Merits of the Modern Warfare 3 campaign - Michael Bay would be proud

The latest installment in the Call of Duty series, Modern Warfare 3, offers a great and polished multiplayer experience in line with its predecessors, and it is sure to become an incredibly popular internet pastime for the digital war loving masses.
But how about the single player component of Modern Warfare 3? Has the series become so focused on its incredible multiplayer success that the single player campaign has become a dried up vestigial appendage devoid of gaming juices?

Green fonts lets you know it's modern!

Explosions to the right, explosions to the left, straight ahead, above and below. Big explosions, small explosions and explosions that make the big explosions look like small explosions.
That is a pretty good description of the single player campaign of Modern Warfare 3. There is more crap blowing up over the course of the 6-8 hours of modern warfaring, than in a full season of Mythbusters.

This should not necessarily be taken as criticism of the campaign, but you should understand right from the start that there is absolutely not a shred of intellectual cleverness or morsel of subtlety in Modern Warfare 3's campaign. It's as underplayed as a bright pink rhino on top of a burning monster truck.
But hey, pink rhinos and burning monster trucks are kinda awesome too, you know!

"You know what'd make the Eiffel Tower cool? Giant explosions!"

Modern Warfare 3's campaign picks up where Modern Warfare 2 left off. Soap and Price have gone vigilante and are hunting down the terrorist mastermind Makarov, who is in the process of fueling the conflict between Russia and the West, which is already well under way.
In true Call of Duty tradition, you will be jumping from one character to another, so the missions with Soap and Price will see you playing as their Russian co-vigilante Yuri, while others put you in the shoes of Delta Force or a British SAS. The missions with Price and Soap feel are probably the most interesting. They have a sort of desperate and "gruff" vibe that manages to capture the feeling of a group of deadly individuals on a nigh on suicide mission where winner takes all.

That's not to say that the other missions aren't good, though. I think my favorite mission from the campaign is the Delta Force mission which tasks you with forcing a Russian missile sub to the surface in New York Harbor. After the sub surfaces you then board this cylindrical vehicle of mass destruction and get to unleash its potent explosive cargo against the invading Russian fleet that is bringing war to the Big Apple.
It's a great roller coaster ride that begins with the oppressive darkness and silence under the waves and ends with a spectacular escape in a speed boat between capsizing ships and, of course, lots and lots of explosions.

The sub mission early on in the campaign offers some great atmosphere

In general there are lot of great set pieces throughout the campaign. And while its hard to top watching a nuclear explosion in space, they nevertheless manage to make you smile and go "that was pretty awesome. Just like seeing a pink rhino. I can't wait for the flaming monster truck. Oh hey, there it is!"

You'll also be treated to plenty of different locales, and while there are quite a lot of big city segments, they generally manage to be different enough that you don't get bored with them. Apart from visiting different parts of the world, the Modern Warfare 3 campaign also mixes things up with a lot of vehicle/turret segments. Not everyone is a fan of these type of levels, and I can't say that I thought all of them were great, but there is something deep inside me that giggles every time I blast a group of infantry with the 105mm cannon of the AC-130 plane. What can I say, shooting big guns out of big planes makes me happy.

Someone is about to get their summer vacation trip to Europe ruined

Playing through the levels is an extremely linear experience. When you're not in a turret sequence you'll pretty much always have a guy around with a giant "Follow" over his head. Just stick relatively close to him and shoot at anyone that speaks in a language you don't understand. There really is just about zero chance to play the game in any other way than how the developers intended, so if you're all about free roaming and open world... well... err... Skyrim?

The campaign presents a surprisingly satisfying conclusion to the Modern Warfare storyline (wafer thin as it may be). And it's a conclusion that you will experience fairly quickly, as it only took me around 7 hours to play through the whole campaign. Of course, you can always crank up the difficulty level if you want to extend your stay with Price and Soap, but I actually think that 7 hours felt very appropriate.

Is the Modern Warfare 3 campaign worth playing through? In my opinion, I think so, yes. Especially if you've played the campaigns of Modern Warfare 1 and 2, you will enjoy the continuation of the adventures of Soap and Price, and the meaningful way that their story is handled in Modern Warfare 3.
But you need to be aware that it is a pretty short ride on the pink rhino roller coaster of exploding goodness. You can easily play through the whole thing in a couple of sessions, and once you have done that, I doubt that you'll want to go back through this very linear and scripted experience again.

I think that I will put it like this. If you are buying Modern Warfare 3 just for the multiplayer modes, then you really should sink some time into the single player campaign. It really is not just an afterthought that just serves to pad out the game (I'm looking at you, Battlefield 3).
If you have no interest in playing a FPS online, but you do like single player shooters and shiny shiny explosions of all colors and sizes, then I think that you should try to rent a copy of Modern Warfare 3.
It may not be taking FPS single player campaigns to the next level. It may not be clever. It may be extremely linear and it may be over quicker than it takes you to create your character in Skyrim, but dammit, did I have fun blowing crap up!



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