Staying Frosty - MW3

Since 2007, FPS gamers have had something of an annual event to look forward to, every November, with the release of a Call of Duty game. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare started this tradition, followed by:

World At War
Modern Warfare 2
Black Ops

This years' offering is Modern Warfare 3, the final part in an impressive series of games from Activision and Infinity Ward/Sledgemhammer Games (more on this later). The game picks up where MW2 left off, with series protagonists Captain Price and Soap McTavish on the run and wounded, before the player is immediately launched headling into WW3, while at the same time attempting to stop the war, kill the bad guy and clear their names. Phew!

Impressive stuff indeed, made all the more impressive by the 18 month turnaround of the game following the ructions at Infinity Ward in late March 2010. Gamers across the planet waited with baited breath regarding the future of the franchise, which is when Sledgehammer Games stepped up to the plate to deliver...

...and deliver they have! IGN commented on the game, saying it had a largely forgettable plot, but I beg to differ; the reason they couldn't remember the plot is probably because of the sheer enormity of it.

Taking in New York, London, Paris, Prague, Berlin, Sierra Leone, Somalia, the Middle East and Siberia and featuring setpiece highlights such as storming a Russian submarine in the Hudson River, NYC, to battling terrorists on the London Underground, providing aerial cover from an AC130 for ground troops fighting their way out of Paris and fighting through the streets of a decimated Berlin, no one can deny the ambitious size and scope of this game - it's massive and stuffed full of more than just the setpieces mentioned above.

Throw into this heady mix of violence and awesomeness an interesting story (not forgettable!) that draws the series to a close, including a killer twist in the tale as well, and you have a great game. Sure, it's a little short; I finished the game on Regular mode in 6 hours and 3 seconds, but it's one hell of a thrill ride and it has the wow factor for replay as well.

Playing throught the first two acts again over the weekend gave me a fuller apprecation for the game. I must admit, the first time I played the game I was slightly overwhelmed - the 'shock and awe' factor of the game is staggering. It's less mental than MW2 but is far more intense.

And it's not just the campaign that offers replay, as once again the fabulous multiplayer returns; retweaked, retooled and rejuvenated - if you can get to play it, that is. Due to the sheer overwhelming numbers of people playing the game, the multiplayer is jam-packed to an extent it's nigh-on unplayable. As in, you can't play a game. At all. Bit of a poor show really, considering the makers were aiming for a bug free game - this major glitch has effortlessly pissed all over that ideal.

It seems a major mis-step to me to fumble so badly on the really the most popular part of the COD experience - I've got mates who buy COD simply to play online and have barely touched the campaign at all. When, a week before launch, you openly brag on your official Facebook page about the 3.5 million preorders for MW3, you hope in some way the developers are prepared for a significant portion of that audience to want to play online. So, when the game is released and thousands of people are having problems with multiplayer, the excuse "we were swamped by unprecedented demand" just doesn't cut the mustard - as you've already TOLD us how many people you're expecting!

And it gets worse, people who are on Orange broadband are having to adjust the settings on their router, just to get onto the Acitivision servers. I've heard it's something to do with the way the Elite information is gathered, though I don't recall having to fiddle with my router for Black Ops and was able to see my Playercard in quite some depth. I'm hoping there's a better reason, but Activision/IW et al are curiously tight-lipped about the whole situation, I'll stick with them fishing about on my PS3 for Elite details. For now,at least!

Thank goodness then for the welcome return of Spec Ops. This has been also been retooled to include the now seemingly obligatory 'horde mode' as featured in Treyarch's games, this time round called Survival. However the main difference here is, just for a change...it's not zombies!

Another new feature has been unveiled, incorporating a new ranking system that lets you advance in a similar fashion to multiplayer, unlocking various weapons, perks and special features that helps make things a little more interesting in the Survival mode. You can also play online with anyone in the standard Spec Ops missions and Survival as well, and jolly good fun it is too, as playing with a partner makes getting those three precious Veteran stars that much easier.

Standout missions for me in the 2011 Spec Ops include:
* Toxic Paradise - Juggernaught suits for all! Highly enjoyable level, stuffed with carnage of all kinds.
* Firewall - 2 player minigun mayhem
* Hostage Taker - the trickiest and most infuriating annoying of them all. 65 seconds on Veteran - it's actually more fun if you take your time!
* Resistance Movement - an excellent level. 160 seconds on Veteran
* Invisible Threat - Also a great level, on the same map as Little Bros. Another round in the Juggernaught suit, with Predator missiles for good measure.
* Fire Mission - 2 player mayhem, one on the ground, one in the air - raining fire from an AC-130. Easy on regular, incredibly annoying on Veteran - especially if your partner on the ground is rubbish.

