Sound

The sounds of gunfire, the boom of a tank gun, the screams of the dying and the whirr of rotor blades are the sounds that mark this theatre of war. The sound effects in the game are spot on and produced to a high fidelity, there are no audio glitches and the whole thing remains solid throughout the game. There are some nice spot effects here and there and in some of the more stealthy sections of the game, sound is used as an effective cue for player driven actions.

Music

By now Modern Warfare has been driven by a pretty up-beat soundtrack, with some really nice blood-pumping set pieces music to really drive home the action on screen. With MW3 the adrenaline music returns, but there are also subtler pieces that tell their own story and there are some truly heart-wrenching musical pieces in the game that stand well on their own in this iteration of the soundtrack.

Multiplayer

One of the smoothest experiences out of the box, MW3 mp is a hybrid between CoD 4 and MW2 with some things that have altered since the 2nd game and a few improvements here and there. We played quite a few matches but were unable to sample CoD Elite for the review, which is Activision’s stat-tracking, social network and prize offering service that looks as though it’s pretty good.

Mostly things have remained the same for MW3 mp with elements of both CoD 4 and MW2 in terms of gameplay, matches and the like. There are more customisation options in terms of the character, how you set up perks for killstreaks (now called Pointstreaks which are split into different packages, Assault, Support and Specialist) and so on. Each one offers different rewards and the Specialist Package offers every perk in the game after 8 consecutive kills, resetting to none on player death. It might sound powerful but it’s easy to lose if you’re not careful.

The player ranking system has been completely revamped and now the weapon itself levels up (sound familiar) along with the player. Weapon proficiencies are the new big thing here, allowing you to customise your weapons to a certain extent and add things like kick, which reduces recoil and impact that lets your bullets tear through certain surfaces. There is also a massive collection of attachments to the weapons at hand, with ACOG sights, Hybrid sights, M203 Grenade Launchers and so on.
Game modes are varied with quite a few new modes on offer.

Kill Confirmed: This mode requires you to get a dog tag from a dead enemy in order to register the kill, opposing team members can collect the tag and deny the kill.
Team Defender: A flag is dropped by the first person to die in the match, and then the teams vie for that flag. The team with the flag gets double the amount of points per kill for holding onto it, the team without gets the normal amount.

There are Private matches where you can choose from a number of pre-configured game modes, such as One in the Chamber, where you get one pistol, three lives and one bullet. Kill other players to get more bullets. Or the Gun Game, where you have to get a kill with every gun in the game.

You can also create your own Private matches with various custom options.

There are 16 maps and these are all pretty well designed, there is also the host of original modes such as Deathmatch, Team Deatchmatch and so on.

Spec-Ops makes a welcome return, with online or split-screen play across a larger number of varied operations.

All in all the MP of MW3 is a lot better than the previous game yet it still feels like MW 2.5 rather than a massive change from 2. However if you’re a big fan of CoD MP in general then you should really get on with the changes that Infinity Ward have delivered and you’ll probably like the new modes, the new unlock system and player ranking.

It runs smoothly and there's no detectable lag.

One Last Time

This is a solid end to Price's story and it ties up many loose ends that began in CoD 4. A fitting way to end a particular storyline and answer questions from the previous 2 games.