Activision and co. has been finishing up work on Modern Warfare 3 Content Season today by releasing MW3’s final Content Collection. Yesterday, PlayStation 3 and PC owners were treated to 3 new multiplayer maps, I’ve been playing it all day yesterday, and throughout today. Activision released Content Collection 4 called “Final Assault,” which features 5 multiplayer maps including Gulch, Parish, and Boardwalk. I’ve already reviewed both Off Shore, and Decomission, which you can read once you’re finished with the following maps…
Parish: Although the intention was to make this bombed French Quarter in New Orleans a run n’ gun type of map. It miserably fails for a lot of reasons. First, the spawn points in this maps suck so bad, that it’s easy for players to exploit the whole map. It’s too easy to access many areas and at the same time, it’s a confusing map. As a casual, you don’t really know where to go, and how to reach a particular location – and I don’t blame the color palette – Instead, I’m blaming the map design. Well, the color palette has something to do with it, but it’s not it’s own fault entirely. Much of the map is full of recycled assets making most of the map seem like it’s the same thing over and over again. A little more variety would go a long way before this map is a good one. Otherwise, this map isn’t worth being in the final DLC. The only thing that’s good about this map is the attention to graphical detail. A different color hue would have saved this map from being a little too much of the same.
Gulch: Much like Parish, too many easy paths make Gulch an easily exploitable map. I mean, yeah, the map is big, but the spawn points make it too easy for some players to exploit. I’ve seen myself die on my own spawn a few times. The worst part is, it’s a brand new map, and I die on my own spawn on the first day playing the map. It’s that ridiculous.
That being said, I blame the color palette this time. There are times where I could have killed a player, but miss the mark because the color palette is a little distracting, and makes the player look like it’s hiding behind a wall. I would have used this map as a Spec Ops map, rather than a multiplayer map because, don’t get me wrong… Gulch is beautiful. Try jumping off that cliff for once and you’ll see that there are some small details in there.
Boardwalk: I can’t blame the color palette this time, because there are a variety of colors in this map. But I can blame the map design. I do understand that Boardwalk is trying to be a modern map much like Intersection was intended to be, but for a multiplayer map, Boardwalk suffers from being too linear. I mean, most of the map is pretty black an white. There are only two “areas” in the maps: One is the beach, and the other one is on the boardwalk itself. Both are actually a “straight” line, just like U-turn. In game design, you’d call this a bland, bland map.
I would have used this as a Spec Ops map, or a single player map if I wanted to add that much “attention to detail.” I really like most of the locations, like the movie theater, the arcade, and as small the area is; that typical red dot shooting game. Infinity Ward tried to throw some humor in Boardwalk, and it’s a small detail that I can appreciate.
If you’d like to know how I felt about all of the maps that have been released thus far, here they are: First Drops Piazza and Liberation, and Second Drops Overwatch, Black Box, Black Ice, and Negotiator. I have recently released my impressions of the Third Drops Foundation and Sanctuary. Fourth Drops Face Off maps. Fifth Drops U-Turn, Intersection, Vortex, and Arctic Recon. Sixth Drops Terminal, Off Shore, Decommission, and Vertigo. Seventh Drops Light ‘em Up, Special Delivery, and Spec Ops Chaos Mode.
This is the final Modern Warfare 3 Content Drop. This is the end of the Modern Warfare 3 Content Season. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is due November 13th, 2012, I am going to bring you new content with Black Ops 2 soon.
