MW3 multiplayer: Sledgehammer on maps, streaks, snipers, camping and more

Heard of this Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 thing? It's apparently out today, and according to OXM's intrepid and, dare we say, quietly beautiful reviewer Mike, it's rather good. Excellent, even. Worth buying then.

Being one of the cool kids, you probably own a copy already. Tried the online yet? Here's Sledgehammer co-founder Michael Condrey and community manager Guy Beahms with some thoughts on that. Lengthy, profound, meticulous thoughts involving words like "quickscope" and "vantage points" and "DPS" and "how to not get your face shot off". Make sure you pay the toilet a visit before reading on. Here's an interview with the creative director and lead artist about how their Dead Space experience made MW3's campaign better.

When this interview goes live, the game will be on sale. What should people know before they start playing Modern Warfare 3 online?

Guy Beahm: Yeah, it's Modern Warfare 3... I think one of the things that really stands out to me as a Call of Duty player and as a hardcore player is the level design - I don't know what the philosophy is, but there definitely is less verticality, as Robert Bowling has touched on. They tried to minimise the amount of camping spots there are in each map and that's something you really get. You have to watch all the exits.

Do you have any particular favourite spots on the maps you've shown?

Guy Beahm: Well, it depends on the objective, what type of game-type you're playing. I guess a key tip is that it hinges on the Pointstreaks that you have equipped, whether it's air support or ground support - you need to think about which you want for each map that you play on.

So for example on Jungle, the team that controls the air will control the game. You definitely would want air support up there, whether it's the Reaper or the AC130. If you're running a Juggernaut - it's an open map and it's probably about a medium-large map so if you're running a Juggernaut it's kind of cool, but at you want something up in the air if you want to control the game. On Paris, though, where there's a lot of combat scenarios that are tight and indoors - that's where the Juggernaut could be a little more effective in comparison to the Reaper or the AC130.

You have the ability to assign certain Pointstreaks to individual classes, so within the game, let's say if you're playing on Jungle and you find out "Oh shoot, I had this attached to this class", well you can switch your class set in the middle of the game, if you hadn't set it up right, to be able to compliment that map.

Michael Condrey: That's what I do. Guy is far more competitive than I am, but I took my favourite loadout and I just cloned it, right? And I changed one class to be Assault class and one to be Strike, right? And I'm always running the SMG and it's always Rapid Fire with Extended Mag. So depending on the map, I know I have all the same gear each time, but depending on the map I'll either be in Assault mode or I'll have the Support strike package. You can instantly just use the gear you like, focus on maybe throwing down a Sentry Turret or throwing down something in Dome, but maybe in Jungle you want the Assault class so you can call in the Reaper, right? There's a lot of flexibility around the system and the Strike packages are tailored to how you want to play.