Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 isn’t as good as Commando – 3 reasons why

In a new feature we’ll be trying our best to explain to you why modern games such as Skyrim and Batman: Arkham City fail to match up to retro games. In the firing line this week is Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and doing the shooting is Capcom’s Commando.  

The launch wasn’t as sad

This year’s Call Of Duty launch mania is thankfully over: its an annual steeplechase that sees millions of men and put upon wives/girlfriends flocking to their local supermarket at early doors to hastily stick £50 worth of surplus groceries into a trolley to obtain a new copy of the game for £10 off the RRP. We weren’t there when the first ever Commando arcade machine was installed in an amusement arcade but we can imagine the scene was far, far less absurd.

If Carlsberg did paintballing sites.

No hand holding

COD’s gameplay is notorious for its hand holding and finger pointing. Stick this lump of C4 here, stand there and fire at those Russians over there; shoot that guy in the back of the head when the Injury Lawyers 4U man says to. The game does this because it’s petrified you might miss one of the six million set-piece moments that it crams into a five minute window. The problem with this is that it can make you feel like a clueless film extra rather than an experienced solider. In Commando there is no such signposting or hand holding. Just you and an open vertical scrolling battlefield filled with enemy militia.      

Those guys aren't telling me where to go. Honest.

More coherent story

MW2’s story was basically a confusing mess of news graphics and military jargon. This year’s COD has its fair share of both these things but does at least try to fasten them to a slightly more coherent story. While we wouldn’t want to give the finer points of Commando’s story away, as that would be spoiling it for those who have yet to play it, we will say this: Commando’s arcade flyer sums up everything concisely and brilliantly.   

Destroy the enemy army !! Simple !!

Digg
del.icio.us
Facebook
Google
Live
MySpace
N4G
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Technorati
TwitThis
Yahoo! Buzz