Hands On: Modern Warfare 3 Spec Ops
By Tom Yeates | August 18, 2011 | Previews | 2 comments | Share
They’re tricky things IED’s. Very tricky. Small, compact and deadly. Unless you are in Juggernaut armour. The good news is, I was. We were treated to a brief co-op preview of one of the mission types in Modern Warfare 3‘s vastly expanded Spec Ops game mode and being truthful – I had fun!
After being whisked into Activision’s Modern Warfare 3 area, I was met by Sledgehammer Game’s Guy Beahm who was to be my co-op partner, a real Goose to my Maverick and he informed me that our task was to diffuse a series of eight explosive devices planted along the area. He would be my rooftop cover, sniping potential threats and calling in airstrikes when possible, as well as using his UAV’s to pinpoint the location of the IED’s themselves. I, he told me, would be the Juggernaut, lumbering down the street, causing death, death and more death whilst diffusing those troublesome devices. It was a sweet deal as far as I was concerned.
We quickly loaded in and straight into the action. Quickly a UAV was released, showing me the locations of the first four devices. The Juggernaut armour is bulky, and as a result you cannot move particularly fast but it more than makes up for this disadvantage with excessive amounts of armour plating. I was able to advance down the street and shrug off a lot of fire, dispatch enemies and diffuse explosives without any real trouble. My wingman watched my flanks and sent in Predator missiles to take out a few armoured vehicles that dared stand in my way. Did they not know who I was? I’m the juggernaut bi…Well, you get the idea.
8 explosives, 2 helicopters, a tank and about 100 dead enemies later, I was still standing and basking in the glow of victory. It had been
a relatively short but also thoroughly enjoyable play through. I realised that it’s easily forgotten that the Modern Warfare series is successful for a reason – the shooting is just really satisfying and the controls are nigh on perfect. Call of Duty games also run incredibly well. This was the Xbox 360 version and it was running at a solid 60 frames per second, as usual. It is a Modern Warfare game after all…
The Spec Ops mode has been expanded in a big way, now containing its own ranking system and unlocks and its own kill streaks catered towards the mode, though these have not been revealed yet and I was not able to experience them in this build of the game. The mission I played is one of several mission types available and the final number is also yet to be confirmed. Then there’s the Survival mode, which was being played elsewhere in the room, which is entirely new and brings popular “horde mode” based trials to Modern Warfare. MW3 certainly won’t lack for content…
Indeed, if you are a Modern Warfare fan then I have no real doubt that you will love Modern Warfare 3, it picks up right where the previous game left off and continues to deliver the kind of first person experience you expect from the series. High octane action, explosions, bullets everywhere and rocket smoke streams. Do they NEED to make an entirely different game when this formula is working so well in terms of sales and uptake? I guess that Modern Warfare 3 will answer that question…
Good article!
End of the third paragraph just made my day. Overall it was a pretty goo and quick read!