14 DAY TRIAL // Without a doubt one of the biggest gaming-related things to appear this week was the first actual trailer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the next installment in Activision's hugely successful first-person shooter series.
While I don't have any doubts that the game will once again set new sales records, just like its predecessors, Modern Warfare 2 or last year's Black Ops, and that it will live up to the words of Activision itself and take the shooter genre to a new level, I'm a bit worried about its environments.
The video itself depicts some of the locations through which Modern Warfare 3's single-player story will take gamers.
These include America, England, France or Germany, each being depicted through some intense fighting sequences.
While the action does seem interesting and there are certainly plenty of set piece moments worthy of any major Hollywood blockbuster, what really bothered me is that all locations looked pretty much the same.
If you exclude landmark buildings like the New York Stock Exchange or other such things and just look at the overall tone and the color palette, you can say that all of the sequences take place in the same city.
All four locations have the same shades of gray, interrupted by explosions or gunfire, the gritty look and basically the same old faceless soldiers that are either on your team or are opposing it.
While I'm pretty certain that the two developers of Modern Warfare 3, Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games, will spice things up with special missions like underwater ones, boat chases or the already traditional aerial bombing raids, the cities need some changes in atmosphere to really make players feel like they're exploring the whole world, not just districts of a city with different styles of architecture.
France is looking relatively good, as the tone in its footage is more different than the blue-ish hues in the rest of the locations.
Until November 8, when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 appears for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, we may see many changes happen, so there's still hope that at least a few more different color tones will make their way into the overall palette of the game.
Check out the screenshots and the video below once more and then tell us what you think. Are the cities in Modern Warfare 3 different enough or should the two studios try and make them stand out a bit more? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
