Why Modern Warfare 3 isn't Battlefield 3
I've already written an article comparing Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and in that article I said that Modern Warfare 3 was more like playing a movie than a game. I still hold that opinion.
Since that article I've had more time with it and just recently completed the Single player campaign. It took about 9 hours culminating in a textbook Modern Warfare boss battle. Very satisfying but a bit short for $59.99.
Recently an article on Kotaku entitled "Why Modern Warfare 3 Remains an Un-game" again criticized Modern Warfare 3 for being more spectator sport than game. A sentiment commonly echoed from fans of Battlefield 3.
I've noticed fans of Battlefield 3 (BF3) have an almost visceral reaction to Modern Warfare 3 when the two are compared. It's understandable but a bit unfair. The two share little more than a setting (World War 3) and game play modes.
Fans of the Battlefield series love it for the game play. A quality somewhat lacking in Modern Warfare 3. Modern Warfare's strengths have been the storyline and the cooperative modes. In Modern Warfare 3 the single player campaign is tightly scripted with scant opportunity to stray too far off the beaten path.
One of the primary complaints from the "un-game" article comes to mind here. The author expressed his feeling that the player was always put in a deprecated role subservient to other non-player characters. Anyone who's spent any time with the Modern Warfare series knows that nothing happens until the player takes some kind of action.
The game relies on trigger points that prevent NPC's from doing anything until you trip it. So the player is critical to the action but enjoys few laurels aside from completing the mission. This is likely where much of the discord between Battlefield Fans and Modern Warfare fans lies.
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