Last week at the Eurogamer Expo we got the chance to play Modern Warfare 3’s Spec Ops mode. Now for those that don’t know, this is basically Call of Duty’s take on Horde mode (from Gears of War). Me and fellow Koalition writer Carl Daniel teamed up to take on the A.I controlled mob, who were only too adamant on putting us to sleep.
As soon as me and Carl picked up the controller (Xbox 360 version), there was no fussing over controls or momentary lapse where we had to figure out what to do; the fun started the moment we left the menu. We started off with just one gun, but the more enemies we took out the more money we earned, which we could then spend on more powerful firepower via a computer terminal. You can access this terminal at any point during or after a round, but obviously it’s more sensible to do so after a round has finished. Or you can simply steal an enemy weapon, which I decided to do at first.
Round after round we continued take out the A.I which seemed to be getting more tactical after each wave. Eventually the dogs came out which meant we had to be much more active than before, adding melee and grenade offense to the fray. Being at the Expo causes all kinds of distractions, and of course we have to shout to be able to communicate; however we were able to play with the official Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 headset, which allowed us to communicate with each other effectively. The headphones sound awesome, and Carl’s voice came across to me perfectly clear. The headphones made the experience so much more enjoyable that me and Carl actually inquired about the price after.
We played on two maps, one of them was based in Paris, the other was one simply called Dome. There isn’t too much to say about the maps considering the mode we played, but I would be very interested to see how they’ll layout the competitive multi-player modes in these specific maps.
Overall the experience left me very optimistic about Modern Warfare 3’s direction. We jumped in and had a lot of fun, where as with Battlefield 3 It took a whole lot of getting used to before I could even attempt to enjoy my time with the game. I will offer a more in depth analysis on Battlefield 3 later this week with my preview, but I can officially confirm that Modern Warfare 3 provided more thrills than any other first-shooter at the show period, which is something when you consider we only played Spec Ops mode.
Call of Duty: modern Warfare 3 will be released on the 8th of November.
