Modern Warfare 3 is a science fiction RPG. No wait, bear with me. The monstrous and bizarre story of Russian ultranationalists invading the US and then turning their feverish gaze toward Western Europe is essentially a re-reading of the "reds under the beds" sci-fi of the 50s – except here, the aliens actually are Reds, though they operate like nightmarish terrorists and they have the limitless technological armadas that HG Wells imagined for his Martian warlords. Meanwhile, through the game's obsession with weapons, inventories and special powers – sorry, "perks" – it is sometimes looking more toward Final Fantasy than at rival first-person shooters like Halo or Battlefield.
Whatever the case, the campaign kicks off immediately after the insanity of MW2. The US is fighting back and winning ground, while the Russian president seeks to re-assert his influence and depose the maverick leader, Makarov. While Delta Force and SAS squads take their part in the major land offensives, Soap MacTavish and Captain John Price of Task Force 141 are back behind enemy lines, tracking down Makarov in a personal quest for revenge. Joining them is Russian spec-ops newcomer Yuri, whose uncertain affiliations lead to some of the best plotting in the series, neatly flashing back to a couple of very key moments in the first Modern Warfare title.
All this sound and fury signifies nothing really, but at least the story makes some kind of sense – and even emotional impact – this time round. Although the action darts across the globe from the US to the Middle East, via Africa and Europe, the bridging sections explain almost all of it well, and we have a cogent mission plan. John Price, meanwhile, is confirmed as Call of Duty's finest human creation and the coda to his juddering character arc is perfectly judged and surprisingly cathartic.
In structural terms, there is a definite lull toward the middle of the campaign when the shoot-outs become achingly familiar, and the linearity frustrates. There's also a badly judged story sequence in which a family is caught amid a terrorist atrocity on the streets of London. It seems a desperate attempt to re-ignite the sort of controversy that Modern Warfare 2's No Russian level attracted, with its interactive airport shooting spree. Here, though, it's an uncomfortable and unnecessary failure.
Inevitable tabloid storm aside, none of the details matter too much. Really, MW3 is a game about epic mise en scene, and without a doubt, the Infinity Ward/Sledgehammer hive mind has set the benchmark for action set-pieces in this generation of games machines. There's the agenda-setting opener off the tip of Manhattan, with dozens of warships clustered in front of that iconic skyline, bombers buzzing above, the water crashing against monstrous hulls. Later, in Paris, there are hundreds of paratroopers dropping down around the Eiffel tower as a swarm of choppers blacken the skies. And in one astonishing sequence set aboard a plummeting jumbo jet, the player must indulge in a frenetic shoot-out as the craft's freefall creates a gravity-free battle zone.
The Infinity Ward engine is far from cutting edge – the overall look of the game has not moved on enormously since MW2. But the vision, the choreography, the sense of scale and detail – they are awe-inspiring at times. And this isn't just about the grandstanding effects – the collapsing buildings, the tanks falling through crumbling multi-storey car parks – it's about the intricate moments too. The little bars in Prague with their wood-panelled walls and elaborate furnishings, the movie adverts lining the London Underground, the TVs showing football highlights in an enemy guard house – these intricate place-setters act as ballast to the preposterous plot and scenes of unimaginable mega-destruction.
The multiplayer component is the bloody heart of the Modern Warfare experience, and it has been pumped through with carefully administered adrenaline. The new weapons upgrade concept – which allows you to add proficiencies to your most-used guns, boosting range or stability, or reducing recoil – brings an extra layer of depth and control to the customisation process, and is more satisfying than the Black Ops currency system.
It is also symbolic of where the series is heading: while the original Modern Warfare toyed with RPG concepts such as levelling up and collecting multiple weapons and items, MW3 embraces the inventory tree ethic with abandon. There are more than 40 weapons (all tweaked and re-balanced for MW3), but with proficiencies and attachments there must be thousands of combinations.
However, the masterstroke is the Strike Package system, which replaces killstreaks as a reward structure. In the past, players had to string together multiple kills without dying in order to gain cool one-off attacks such as the predator missile strike or devastating AC-130 fly over. That set-up is still available via the "Infantry" strike pack, but now, the new Support category rewards altruistic denizens, not just for shooting enemies, but for carrying out team objectives like capturing flags and bases.
