Two great first-person shooters: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. The hype is over. These games have been out for a bit, and we’ve all had time over Thanksgiving break to play the crap out of them, so now it’s time to decide if we have a winner.
Set to launch within a mere two weeks from each other, developers and gamers alike had been questioning whether Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare 3 would be the better game. For months now over Twitter, YouTube and any other media outlet, the debate has been waging. In fact, the ad campaign of Battlefield 3 was a direct challenge to Call of Duty saying that Battlefield was “above and beyond the call,” with a very targeted choice of words.
When it comes to how successful these games are in this lucrative market, there is a definite, clear winner. Modern Warfare 3, like its predecessors, set records after just one day, grossing $400 million in the United States and Britain, exclusively, according to The Guardian website. After just five days, it grossed $775 million. The Call of Duty series’ predecessors are the second-highest and third-highest grossing video games over five days, with totals of $650 million for Black Ops and $550 million for Modern Warfare 2. In terms of those numbers, Battlefield 3 just can’t keep up, as it grossed $300 million dollars in a week, albeit an incredible number.
When it comes to graphics for these games, the clear winner is Battlefield 3. Battlefield 3 has been touting its fantastic graphics and new Frostbite 2 engine since before the game was even released. Its original commercials posed the question to potential buyers, “Is it real? Or is it Battlefield 3?” after showing off the intense and amazing graphics they had to offer. Frostbite 2 revolutionizes not only the visuals with fantastic destructibility, lighting, animation and scale but also the game’s ability to produce amazing audio effects, which put you inside of the game and the experience. Unfortunately, Modern Warfare 3 just can’t keep up with the “newness” that Battlefield 3 has been able to pull off in the graphics department. Basically referred to (by graphics standards) as a repackaged Modern Warfare 2, MW3 certainly made adjustments, but it really didn’t do anything revolutionary.
As for the single player experience, it’s as though it’s a battle over who can be more unoriginal. Since many players only care for the online experience the game creates, there isn’t too much emphasis placed on the story mode for games such as these. Battlefield 3, in fact, used the plot device of interrogating an operative to re-live past events, which was done in Call of Duty’s last game, Black Ops! As SNL’s Seth Meyers would say, “REALLY?!?” Granted, storylines about saving the world from either World War III starting or continuing aren’t that unique. However, the fact that each campaign can produce awesome and memorable experiences is what matters. Whether that’s the feeling of starting up a jet in Battlefield 3 or the sights and sounds of the Eiffel Tower collapsing in Modern Warfare 3, both games are thrilling experiences.
Finally, the thing that people traditionally care about the most is the multiplayer experience. This, in all honesty, is strictly personal preference because these two games are so vastly different. Battlefield is renowned for being a much more realistic experience than COD, as well as being much better about the use of vehicles: helicopters, jeeps and tanks, especially. However, more often than not, fans of MW3 will say that it’s too slow-paced a game and they’ll elect for the fast-paced, reflex-based game modes of Team Deathmatch, which is the most popular game-mode in COD.
Whatever game you choose, you really can’t go wrong. Both are solid experiences. There’s definitely a reason these games have made millions.
