Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Game Review (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Content Drop: June)

May's content drop for Modern Warfare 3 had a lot of stuff in it, including a new game mode called Face Off. For June's DLC, Face Off maps are back -- supposedly for a final time -- along with another Spec Ops mission worth 75 achievement points total. First, the achievements for said mission:

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Stay Frosty 15G - Complete "Arctic Recon" on any difficulty.
Sub Zero  25G - Complete "Arctic Recon" on Veteran difficulty.
dr0n3d 35G - Complete "Arctic Recon" in under 3:30.
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As I've yet to play Arctic Recon (Early issues with being unable to play it), I'll have to review it some other time. BUT, that doesn't prevent me from reviewing the Face Off maps -- HURRAH ... ... ...

First off alphabetically is Intersection, which takes place at an intersection in what seems to be New York City. Quite simply, this is the best looking and most fun to play Face Off map yet. While Getaway last month looked really good, the spawns absolutely ruined that map for me. Intersection is perfect. There are four main buildings on Intersection -- a bank, a library, a movie theater, and a pizza place (which has two floors). This not only makes it easy to call enemies out, it also makes this one of the bigger Face Off maps, which ALSO helps with the spawns which are normally horrendous in this game type. Not only is Intersection hands-down the best Face Off map, it is one of the best maps in the game period. 5/5

U-Turn is the first of the three that I played in this content drop. Upon spawning, it reminded me instantly of a condensed version of Ambush from Call of Duty 4 in that there is one risen, central street, with two areas on either side. U-Turn is very, very average, but made pretty bad by the absolutely atrocious spawn system. I've killed a guy or been killed by a guy twice within 3 seconds several times on this map already and I've only played it a handful of times. The key here is to NOT RELOAD after every kill, because the spawns are really just that bad. Even with good spawns though, U-Turn wouldn't be that great of a map. 3/5

Vortex is a very Call of Duty 2 or 3-esque map. It takes place on what seems to be a farm in the southern U.S. state. The map gets its name from. Well... look at the sky when you're playing the map. Anyway, Vortex may seem like a big map, but you'll really want to stay away from the center of it and stay around the barn/chicken coop, otherwise you'll find yourself in no-man's-land. Vortex is one of the better Face Off maps because although -- SHOCKER coming up -- the spawns aren't perfect, it's big enough to make it playable, unlike many of the original Face Off maps. 4/5

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While I was pretty disappointed with Infinity Ward not giving us any true multi player maps this month, two of these Face Off maps are worthy of playing, and although I haven't gotten the chance to play Arctic Recon yet, I haven't been too disappointed with any of the Spec Ops missions released to date. June isn't the best content drop to date, but there have been worse.
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3.5/5