Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer trailer has epic aspirations. Looks like... Modern Warfare multiplayer

BANG! BANG! Brrrapp! B-B-Bang! Wooosh! Fizz! Pop! BAM! BLARRGH! Yep, it's Call of Duty multiplayer trailer time again, folks. Except this one is a bit special. This one, you see, has aspirations of narrative. Epic narrative. With epic set-pieces. And stirring music, and everything. Does it succeed? Well actually, it's the perfect trailer for Modern Warfare multiplayer in a whole lot of ways. Not necessarily always in the ways that it maybe hopes but, well, read on and I'll break it down.

00:17: Man calls in a kill-streak. Presumably a long fought-for, well-earned one. On this case it's a helicopter. It causes an unholy amount of damage on the environment and looks brilliant while it's doing so, but unfortunately the environment in question is pretty much devoid of enemies by the time it turns up, so it achieves largely sod-all. This has happened to me a lot. Still, all that smashing glass is nice, even if our hero's epic, chest-beating Rambo-run (no doubt complete with blood-curdling bellow) through it all is rendered rather impotent by the comparative emptiness of the building it encases.

00:55: Our brave and valiant hero is having a tremendous run of success. His skill, training and practice are all coming into their own here. He is in the goddamn zone. But then he gets wiped at random by someone completely unseen shooting him in the back. Yup, CoD by numbers for me again here.

2:08: Screw your wise use of environment and cautious use of body posture. Grenade launcher FTW!

2:51: Aaaand another unseen killer.

3:30: It's a 1v1, first-shot-wins stand-off. But obviously, despite that axiom, the guy who had his gun ready first loses. Cue screams of "But I emptied a whole clip into you and you took me down with one shot! F*cking LAAAAAAAAAAAG!"

Above: "He's using the 'Distract other players with floating green holograms' perk. SOOO CHEEEAP!"

But of course, I'm being cynical about the realities of online multiplayer for the purposes of the noble comedic arts. While it's impossible to ascertain the really important things (ie. balance, balance and balance) without extended hands-on experience, in the BANG! BANG! Brrrapp! department, MW3's offering looks to stack up. The new killstreak hardware looks exciting, the decoy care packages look like a fun rebuttal to those irritating vultures who'd nick yours on MW2, and it's nice to see the chickens getting the full credit they deserve after all the abuse they've suffered in the previous games.

No sign of the previously-suspected, Battlefield-baiting scale in these rather typical-looking maps, but again, time will tell. Interesting though, that a variant of Battlefield's dog-tag theft mechanic seems to have been lifted. OMGFANBOYFLAMEWARSTART!

But which of this summer's two big multiplayer trailers has you most excited? This one, or Battlefield 3's Gamescom trailer? I know which one is doing more for me, but I'm not telling.

September 02, 2011