Modern Warfare 3 has been out now for four days and Activision is claiming that 6.5 Million copies of the game were sold in the US and UK alone in the first 24 hours – making it the biggest launch of anything entertainment-related, ever [IGN]. Coinciding with those ridiculous sales numbers came loads of critical praise for the title from many of the video game-reviewing outlets giving the game a current score of “89 out of 100” (on Xbox 360) based on 49 critic’s reviews. But the news isn’t all good…
Modern Warfare 3 for Xbox 360 currently holds a User score on Metacritic of “3.1 out of 10” based on nearly 4600 user-submitted reviews to the site.
It’s very sad, that people give a developer credit for lazy work. Half of the sounds, equipment, perks, guns, and only one new attachment are in the game. 80% of the killstreaks are the same. And you always the get the felling “I have done this before”. – “WhitefireWF” 0/10
Welcome to the Madden of fps! Every year they release essentially the same game with a few tweaks and a bit more graphics and tell you that you gotta have it. And just like the Madden series, no matter how few new features there are people will still snap it up. Rent before you buy, make sure you actually want this game! – “The14th” 0/10
The much anticipated Modern Warfare 3 game can only be described as an epic fail to provide its gaming community with anything new. The graphics are brilliant but the mechanics are terrible. The game plays to the gamer who just wants to log on and die 40 times and kill someone 40 times. After the release of BF3 this year you would have thought CoD MW3 would have been inventive… Save your money or buy BF3.… – “Muird418” 3/10
These are just a taste of the type of user reviews being left for MW3 on Metacritic. So what’s the deal? Is the game really that bad? Are these Battlefield 3 fanboys trying to squash the CoD franshise? Or are people finally realizing that Activision has been pushing out essentially the same game for years now?
I’m a fan of the Call of Duty franshise, just jumping into it with the first Modern Warfare and then each subsequent game following it. While I have enjoyed each title and that handfull of new features they bring it hasn’t been hard to see that the game has been running on the same engine for years and with each title you are essentially getting the same multiplayer experience. Sure, they might change up how the leveling-up system works, throw in some new weapons and killstreak perks, and of course new maps, but it’s essentially the same game repackaged and perhaps the CoD fanbase are finally realizing this and refusing to just be happy with the same game sold to them year after year at $60 a pop.
I do believe the release of Battlefield 3 has hurt Call of Duty as well. While both games have their pros and cons I can say personally it’s nice to play a game where the entire point isn’t to rack up a 36-2 kill/death ratio and where spawn camping and camping in general aren’t encouraged just by sheer game play mechanics. Battlefield asks you play a role to support your team and you can earn just as many points distributing ammo, healing teammates, and repairing and piloting vehicles as you can racking up a bunch of kills. You actually feel like part of a team as opposed to just playing a supporting role to the one guy on your team running around like a mad man racking up ridiculous amounts of kills. To put it simply, it’s a nice change of pace to the “run around and shoot everyone” gametype.
Now I’m not saying that Battlefield 3 is the sole reason for MW3’s user review woes, nor that that it should be everyone’s preferred game of the two. Everyone has different tastes and they should play the game that they get the most enjoyment out of, because remember: Video games are supposed to be fun! But perhaps with some pressure from the fan base, Activision will take a hard look at how they rush a CoD title out every single year just because they can know a certain degree they will make bucket-loads of money off it and maybe pump the breaks a little and take some time to inject some innovation and change into a strong franchise that could possibly be seeing their first signs of slipping. Possibly.
Obviously Modern Warfare 3 has sold a ridiculous amount of copies and I’m sure there are plenty of people out there perfectly pleased with the title as this Metacritic score is based off a very small population of people in comparison to how many copies of the game were sold. What do you think the reasons for the low score could be? Are these folks just the vocal minority nit-picking a great game? Or perhaps has the tide turned on Activision and they may no longer be able to get away with releasing “cookie-cutter” titles year after year? Sound off in the comments below!