“All Hail the King of Video Games” by Matt Davenport

To say that the “Call of Duty” franchise has made Activision money is like saying the Grand Canyon is kind of big. It is a sentence using sarcasm to state the obvious. “Modern Warfare 3” is the third in the wildly successful first person shooter series by Infinity Ward (this time with assistance from Sledgehammer Games) which includes “Modern Warfare 2” and “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.” For the purposes of this review, we will split it up and talk about the single player and the multi-player campaigns.

This bird is down*

Single Player: The single player campaign picks up right after the events of “Modern Warfare 2.” After killing General Shepard, what’s left of the now disavowed Task Force 141 make their way to a safehouse to regroup. Captain John Price is hauling a critically injured Captain John “Soap” MacTavish to safety. Meanwhile, World War 3 is unfolding all around them as Russian forces are being repelled from Manhattan. From there, the player is transported around the globe to various flash points in the storyline to twart the plans of the main antagonist, the Russian rogue Vladamir Makarov, as he attempts to get the nuclear launch codes from the Russian President. With of the military hardware being bandied about as superpowers collide, “Modern Warfare 3” is able to bring the focus to the single soldier level. The story is linear and involves a lot of “fight your way from point A to point B to point C,” but the developers throw in spectacular set pieces and create a few “Oh wow!” moments. Composer Brian Tyler picks up right where Hanz Zimmer left off and does a superb job of capturing the right tone and mood for the music of the game. Not much new is added to the various global missions. You’ll shoot bad guys, operate mounted weapons, provide overwatch support, infiltrate a villain’s diamond mine underground lair and smoke a cigar. After the success of “Modern Warfare 2,” you don’t want to change too much for fear of alienating your core players. The single player campaign didn’t carry the same weight as the first two parts of the story but it did provide about six hours of an action-fueled conclusion to this “Call of Duty” trilogy.

Single Player Score: 7 out of 10

Coming this fall to the CW*

Multi-player: This is where the “Call of Duty” franchise earns its stripes. This is why the game is a popular as it is. The developers have taken everything that works from the prior games and add a few tweeks. Multi-player in the “Call of Duty” world involves the player being rewarded for their time and skill playing the game. The more you play, the better you get and the more options you have for your online soldier. Along with leveling up your character, you can now level up your weapons. The more you use a particular weapon, the more options you have to outfit it with. Killstreaks are another way the developers have tweeked the online play. You now have the option of Assault killstreaks or Support killstreaks. Assault killstreaks work like before, your kills add up until you are killed and then reset. The Support killstreaks don’t reset when you die and (aptly named) the rewards are meant to support your team in objective based games. Along with the multi-player games of Free-for-all, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Domination and Sabotage, the developers have added a new mode called Kill Confirmed. Kill Confirmed is a team based mode where when you kill an opposing team member, dog tags appear over the body. Pick those up and your team is rewarded, but if an opposing team member picks up the tags before you do, it denies your team the points. Another new addition to the multi-player experience is Survival mode. This compliments the Co-op mode with a game format that sends wave after wave of enemy troops at you. As you survive the waves, you are able to purchase upgrades, ammo and support.

Multi-player Score: 8 out of 10

I have you now!*

Final Word: Action movie single-player, lots of re-playability in multi-player. What “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3” does it does well and deserves its crown as the King of Video Games.

Final Score: 8 out of 10

“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3” is available for the Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, PC and Nintendo Wii. This review was played on the Xbox 360 with a review unit provided by Activision.

The Game Room Review scoring system is based on the 1 through 10 model with 1 being the lowest score and 10 being the highest.

*Screenshots were taken from the PC version of the game.