Call of Duty

So, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 then. Great game. Great looks. Too consoley. I am going through the new Serious Sam at the moment, and you get a fairly free hand on how you take on your enemies. With MW3, I was reading stuff on my other screen while crouched under the enemies and sneaking about. Why? Because I HAD to follow the guy in front. Mirror him, all is well. You will never be spotted.

And the whole game is much like that.  PCs are far more powerful than consoles, so developers can throw the kitchen sink at it. But when the console game has to be the same, they cut massive corners.

I only died when I tried to do things my way and deviated from the script.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s immersive, but only to the capability of a console. So you spend plenty of time being knocked unconscious and being groggy afterwards.  Plenty of weapons, plenty of variation of vehicle, it’s good.

Key moments are snatched from you at the last second to stay on script.  The story doesn’t matter much – maniac out to destroy world, stop him, save president and daughter, that sort of thing.

Many of the set pieces are super spectacular too. Poor old Eiffel Tower. Poor old buildings.

But the game holds your hand just that bit too much. You are not free enough to think of another way. Take out enemy when we tell you. Snipe when ordered. Crouch when told. That sort of thing. And it’s the consoles fault, not the devs. Serious Sam still leads you, but there is often an alternative route, and at least early on you can retreat to take on enemies.

MW3 punishes you for holding back and taken out all baddies in sight. More just appear if you don’t press on.

So, all that, and I am not moaning. It was great fun but this is an online game really, and as ever that is extraordinary. Wish they brought back the list of servers you could join rather than shoving you in a random one.

Still, mustn’t grumble.