My last impressions piece on the Modern Warfare III beta was pretty harsh, I admit. After a few more hours with the game over the weekend, it’s grown on me some, though I still have a long list of complaints. I know this is a beta, but it’s a beta taking place just weeks before launch so there truly isn’t a ton that can be fixed prior to release.
We’ll get straight to gunplay, which I had two main concerns with in my last piece: Recoil and sound design. I’m starting to think that sound design is actually the more egregious of the two. Sledgehammer has certainly made visual recoil better and cleaned up the visual noise from Modern Warfare II. Previously, I expressed concern that they’d gone too far with making guns recoil-free, but after more time with the game I think this isn’t quite as big of an issue as I at first thought.
However, sound design remains hugely problematic and unsatisfying. Infinity Ward did such an outstanding job with gunfire sound effects in both Modern Warfare 2019 and Modern Warfare II, this feels like a huge step in the wrong direction. All the guns sound fake and tinny, like we’re shooting toy guns or airsoft guns at each other. There’s very little difference between one gun and the next.
So much of what makes Call Of Duty a satisfying shooter is in its sound design, I’m honestly not sure why Activision hasn’t created some sort of standard between studios ensuring that each game at least sounds as good as the last. Why not just use Infinity Ward’s sound design in Modern Warfare III? I think this would make the gunplay feel much better all around.
There’s one other sound-related annoyance I need to mention, even if it’s not as big of a deal as gunfire sound effects: The Guardian-SC Killstreak. This is a device that you can set in hallways or on points to obstruct enemy approaches. It’s like a really high-powered fan that pushes air and sound in a cone out in front of it, slowing and stunning any enemy player that walks in front of it.
It’s a decent concept but the downside is that it makes a loud, annoying wa-wa-wa sound and I’ve been in matches where four of them were deployed at the same time, and new ones were constantly dropping throughout. On a small map like Rust, this means you can hear them constantly waa waa waa-ing. It’s truly terrible and I genuinely hope that Sledgehammer updates the game to drastically turn down the volume of these things.
Spawns continue to be fairly bad, with players from both teams often spawning right next to one another, and other issues like hit detection have plagued the beta. Some guns appear to be broken entirely. I’ve watched a lot of footage of players emptying full clips into an enemy and none of the bullets landing.
As far as maps go, I quite like Skidrow and Rust, Favela is okay and Estate is pretty lousy, but these are all old maps with glossy new coats of paint so there’s not much that needs to be said about any of them.
I also think the time-to-kill (TTK) is a bit too high, but that’s simply because I prefer faster TTK. That’s just a personal preference and I know a lot of players feel differently, which is fine.
Movement felt better after playing more, and I’m wondering if I was originally having a bug that forced me into Tac-Stance every time I slid, because that’s no longer happening all the time.
One of the biggest issues at this point is visibility. When Modern Warfare II launched they didn’t have colored diamonds over players’ heads which made distinguishing between teams very difficult. They fixed that and now it’s just fine. Sledgehammer has retained diamonds and player nameplates, but they’re exceptionally difficult to see. Nameplates are smaller and more faded/transparent, and so are the colored diamonds that indicate which team a player is on. Unlike Modern Warfare II, enemy and ally footsteps also sound exactly the same, which gives you even fewer ways to distinguish between friend or foe. It’s quite frustrating.
All told, I’m still having fun in the Modern Warfare III beta and I’m excited to try it out on PC this coming weekend, but it still feels mostly like a step backward with some improvements around the edges to movement. I actually don’t think we needed to revert to the classic mini-map and I think Dead Silence as a field upgrade is better game design than as a perk, but I realize both those stances are controversial and divisive (as is my preference for a quick TTK).
Thankfully some of these issues are being addressed in time for this coming weekend’s beta, specifically Operator visibility, slide timing and spawns:
More impressions soon when the second beta weekend kicks off. For now I remain cautiously optimistic that this will still be a fun game, but not convinced that it shouldn’t just be DLC to Modern Warfare II. What are your thoughts?
Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.
Read the full article here