I feel it's becoming the norm to have controversy surrounding the release of the Call of Duty campaign every year. I'm wondering if it's expectations versus reality that causes this year after year.
IGN gave it a 4 out of 10, and players are reviewing bombing it on Metacritic, not even knowing it's the wrong game they're doing it to. The new release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 doesn't currently have a Metacritic score, but that doesn't stop angry gamers.
Given the state of the gaming industry and all the console war stuff that goes on, I wouldn't be surprised that because Xbox now owns Activision, some of this controversy surrounding this release of Call of Duty is because of it.
I was excited about this year's release of Call of Duty after playing the multiplayer beta and having a blast with it. I was disappointed to see all the scores drop for the campaign and all the negativity surrounding it.
I was disappointed that there is no platinum trophy this year for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on PS5, but there is on the PS4. The PS5 version of the game has the trophies show up as DLC.
I wanted to form my own opinion on the campaign because I liked the campaigns in the past. I haven't finished a Call of Duty game since Cold War, but I was ready to jump in this year. I've been playing Call of Duty games since the Xbox 360 launch and was very much into them, but I fell off a bit the past couple of years.
I can't put my finger on why I stopped buying them, but it could have been that I was getting some multiplayer fatigue and was only into single-player, story-driven games. When my daughter was born, I didn't have the time for gaming I did in the past, so I became more selective of what I was playing and where I spent my time.
She is older now and into gaming herself, which has got me back into all sorts of games big time, and when I played the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare multiplayer beta, I was back in.
I played on the PS5 and want to be fully transparent that Activision provided me with my code for review. I used both the Dual Sense and the Dual Sense Edge to see if it gave me an edge or felt different. It took me over 4 hours to complete the campaign, and I played it on recruit difficulty. If you know me, I always play my games in the easiest settings because, as I mentioned before, I'm a dad, and my time is valuable.
Dual Sense vs Dual Sense Edge
When I started my playthrough, I was only using the Dual Sense controller, and I have to say I do love the haptics. I've played Call of Duty games on the Xbox and have to say that the Dual Sense is a game-changer for immersion. You can feel the different guns in the triggers, and Dual Sense has different vibrations for other guns. I have been told by some, though, that they don't like the vibrations, and they turn them off, especially during multiplayer rounds.
When I switched over to the Dual Sense Edge, though, I still had the haptics, but I was able to change my trigger sensitivity which allowed me to pull the trigger to fire it barely. This allowed me to have a faster reflex time in shooting enemies and made it a more enjoyable experience. Made me feel like I was good at a shooter for once.
If you don't have a Dual Sense Edge and you play a lot of Call of Duty, I would highly recommend you pick one up. There is many YouTube video you can find to give you the best settings to you. I even mapped my reload and switched weapons buttons to back paddles which made my gameplay more efficient.
Story
The story itself, I felt, was good and captivating. I'm not going to spoil anything here, so I won't talk plots, but they do take you to some interesting locals, and you get to use a variety of operatives.
As always, in Call of Duty games, they have a fantastic intro that gets your heart pumping and drops you into the action. The prison was a great set piece to start the campaign and made for a memorable experience.
If you looking for big action and variety, you still have it with this story, and maybe people's biggest gripe is the length, but I didn't feel it went by fast at all.
I have seen some critics say that the story was boring, and I didn't find that at all. I did find some of the missions different and detracted from what I was used to doing in a Call of Duty, but I was saving that for the gameplay section of this review.
I liked the story enough that I purchased Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 so I can play that story as well. I miss these types of stories that have fast-paced action and some awesome espionage elements.
Gameplay
In this version of Call of Duty, they tried some things differently from the mainline Call of Duty campaigns. I'm still unsure if they ran out of time or if they wanted to add open-world aspects. I'm used to playing Call of Duty campaigns with a linear path and a semi-open world, but there are a couple of levels in this campaign that are not at all.
They almost feel like they're Call of Duty: WarZone maps that they put mission structures in them. From what I'm being told, though, these missions are great to replay to collect trophies or achievements in the game.
I didn't like them very much and felt they took away from the cinematics that you get in a Call of Duty game. They felt like I was shooting fish in a barrel as waves of enemies came after me and kill a bunch of enemies. At one level, they even have you parachute, which makes it feel even more like WarZone. Not only did they use this type of gameplay from WarZone, but they also used the mechanic of replacing your plates to add armour to the game.
I've said this before, but when a developer has figured out the secret sauce, don't mess with it. If something works in one game, it doesn't mean it will in another. Activision has written the book on first-person shooter campaigns, and I wish they would have stuck with what worked.
These new elements they added are fine for multiplayer but didn't fit in the single-player campaign.
There were many levels I thought were great, and the gameplay was great, but some feel flat and the constant reminder of Call of Duty: War Zone I could do without.
Conclusion
I was entertained by the campaign and felt the gameplay was good enough. Was it the best Call of Duty campaign? No. It was still good, though, and I enjoyed it. I'm glad it wasn't long either, and it felt like a good length to tell the story they told.
It had all the exciting moments I expect from a Call of Duty campaign. It didn't have that wow factor graphics like Cold War did, but it has some variety of action and a couple of levels that I could do some stealth.
In the end, the WarZone reminders were the only constant that I wasn't a fan of, but I'm still excited to jump into the multiplayer when it comes out. Would I recommend people to buy this? I liked it enough to buy an older Call of Duty that I hadn't played, so yes. It's Call of Duty, and it's not reinventing the wheel. They made some adjustments that hopefully they don't go back to next year. All in all, it's good, not great, but it isn't bad.
Score 7/10
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