The best iPad game yet – Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation

I haven’t played a whole lot of games on the iPad, or at least not for any signficant length of time other than to see what they offer and this one Modern Combat 3 started out no different.  I downloaded it and like some other games I was very impressed with it overall.  Great graphics and game play and all for only €5.49.  However, I found for the first time since probably playing Medal of Honour: Allied Assault (which is before I got married and that is not today or yesterday) I wanted to spend more time on it.  Not just with the game itself but going online and pitching myself against some serious gamers who had obviously spent signficant hours playing based on their rank!

I always liked first-player games more so than any of those platform games.  Castle Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake and Medal of Honour-Allied Assault were the shoot me up games I had previously really liked (So I am not 18 or close but a little older ;-).  I  always played on a PC and never a console.  I never liked the consoles, the controllers specifically.  I could never find a button configuration that I liked and would end up very frustrated after a short time. Yes I am that finicky and awkward.  When I used the keyboard I could always assign any action to any key and thus could create a controller I liked and could use.  I can now do the same on the iPad.  I can move any button\action around the iPad screen to exactly where I want it.  I can also resize each button to be as big or as small as I want.   See the screen shot below.

Modern Combat 3 - Customizable Controls

My ability to compete and play the game at a semi-decent level significantly improved as I seem to have an inbuilt reaction to specifically where the fire button is.  The flexibility to put that button and the rest of them exactly where I wanted meant no more hitting the wrong button or slow reaction times due to having to remember where each action was located.  I was able to fine tune the setup over time in the game as I realised moving the buttons even fractionally significantly helped.

The graphics and the game in general I think are excellent.  Considering a game of this quality is so cheap is fantastic value for money.  The online option is really worth a look and probably where you will spend most of your time once familiar with the controls.  You can play people from all around the world and really test your skill level.  The fact that I can play it anywhere on the iPad or iPhone is fantastic.  I am not limited to a console connected to my TV or I don’t need to purchase something like a PSP and carry that around as I wouldn’t (either buy or carry one!).  So yes there is a large part of my love of this games that is down to the flexibility that the iPad brings but this game is the first that makes me appreciate first hand just what the iPad offers as a gaming console. But that is for another blog post.  This game, while yes is just a tad violent, is definitely worth a look as if like me you long for games of old like Duke and Quake then this one won’t let you down.  Top marks – 10/10