In summary then, the campaign is excellent. Visual, visceral and great fun to play, it's an engaging and immersive experience. The multiplayer is good, when you can get online to play it and the changes made have been pretty beneficial. The ever-reliable Spec Ops is better than ever, and serves as a worthy replacement while the MP servers are fixed, and is something I will definitely be coming back to in the future.

Despite the glitches, it's an essential purchase. You know you want to.

Update: a series of patches have been released, at least two in December alone, which have improved the online experience considerably, though I stand by my original comments - there shouldn't have been a problem to begin with!

Walk This Ray

A recent turn of good luck yielded me a 2011 Mini Pro from the good folks at SE, and the wife managed to upgrade her handset to the Xperia Ray. As she's a fan of the Mini, having owned the 2010 model, and I'm a fan of the Ray, we both readily opted to swap handsets. This should in no way detract from the little pocket-rocket that is the Mini; sporting a 5MP camera, 720p video and a 1GHz processor, it's no slouch. However the Ray suits someone like me down to the ground as it packs a better camera, more memory, a slimmer build and numerous other gadgety things more inclined for boys and their toys. Although saying all that the Ray is being marketed more towards females...hmmm.

Anyhoo, as I've previously stated, I've been impressed this year by the way SE have managed to cram everything from the Arc into the Neo (plus a little extra) and then shoehorned the contents of the Neo into the even smaller Ray, stripping out the almost non-essential things like the HDMI-out (be honest - how often have you used it?!) but still managing to deliver the same performance as the Arc and retaining the front-facing camera introduced with the Neo. The progression is staggering, even if there are some slight problems along the way with the design and UI in this particular model.

The minimalist design of the Ray is, well, fairly minimal, right down to it lacking a camera button. All the other handsets I've seen this year have one, so it's a little strange for it to be missing here; the touch screen is now the sole reliance for using the camera. It's a minor gripe really as I use the touch capture far more than I ever used the camera button on my other phone(s), simply because the button can be irritating at times!

The build quality is pretty good. Once again the matt finish utilised in the 2010 X10 series and on this years' Mini series tops everything off, giving a decent grip in the hand, which is useful as this is a super slim phone. Even if you have a penchant for uber-skinny jeans, you'll find the Ray is so sleek and slim it's barely noticeable in the pocket, which comes in very useful when smuggling the phone about to use it discretely i.e. in the office. Of course this does make it a little easier to misplace so top tip; don't put it on silent unless absolutely necessary!

I had some reservations with the size of the screen, which as it turns out weren't completely unfounded; having had the Arc and Neo this year already and been used to the acreage of their screens (in particular the 4.3in Arc screen), dropping to the Ray screen was a bit of a pickle initially. I use things like Swype for text input, which here has been replaced by a keypad similar to 'old fashioned' phones.

Having used touch screen input for a couple years, it wasn't that big an adjustment to make to switch back to standard T9 input, but I'll be honest and admit it did initially cause some minor frustration and the occasional profanity to erupt from behind clenched teeth. Swype is probably still available to use on this phone – I haven’t checked yet – but I would imagine the keyboard for this would be tiny!

Something else that's irked me, particularly with the Mini Pro and the Ray, is the bare minimum of MicroSD memory being provided with the handset; 2GB with the Mini Pro and 4GB with the Ray. To me that just doesn't seem enough, particularly for what I use the phone for, and for a phone offering high quality music playback (coming as it does with the excellent LiveSound earphones, at least on unbranded handsets), HD video capabilities and 8MP pictures, the minimum memory provided should be 8GB. I've beefed up the memory on the Ray to 16GB, so it now offers the same sort of space as my trusty (though ailing) iPod Touch. With this improvement the Ray is now something of a powerhouse handset that delivers pretty much everything I need from a media perspective.

I loaded Tron: Legacy onto the Ray and it looked pretty handsome; vivid colours, great sound reproduction. Tron: Legacy really gave the BRAVIA engine something to work on and it's a pretty impressive experience even on a smaller screen!

If I had any other real gripes it would be with the touch response on the screen; it's a little flaky at times. Not all the time, but it can miss a touch or two here and there, mainly when using pattern protection to unlock the phone. The home button has a nice semi circle of light around it, which also acts as a notification light, but the back and menu keys are just keys, they don't light up or anything. Call me fussy but I think it would have given the handset some extra oomph if they had. Again, it's a minor gripe over a design decision I had nothing to do with, one that really was probably driven by cramming so much into such a small handset, so something had to go!

In summary then, the Ray offers the same performance and virtually all the features of the Arc and Neo from earlier this year, while coming in at a lower price. Get the phone off network and chances are you'll get the excellent LiveSound earphones included, saving yourself RRP £60! It's an excellent handset and represents SE's 2011 progression and dedication to their craft in a stylish handset at a very decent price.  

Update: after tinkering with the keyboard input settings, T9 isn't the only input option, the standard Android keyboard is also available! And comes with Ericsson's version of Swype/gesture input, which ain't too shabby!