Modern Warfare 3 - Free Weekend Experience

By Zott820
26 Feb 2012 04:49

This past weekend BiasedVGBlog had the opportunity to participate in the free Modern Warfare 3 weekend:

The video above highlights just one of the entertaining and heart-racing scenarios in multiplayer where the redoubtable juggernaut, a heavily armored soldier earned through kill/support chains, faces down his double in close combat. As you may have guessed, I was one of the juggernauts.

My familiarity with Call of Duty stretches through all of the Modern Warfares with a couple dips into the other settings. But I had not had the opportunity to play the third game in the series for a notable period of time. Strike that out. Doting for 6 hours in the multiplayer, I came up with these observations.

Modern Warfare 3's multiplayer feels better than Modern Warfare 2's. In that multiplayer, one person could get a kill-streak, which led to more killstreaks until they had won the game with a nuke. Both kill-streak gained kill-streaks and game-ending nukes are gone. I shall not miss them. A great addition though are the support kill-streaks. Being a habitual die-r, I could not keep kill streak chains long enough to earn anything worthwhile. Support-chain steaks do not reset upon death, allowing my killing prowess to balance my graves. This also worked better for me, since the support-oriented nature better fits my personality, as one who plays the medic in TF2 and other game support roles.

Weapons also feel more balanced than others in the series. Despite having no weapons unlocked at the beginning, I could still compete, and even beat those with high levels of prestige with just the pre-built classes. Snipers did not overly dominate on maps either, due to adequately designed cover and counter tactics available. Advanced UAV for one, allows not only a visible indicator on the map of where the enemy is, but what direction they are facing. Watch the sniper's facing and sneak around him when he isn't looking. Some of the weapons continue to be a little OP, such as akimbo weapons. Other weapons could be slightly better; the riot shield for one does a poor job representing how well the player is protected. It would appear to be between the enemy and you, but the entire right side of your persons is open to them for some drilling.

Call of Duty continues to sell well. Probably because the game is addicting and popular, but some of that may be due to the plentiful rewards and sense of progression. Practically every round has you earning something, from tag icons, to accolades, challenges, and weapons. Weapons can also level up, independent of the player's level, earning their own upgrades. Like Pavlov's dogs, upon hearing the screaming man of a level-up, my eyes instinctually popped to the corner to see what I had ranked up. You'll be saying "just one more game" to earn that next weapon unlock. And then "One more game" to earn that next perk etc. etc.

Not everything was bright and rose-y during the free weekend. Due to the no risk nature of the free weekend, hackers came out in force. At least 4 games had obvious hackers with aimbots that sniped people's heads off with pinpoint precision from across the map. The air was filled with the shadows of pavelows and flying predator missiles, and nowhere was safe. Nowhere except behind a riot shield, which while not invincible to the in-venerable aimbot, gave an extra moment of life, with the possibility of counter action. I was filled with satisfaction when I overcame the aimbot's infernal rein to grant a throwing knife to their face. I can't comment on how hacker-free the game is during the normal season, but any game with an aim-bot was instant

To finish this off, let's talk about game delivery. Modern Warefare 3's free weekend download was 12GB Thank you Steam for allowing a preload, because for some people 12GB would have taken more than the free window of opportunity to play the game. But why did it need to be 12GB? I looked through the data files briefly and all the content from the single-player was there. It probably would take taken too many man-hours to make a version just for multiplayer without connection to the single player files, but couldn't they have at least replaced the single-player cut scene videos will 0 sized null files? That would have cut out a couple GB on its own.

Would I buy the game for the multiplayer? Potentially, but right now the game sits around $60, which is too steep for me for primarily multiplayer. Add in all the DLC coming down the line, and I will be sitting this one out. However, if there is another free weekend in the pipeline, I shall be there to smite some more foes.