UPDATE: Graham has just posted his first impressions of Modern Warfare 3 on PC.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is out, and you'll see Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 reviews appearing all over the place. We don't have a review yet because we haven't had access to the PC version until the game was officially released. We did get a copy this morning, but it was for the Xbox 360. :(

So Graham went and bought a copy this morning. He's playing it for review right now.

The copy Graham bought this morning is the first we've seen of PC code. The PC version hasn't been shown at any preview events and the videos and screenshots have all come from console versions. The console mags in our building all got early access to console versions of the game, but the PC has been mysteriously absent. The Call of Duty Elite service that console players can use to track stats and stay in touch with friends has been delayed on PC, too.

Still, it's in shops, unlocked on Steam and we're getting stuck in right now. We'll bring you our impressions and our full review once we've had a chance to play it properly.

Are you playing Modern Warfare 3? What do you think so far?

Update: Activision's UK PR team have been in touch and have explained that the Xbox 360 copy was a bit of a mixup. They feel sad and have sent their apologies. Poor sad PR team. Everyone send cuddles.

I'm still expecting someone to reveal this is an elaborate viral marketing stunt, but Eurogamer points out that Agence France Presse have got the story, so apparently it's true: over the weekend in France, a pair of criminals ambushed and hijacked a van carrying 6,000 copies of Modern Warfare 3.

The van stopped when it was involved in an accident with a car (presumably staged by the thieves). The drivers stepped out of the van, at which point two men attacked them with tear gas before getting into the van and driving away with 400,000 euros worth of on-rails shooter and popular multiplayer.

According to the AFP report, a second robbery happened on Saturday, when three armed bandits hijacked another van's worth of games, and the total loss at this point is over 780,000 euros, and another win for French surrealism.

Now, who knows what film that picture is from? No prizes. Just placement at the head of the class.

VentureBeat have been speaking to Bret Robins - creative director on Modern Warfare 3.

Bret worked on the single player portion of Modern Warfare 3, due for worldwide release on Steam at midnight tonight. When asked how Sledgehammer deal with such a sensitive matter as World War III, he said: "You blow up a lot of cities, is what you do. We’re creating a huge, like a summer blockbuster story and experience. You try to go for the biggest and craziest moments and set-pieces and locations you can come up with. You try to do it in a very believable and authentic way, so it feels like this could actually happen."

He was also asked how the studio manage to create a story that's controversial, but not controversial enough to get banned or censored. It seems to be something Bret has considered in some depth.

"Without getting sued by everyone? Yeah. Very carefully, is how you do it. How do you go about blowing up the world? You just come up with scenes and moments that would make sense within the story. So you don’t do it just for the sake of blowing everything up, just for the fun of it. Does this make sense? Should the characters actually be here at this time? Does this fit the plot? You want it to be exciting, but you also want it to make sense. It can’t just be gratuitous, it can’t just be fantasy. It needs to be real missions, things that you think could possibly happen, given the extraordinary circumstances that you’re creating. So it’s always walking that fine line of believability and insanity and crazy action."



The creative director insists that the studio don't attempt to cause controversy for the sake of it but strive for originality, not gratuitous shocks: "What you don’t do is say: "we’re just doing this to top ourselves." Like you say: "it needs to be something that’s authentic, that actually moves the plot forward." We have some moments in the game that I think are pretty shocking, that push the envelope a little bit. But like I said before, it’s not a matter of trying to be gratuitous about it, doing shocks for shock value. You always want to push yourself and see if you can push the limits of the medium, and storytelling. We’ve got such a big audience for this game that we want to deliver something that’s memorable. Experiences that people are going to be talking about the next day after they played it, talking about with their friends. It’s really a matter of creating something unique."

We recently covered a controversial scene in Modern Warfare 3, which featured lots of pigeons getting massacred, along with the death of a child. The footage has now been taken down from YouTube, but we're sure you'll see plenty of it on the internet over the next few days, so don't worry too much.

Modern Warfare 3 is due for release this evening. And, although we'd love to get our review online for the embargo date, Activision are yet to send us review code. The console versions of Modern Warfare 3 have been shown off at recent events around the world, but the PC version has remained aloof.

