By the time you are reading this Modern Warfare 3 is already being played around the world. At the time of this posting I still don’t have the game, but I thought I would lock in my final predictions before I do.
The Good
1. The Support Strike Package Will Be Fun
Although most of the options in the Support Strike Package will not directly get a player more kills, the fact that their point streak continues after death is a huge addition. This will allow a lot of players to play more “run and gun” style and still get the fun of point streak rewards. I suspect that many players will opt for this type and play more aggressively as a result. If you are someone who just wants to play and level up and doesn’t care about K/D ratio, this is going to be huge as it will allow for more point streak rewards, and therefore more XP. My suspicion is that I will be opting for the Support package most of the time.
2. The Little Things Make A Huge Difference
The ability to pick the order of deployment for stacked point streaks, the point streak meter on the HUD, the restarting of point streaks after the highest one is reached, weapon proficiencies (a.k.a. ranking up a weapon), the removal of the tactical nuke and the removal of horrible perks (Stopping Power, Last Stand, Commando, Unlimited Sprint and Lightweight) will make an enormous difference in game play. So many of these things are small tweaks that should make the game more balanced and more fun.
3. The Prestige Store “Unlock Gear” Is My New Best Friend
The addition of the Prestige Store, which allows users to pick how they are rewarded for prestiging, offers a very intriguing offer of “Unlock Gear.” If my understanding of this is correct, it will allow a player to pick a gun, perk, piece of equipment, etc. that can be unlocked at any time as opposed to when a particular level is reached, and that this unlock applies for the entire remainder of Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer. In other words if your favorite gun is the FAMAS and that is not unlockable until level 28, a prestige token can be used at level 1 to unlock this gun and it will be unlocked forever.
The Bad
1. The Specialist Strike Package Will Be Too Powerful
The Specialist Package allows a player to get an extra perk for every two points until they reach 8 points at which point they will unlock all perks. Getting to four straight before dying is not a difficult task, especially for an above average player. Meaning that really good players will almost always be playing with 1 or 2 extra perks. I think in the long term good players will be able to dominate too easily with these.
2. The New Game Modes Will Be A Bust
I was really excited about Kill Confirmed when I first heard about it, but I think it will be too much of a campfest, since players will camp, get kills and hope they can pick off someone else trying to recover the dog tags of the last person they killed. I have heard the argument that this won’t be any worse than Domination is (where the points are stationary) but at least in that case there are two other points.
Meanwhile Team Defender sounds cool, where basically there is a flag that when possessed causes a team to get extra points for kills. It basically sounds like a hybrid Domination/Team Deathmatch with a mobile capture point. This seems like a game you can only play with people you know and could be fun, except if teams are really good it might be a hard game to crack because the right strategy could lead to total domination.
3. The Return of Chaining Killstreaks Makes For a Rough Time
In Modern Warfare 2 getting kills with a kill streak reward would count towards a player’s next kill streak reward. This led to an almost constant barrage of helicopters, airplanes and other near constant annoyances. It created a situation where almost every game joined in progress resulted in the immediate presence of some sort of air support. Call of Duty: Black Ops removed this feature and it led to a much better game experience. I predict this chaining brings back some pain.
