Spec Ops also includes the new Survival mode, which offers even more
opportunity for cooperative or solo slaughter. Survival pits you against
wave after wave of increasingly difficult AI enemies on the same maps
you encounter in competitive multiplayer. Playing either Survival mode
or Spec Ops missions levels up your Spec Ops profile, which in turn
channels that familiar satisfaction by unlocking guns, attachments, and
equipment. These unlocks come into play solely during Survival games. As
you progress through waves and earn money for killing enemies, you gain
access to hotspots where you can purchase items from your unlocked
arsenal. While you can always pick up the guns your enemies drop in a
pinch, the weapons you purchase are likely to be the ones that give you
staying power. Refilling grenades and ammo regularly is a necessity, and
as the waves get tougher, so is making use of the more powerful assets
in your repertoire. A sentry gun can help you stay safely entrenched in
one corner of the map, while a squad of AI allies can help cover you
when things get hairy. With good gun choices and savvy equipment use,
you can make solid progress, but there's always another wave waiting to
outflank and overwhelm you.
Spec Ops is a great destination for those seeking a stiff,
surmountable challenge (missions) or the thrill of seeing how far
sharpshooting and smarts can get you (survival). But the most fiendish
challenge comes when you take your skills into the realm of online
competitive multiplayer. The action will be instantly familiar to anyone
who has braved a Call of Duty battlefield in the past four years. The
speedy action and rewarding experience point system are just as
thrilling and addictive as ever, and some welcome refinements make it
even easier to enjoy. Interface improvements make it easier to customize
your loadout and view relevant challenges, which offer hefty XP
bonuses. Those thirsty for more information about their weapons and
statistics can use the free Call of Duty Elite application, which you
can access through a Web browser. In addition to providing extensive
stat breakdowns and a variety of premium features that you must pay more
to access, Elite offers some useful weapon tips that can help you tweak
your battlefield strategy. The Combat Training mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops
that simulated a multiplayer environment with AI opponents does not
appear here, so newcomers are left to fend for themselves in the online
wilds (though Survival mode at least affords you the opportunity to
familiarize yourself with the maps).
The 16 maps provide an
excellent array of arenas for the action to play out. Bomb planting,
flag grabbing, territory controlling, and straightforward killing form
the backbone of most matches, with the notable new addition of Kill
Confirmed. This mode mixes things up by requiring you to collect tags
from dead bodies in order to actually register your kills. Confirming a
kill or denying an enemy kill by collecting a downed ally's tags is as
important as making sure your bullets hit the target, giving this mode
an enjoyable new tactical dimension. Adjustments to weapon upgrades and killstreaks also require some tactical shifting, because you now
unlock attachments, camouflage, and stat-boosting proficiencies by
leveling up individual weapons through use. Killstreak rewards have been
reissued in strike packages that offer some new assets to play with,
like a remote recon drone and a ballistic ground-based booby trap. The
Assault strike package works in the familiar way, rewarding you for
killing successive enemies in a single life, but the Support strike
package doesn't care if your streak spans multiple respawns, and the
Specialist strike package rewards you with extra perks instead of
traditional killstreak rewards.
These
tweaks alter the flow of rewards into your arsenal and onto the
battlefield, but Modern Warfare 3 doesn't take any chances with the
tried-and-true formula. At launch, even the matchmaking playlists
feature standard fare, but the robust Private Match customization
options let you tweak the standards to your liking (even offering some
of Black Ops' more interesting modes) and hold the possibility of odd
permutations to come. Whatever diversions or innovations may lie in
Modern Warfare 3's future, the competitive multiplayer still offers the
same sweet satisfaction you've come to expect from the series. There are
still some lingering technical issues that can result in laggy matches
or frozen screens, but these problems are relatively rare. This is some
of the best online shooter action around, and with the daunting
challenges of Spec Ops and the exciting, globe-trotting campaign, Modern
Warfare 3 stands tall as another great descendant of the game that
changed a generation.
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