Still, Graham will be playing at midnight tonight, and reporting his first impressions as soon as his fingers can type them. Until then, check out the launch trailer, embedded below.

http://youtu.be/zuzaxlddWbk

The new live action Modern Warfare 3 trailer shows a rare event. A veteran helping out a new player without telling him to GTFO. The prestiged pro makes it through the entire trailer without once saying anything even vaguely unpleasant about the other guy's mother, showing immense restraint when the noob RPGs a single man five metres away (a very familiar sight for Battlefield 3 players at the moment).

Call of Duty fever is reaching frenzied levels. CVG mention a van hijacking in France in which masked attackers used tear gas to stall a delivery vehicle, and reportedly made up with 6,000 copies of Modern Warfare 3. There are midnight launches happening around the world tonight, and launch events will be broadcast live on the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Youtube channel.

If you go along to your local launch and it turns out to be two men in ski masks selling copies out of a van, give Interpol a ring. Will you be picking up a copy of CoD this week?

The desperate game of controversy one-upmanship among Call of Duty sequels continues with this latest scene from Modern Warfare 3, in which a small girl is blown up on screen in a chemical attack on London.

There's nothing fun or exciting about the scene - but we'll link to it so you can have a quick chuckle at Infinity Ward's inability to write convincing dialogue or hold your attention without resorting to cheap shocks. We're told by people with lawyers that "players are given the opportunity to opt out of in-game content which they may find disturbing with no penalty."

The social network, matchmaking and stat-tracking service, Call of Duty Elite will not arrive alongisde Modern Warfare 3 on PC next week as originally planned. VG247 have spotted a blog post from community manager Dan Amirch explaining that the service has been delayed due to security issues.

"We’re as committed as ever to the PC, but the need to ensure a safe PC environment is greater than ever," said Beachhead Studio head Chacko Sonny. "It’s really extensive. We need more time to get there, so Elite on PC will not launch on Day 1. We’re working our butts off to make it happen, but we won’t release it until we know that PC gamers can enjoy Elite as it’s meant to be." It doesn't sound like a small delay either. "It is not going to come out until we've done a lot more work" say Beachhead.

The devs cite the insecurity of dedicated servers as the reason for the delay. It also means that there won't be a Call of Duty Elite subscription option on PC. The subscription service gives members access to Call of Duty web TV series, competition tournaments and monthly DLC packs. The DLC updates will still be available to PC players as separate downloads, as with previous Call of Duty map packs.

"Not being able to trust stats is a big problem for our design. Because of this, we had to re-imagine Elite for PC. Elite for PC will be about access to your own stats, or those of your friends. Basically establishing a circle of trust. And because it will have some reduced functionality, it will be free for everyone," said Beachhead.

We won't see a PC version of Call of Duty Elite for a while, then, and when it does arrive, it will be a different animal to the console versions. It's the latest example of a familiar trend in the lead up to Modern Warfare 3's release next week. Throughout the entire multi-million dollar PR and advertising campaign, the PC version of Modern Warfare 3 has been conspicuously absent. At press and preview events, and at the Call of Duty XP conference every instance of Modern Warfare 3 was running on consoles.

All of the videos and screenshots released seem to have come from console versions of the game, too. We only know that the PC versions is coming because Activision announced it, but we won't know it even exists for sure until we hold it in our hands next Friday. If the devs are "as committed as ever to the PC," why aren't they showing it?

 
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is out next week. In terms of the sheer mass of copies flying off shelves and raw marketing hype it's likely to be the biggest launch of the year. It's surprising, then that we've heard so little about the multiplayer changes that Infinity Ward are planning for the multi-quadrazillion dollar sequel. As well as some very promising tweaks to perks and kill streak rewards, new game modes hope to add more variety to CoD's obscenely popular arena-based man shoots.