Cleverly, these streaks are not cancelled when the player is killed, meaning those of us who aren't twitchy shooting machines can make an ongoing contribution to team-based modes, and will actually get the chance to see higher level streak rewards such as the devilish airdrop trap (which deposits a fake, booby-trapped care package into the map) and the remote sentry, a machine gun that can be placed anywhere and operated via remote control.
So through upgrades, packages and perks, players are able to pinpoint individual styles of play, focusing on elements such as speed, endurance or sheer firepower and crafting every element of their persona to those ends. And yes, what you end up with is the military equivalent of mages, warriors and assassins – with customised guns and branched abilities instead of swords and magic. What I'd love to see is Infinity Ward taking this even further, crafting a range of narrative-heavy multiplayer modes, a la Uncharted 3. There is a whole new genre out there to grasp hold of.
Of course, these subtleties are unlikely to immediately surface in public multiplayer areas, where the quick scope freaks are likely to dominate. Modern Warfare 3 is still a frenzied and unforgiving environment, and its 16 maps are dense, cluttered and shot-through with choke-points and disguised sight lines. Arkaden, set in a German shopping arcade, is a warren of enclosed units and blind corners, primed for the run-and-gun brigade, while Fallen features a downbeat European town where a group of brick buildings are surrounded by rat runs creating a dangerous parameter area.
Meanwhile, Downtown features a wrecked chunk of Manhattan, with a gaping chasm leading into the subway system providing plenty of ambush possibilities; and Dome, based around a satellite station, is all angled enclosures and empty cargo containers riddled with campers. It's a selection of maps that seems to have been designed to highlight and exaggerate the differences between the Battlefield and Modern Warfare experiences; the former is tactical, measured and expansive, the latter fast, brutal and instinctive.
But the game also has an intrinsic sense of balance. While assault streaks line up devastating Reaper, Pave Low and precision airstrike attacks, the SAM turrets are more easily accessible, while counter- and advanced UAV options let you swiftly seek out ground troops. There's even a recon drone that hovers above the battlefield marking individual enemies if they stray into its view zone (this will also distort their visuals for a few seconds, as though they've wandered into a flash bang explosion). Add in the assault drone – a remote control robot complete with machine gun – and you have a constantly fluctuating theatre in which team work and adaptable strategy will prevail.
If all that sounds a little hectic, Call of Duty: Elite – the game's social networking add-on – should allow less confident players to find pals of the same skill level to fight with, as will the Facebook integration that lets you locate and invite any friends who are currently playing the game. And then there's the expansive Private Match system that provides its own set of game modes, designed specifically for friend groups, including the amusing Infection, which is essentially CoD's answer to the playground game British Bulldog. Throughout the year most players will return again and again to become fodder on these multiplayer battlefields. As a value proposition alone, MW3 is an incredible product.
And then you have the spec-ops modes. Survival is MW's hugely compelling version of Horde, with pairs of players taking on waves of enemy soldiers. Cash is earned for kills and it is then spent between rounds on guns and equipment. It is impressively tactical, demanding a keen sense of territorial control and co-operation from the players.
Then there are 16 co-op missions, which often provide new angles on familiar sequences from the single-player campaign. Firewall is a raid on a London warehouse, with one player fighting it out on the ground while the other provides protection via a series of remote control gun turrets. Little Bros, meanwhile, has one player battling through a wrecked Berlin, while the other is providing cover from a Little Bird chopper; midway through they swap roles to close the assault. These tasks are short, but much more challenging and varied than the Battlefield 3 equivalents.
For many of us, Modern Warfare will be a guilty pleasure. It is difficult to reconcile ourselves as functioning, feeling adults with the ceaseless cacophony of fantasised violence this series represents. But yet stripped of the lurid graphical lustre, MW3 is a peerlessly slick interactive system; an engrossing study of cause and effect, of input and immediate, explosive consequence. It is part of a ceaseless timeline that has hauled us from Space Invaders to Commando to Doom and beyond. The feedback loop that swirls around two simple components – the button press and the "death" – is still unnervingly compulsive.
Beyond that primal function is the grandiose story that borrows so many themes and archetypes from the RPG universe, and the complex mechanics of progression and customisation. I'm not kidding anyone, though. Modern Warfare is, in its third incarnation, what it has always been – a rampaging shooter with a moral compass so bent out of shape, your head spins at the madness of it all. Yet really, if you want to ask questions about the morality of war as entertainment, you should perhaps begin your quest with Homer or even chess. This game isn't for you. It never was, and it never will be.
• Game reviewed on Xbox 360
