Shockingly enough, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is another Modern Warfare entry into the Call of Duty franchise, and it’s about as accessible as one might expect; although the action has been ramped up from previous entries, and this is the final entry in the series tying up all kinds of loose ends, playing this game might be more of a chore than the not entirely memorable storyline and $60 price-point are worth. That being said, I say Gamefly it – unless you’re planning to spend a lot of time with it.

Now that I’ve spoken my peace, we’ll move right on to the main menu where potential players will find (from left of screen to right) SPECIAL OPS, CAMPAIGN, and MULTIPLAYER spread across the bottom of the screen. The contrast is good, the screen isn’t really cluttered, and it is visually the least questionable entry in the MW series.

By selecting any of the above modes, players will be taken to a menu which looks relatively similar will follow (though the first time [unless you don’t create a profile], if SPECIAL OPS is selected, a box will pop up asking for the player to create a profile). These menus all follow the same pattern throughout the game; white font surrounded by a thin black outline on a progressively darkening gray to black background on the left side of the screen. Again, MW3 sports the most aesthetically agreeable in terms of accessibility in all of the Modern Warfare series. The menus will change depending on the game mode, but the one thing they all have in common is that there’s an options menu, and that’s what really will determine the playability of the game, and luckily, with exception to subtitles, each of the three options menus looks the same.

At the top of the options menu, players will find that a choice of four different stick layouts can be chosen (DEFAULT, SOUTPAW, LEGACY, LEGACY SOUTHPAW). That is followed by the ability to choose from any of ten button layouts (DEFAULT, TACTICAL, LEFTY, N0M4D, N0M4D TACTICAL, DEFAULT FLIPPED, TACTICAL FLIPPED, LEFTY FLIPPED, N0M4D FLIPPED, N0M TAC FLIPPED) with “MORE…” appearing at the bottom of each of the two pages layouts can be selected from giving players who might be holding out for layout customization false hope of such accessibility. Below this LOOK INVERSION and VIBRATION can either be ENABLED or DISABLED. SENSITIVITY, HORIZONTAL MARGIN, VERTICAL MARGIN, GAME VOLUME, BRIGHTNESS, and VOICE VOLUME can all be tweaked on horizontal sliding bars. Finally, towards the bottom of the menu, COLOR BLIND ASSIST (“Enable or disable Color Blind Assist for player names.”), SUBTITLES (campaign and special ops only), THEATER RECORDING (multiplayer only); FACEBOOK can all either be ENABLED or DISABLED. Some helpful stuff, but it is sad that false hope presents itself twice in the options menu, and even worse that subtitles were left out of the multiplayer options menu.

While on the topic of multiplayer, if players have experience with previous iterations of Call of Duty, they may just find that Modern Warfare 3 is less accessible than last year’s Black Ops as MW3 does not feature any kind of accessibility options even if they have to be earned by reaching a certain level unless certain scopes and perks qualify as such – which do not in this review. The game is the same it is year in and year out, maps are too subjective to comment on as some maps vary in setting. There is nothing to make multiplayer easier to play for those with hearing impairments – the only audio to visual clue given is the same as they always are; either the mini-map, seeing rounds fly by the screen, or watching the sky. As for the mobility of the multiplayer aspect of the game, there is a community of gamers who happen to have mobile disabilities tearing up the entire franchise, so MW3 shouldn’t really be any different in this regard.

The accessibility of Special Ops mode is split halfway in the middle of the accessibility of the campaign and the online multiplayer modes of the game, which is good because it provide a segue momentarily. If players are mobile or visual impairments, Special Ops mode is nothing to be concerned about if interested in playing more Call of Duty, but if the player has a hearing impairment, only about half of the mode will be subtitled. Objective based gameplay is subtitled as well or better than the campaign (as far as not leaving anything uncaptioned goes), but as far as survival based gameplay goes, hearing impaired players will need to employ any forensic skills that they may have developed.

The subtitles found in CoD: MW3’s campaign follow the same white font, black outline, no dedicated background found in most every other game out there, although this time around the font size used may be slightly larger than can be found in other entries in the franchise, although this may only be an illusion as the font is emboldened which may make the font appear larger than it really is. That’s the good news, the bad news is this; only most of the game is subtitled meaning that there are parts of the dialogue that can be heard but not seen which is a horrible slap in the face to the hearing impaired. It isn’t a large portion, but it is enough to be noticed; for instance, whenever an operation is about to commence, the screen goes black, and the date and location of the operation appear in the lower left corner of the screen, there is dialogue, but there are no subtitles – not even at the top of the screen which is completely free of anything which would be a great place to have put them, but that would have created more work for somebody that didn’t need it.

Captioning sounds like alarms and that wasn’t done either which should be no real surprise to anyone.

Visually, the game is like any other Call of Duty though Modern Warfare 3 is not surprisingly more visually akin to earlier entries to the Modern Warfare series; lots of more modern-looking settings with a few forays into more rustic locations. What sets this Modern Warfare apart from its predecessors is that it throws more sensory challenges at players. Players may find themselves rolling weightlessly while trying to aim their gun which may sound easy, but in actuality prove challenging if the player can be made dizzy easily. Fires, papers flying in the wind, and other distractions show themselves throughout the campaign as well which adds a little more visual confusion to the mix.

As for the mobility of the campaign, it is at times questionable. Of course then end of the game features a series of quicktime events which will make a lot of players with disabilities of a mobile nature shutter, but with enough patience, the rapid button mashing and see it/press it ending to the series isn’t that bad as no assistive technology was needed for me to be able to complete the game which is a positive.
Some parts of missions will be timed, and some timed jumps will need to be made, although in the case of the latter, the game is a little more forgiving.
As should be expected of games from this franchise, rooms will need to be breached which cues a slowed sequence of events wherein players will need to clear the room of enemies leaving certain targets in-tact. The sequences can be a chore.
As is the case with most games, players are allowed to fail endlessly without getting a pass to the next part of the game. This is not what is needed from any game in which people are paying to play. How many times should a person have to fail to arrive at a checkpoint before the game just asks if they’d like to move on?
Something which should have been mentioned before beginning to speak of the campaign portion of the game is that there are multiple difficulty settings that can be chosen prior to beginning a playthrough which include RECRUIT, REGULAR, HARDENED, and VETERAN.


At a glance

Visual;
~Menus in game are high-contrast and can easily be seen.
~Game environments regularly change. (-1 point)
~No colorblind options outside of player names. (-1 point)
~Leveling up characters will unlock more accessible features in multiplayer portion of the game. (-1 point)
~Subtitles at times are easier to see than others. (0.5 point)
Recommended score of 6.5 out of 10

Hearing;
~Subtitles follow bold white font, black outline, on no dedicated background pattern. (-0.5 point)
~No sound captioning anywhere in game. (-3 points [-1 for multiplayer, campaign, and special ops each)
~only half of Special Ops is subtitled. (-0.5 point)
~Only most of the campaign is subtitled. (-0.5 point)
Recommended score of 6 out of 10

Mobility;
~timed checkpoints. (-1 point)
~Quicktime events. (-1 point)
~10 preset button layouts and 4 preset stick layouts to choose from. Lack of full customization. (-1 point)
~Choice of 10 stick sensitivity levels.
~Choice of 4 campaign difficulty settings.
~One-handed gameplay may be challenging in the campaign. (-1 point)
~No guarantee of completing the game. No failure limiter. (-1 point)
~Aim Assist available.
Recommended score of 5 out of 10