Firstly, there's a capture the flag mode that asks you to hold on to the flag as long as possible to rack up points, dashing round the maps and finding hold up points that will let your team mates defend you. Kill Confirmed, meanwhile, won't give you any points until you snatch the dog tag of a downed enemy, forcing players to fight at close quarters. Will that finally remove CoD's devastating snipers from the equation? Find out more about the new changes in our Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 preview.

This article originally appeared in PC Gamer UK issue 232.

I poked around the Scrapyard paintball arena and scanned the ground while dangling from a zipwire, but there wasn’t a single PC to be found at the recent Call of Duty XP event in LA.

When asked about our platform, Infinity Ward employees only offered happy patter about their return to dedicated servers. Compared to Battlefield 3’s grandstanding, MW3 is short on PC love or technical boasting, and instead refreshingly open about design specifics.

The Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer that Call of Duty’s baying fans had travelled to LA to see isn’t a revolution – it’s the series putting its house in order. Anything that unbalanced the game back in the days of Modern Warfare 2 – and there was a lot – has been changed or removed.

Among the notable absentees announced to a rapturous crowd (yes, they cheered the removal of mechanics) were the One Man Army perk with its sneaky midspawn class change, the Stretch Armstrong arm-reach provided by Commando, the game-ending nuke and the prevailing threat of secondary shotguns. As fun for the individual as they might have been, they were ruining the game at large.



Killstreaks have undergone the greatest transformation, emerging Brundleflylike from a pod in their new form as Pointstreaks. In Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops, newer players could barely dream of access to the higher realms of Killstreak rewards, and success in more exotic objective-based game modes didn’t always involve chains of enemy death.

To help reward players more fairly, and encourage less antisocial play styles, the new system rewards not just kills, but flagcaps, objective grabs and basic teamwork.

What’s more, the streak rewards you choose are now split into Strike Packages. The first, Assault, will provide the explosive delights that are familiar to all, but the Support package is now home to all of the rewards that help your team. UAV scans, SAM turrets, drops of ballistic vests to divvy out among the troops, Recon drones and even a suit of Juggernaut armour can be called in.

Vitally, your ascendance to these team-helping goodies doesn’t reset when you take a bullet to the head, but instead keeps on ticking upwards throughout the round.



Meanwhile, the Specialist Strike Package rewards talented lone wolves with an extra perk for every two points collected. However, dying at the hands of another still sets them back to the foot of the ladder.

Maps are international affairs. There’s an American interpretation of a London tube station, complete with a ‘Porter Potty’, and a mythical underground map containing delights such as Wrong Shoes Street and Big Beard Tower Station.

There are the streets lying in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower and a foliage-packed African village surrounded by caves and waterfalls. All of them are fairer and better designed than most of those locations found in MW2, whose settings provided dozens of angles of attack via unnecessary doors, windows and rooftops in every conceivable direction.

In recent CoD games there’s also been a tendency to make the player feel guilty for specialising in one weapon. Modern Warfare 3 instead positively rewards you for remaining faithful to your chosen piece of hot, sexy metal. Guns now level up as you do, enabling you to strap different scopes and reticules to its body, and even letting you improve intricate details such as its kick, stability and the number of attachments it can handle.



These are all good, solid and intelligent changes to a multiplayer framework that, while loved, has long had rough edges in need of smoothing. Infinity Ward have risked angering the community in order to experiment, albeit with experiments that Quake III and Unreal Tournament modders first toyed with a decade ago. Firstly, there are user-tweaked game modes in private matches that work like UT’s mutators. Secondly, there’s a new mode called Kill Confirm. Here the deceased drop dogtags: collect an enemy’s tag and you gain 50 points; collect an ally’s and you deny the opposition their prize. It’s a simple concept, but it brings a new edge of teamwork to Team Deathmatch.

After running through the biggest changes to the game’s multiplayer offering, Activision announced the price for Call of Duty’s new premium service, Elite. The Facebook-enabled social network is £35 a year for 20 drops of map DLC, high-end clan features, prize competitions, in-depth tactical guides and twice-weekly, Hollywood-sponsored video content.

This is clearly the year that Call of Duty aims to go from gaming stranglehold to world domination. On PC, though? The day we actually see the thing running on a desktop, we’ll let you know.