help but admire it in spite of all of it's issues. You can easily write it off as lazy and derivative but the charm comes from the idea of, "let's take everything from Modern Warfare 1 and 2 and amp to the ridiculousness to 11". I could criticize it for being the dumb action movie fare MW2(2009) was but since that game already did the blow, I just stopped caring by this point. Where MW2(2009) had many ludachris and nonsensical moments played with a straight face, MW3(2011) is more of an action film with a novel premise that is underexplored.

The story goes from being unable to decide on being satire or not to feeling like a story with a crazy premise that is window dressing. MW3 does deal with the possible idea of a third World War and it feels poetic considering this franchise started as a WW2 FPS. It's still ultimately just America vs. Russia from the last game and Task Force 141 chasing down Makarov since that plot thread couldn't be tied up in the last game. Speaking of Makarov and he's the driving force of the plot and he's just as poorly written as before. He's a chess master who plays the game on easy mode that is always able to get the drop on everyone within a moments' notice. He is able stage a kidnapping of the Russian president and his daughter, stop not one but TWO traitors during No Russian, he is responsible for the nuke in Modern Warfare 1, was somehow there during Zakahev's botched assassination and saved him, knows that he is going to be assassinated, gets the drop on his assassins and to top it all off he has a personal connection with the player character.

It's crazy that after all this, Task Force 141 and Delta Frost just save the Russian president and his daughter and Makarov never had any contingency plans. After all that retconning and how competent he is, he never had one hidden ace in the hole before getting tracked down in Dubai. Since it's an action movie plot, stories like this need a destestable villain who acts logical and believeable for it to work and Makarov is not that due to the reasons I listed.

I did complain about the story yes and gameplay is still the railroaded level design with the ADS heavy hitscan weapons, duck behind cover, waiting for health to regen and then repeat combat it's been since CoD2(2005).

The most remarkable thing about the game which is the most derided aspect about the campaign is how it reuses scenarios from MW1 and 2. What makes it so remarkable is that the entire time the menality with the asset use is, "let reuse scenarios but make them louder, dumber and more bombastic than before".

One example is, "let's take Crew Expendable but then turn into the boat chase at the end of MW2." Another is "let's take All Ghilled Up but have the sniping sequence end with you bearly surviving an explosion". You got the High Mile Club that ends with the plane crashing and then you got an over the top shootout on the ground. There's a similar looking area to the Gulag from MW2 but place charges with an explosion that helps you escape. Return to Sender has the same asethetic as the middle east levels in Modern Warfare 1 but then you get the snow storm from Cliffhander that is now sandstorm where you are getting shot at by every enemy in the map. There's the Favela from MW2 but later you gun everyone down with a drone.

I find it impressive how MW3 at feels like it is to MW1 what Metal Gear Solid the Twin Snakes is to Metal Gear Solid on Playstation. Take it's more preserved progenitor but retroactively make more like the follow ups. MW3 is so committed to this that I can't help but admire it's conviction in following that logic.

It's not all derivative there are sequences to MW3 like of course the Effiel Tower set piece, the part where you are storming enemies in a parking garage while in a tank, there's also an on the nose mission called "Scored Earth" where you go through just that.

Then it ends with Price and Yuri wearing lots of body armor and using LMGs to kill Makarov in a QTE fist fight where the game had none of those up until that point and it felt jarring when they did pop up since an actual boss would be hard to pull off in a convincing way.

Overall, MW3 is a game that is easy to criticize but I ended up being so charmed by it's commitment to it's "remember this idea but crazier and dumber" and finding ways to be so ridiculous that I can overlook a lot of it's shortcomings. It has many but MW3 feels more committed to it's flanderization and action movie feeling of CoD than MW2 was.