Despite a bit of a delay in proceedings today at Activision Blizzard’s press lounge at gamescom 2011 in Germany, I chatted with Sledgehammer Games head Glen Schofield and he was kind enough to help me get into my Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 appointment, and handed me over to the studio’s community manager, Guy Beahm, who took me through an intense (… a very intense) Spec Ops mission to showcase the teamwork necessary to complete your objectives, as well as the game’s silky smooth gameplay.

The Call of Duty franchise is well known for its rollercoaster singleplayer campaigns and deep, feature-rich multiplayer mode, but there’s another exciting component to this industry-stomping series introduced in Modern Warfare 2 called Spec Ops which allows two players to co-operatively work their way through missions together, inspired by that game’s singleplayer campaign.

In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Spec Ops will make a return and will include a number of brand new missions that once again task you with teaming up with another player either online or over linked consoles to bring a bit of co-op spice to the title.

In the particular mission on show, Invisible Threat, I took on the role of the juggernaut character, tasked with disarming bombs (or IEDs) while fending off waves of ruthless soldier enemies on the ground in the midst of ruined city streets, while Guy played the role of the strategic overseer, able to see the lay of the land to warn me of incoming enemies and flag the locations of bombs for me to disarm, all while packing a sniper rifle to take out soldiers who may have got a little too close to my virtual self for his liking… many soldiers got a little too close to my virtual self for his liking, resulting in many a sniper round ringing in the air, and bullets lodging themselves in an enemy’s skull.

I didn’t fair too badly, however, and I was able to run from point to point, disarming all nine of the bombs as Guy destroyed a helicopter and tank… or two. I honestly can’t remember how many there were because the action in this particular mission is so extreme I lost count of the number of enemies that fell to the ground as a result of bursts of weapon rounds, and I certainly can’t remember how many devastating explosions were detonated during my time with Spec Ops. It was a lot, is all I know for certain.

In Modern Warfare 3’s Spec Ops (which Guy says plays exactly the same as the singleplayer and multiplayer modes of the game), weapons sound incredibly powerful and combat is ultra smooth – either I’ve recently improved my first-person shooting skills dramatically, or the developers have somehow found a way to help players aim and shoot with deadly accuracy while still allowing you the freedom to run, duck and manoeuvre your way through the game’s focussed levels as you’re dodging a hail of enemy bullets.

It may sound a tad bizarre to say, but the combat feedback in the game is amazing and achieving enemy headshots with your rifle is very satisfying indeed – sound and visual tricks combine together to provide a level of visceral shooting action not yet experienced in a Call of Duty game.

The visuals, too, are top notch, and while other titles this year may look a few grades better, Modern Warfare 3 is looking very sharp, running at 60 frames per second to boot… not that the visuals will matter when you’re fighting for your life against swarms of enemies and tanks hell-bent on your destruction. Thank goodness Guy was there to save me from certain death on multiple occasions!

If what Guy says is true about Spec Ops playing the same all the way throughout the full game (and we have absolutely no reason to distrust him), then Modern Warfare 3 will without a doubt be the best playing, most satisfying version of the Call of Duty series yet. This is a very good sign for anyone still sceptical about how Modern Warfare 3 will enhance and evolve the series’ gameplay in the future.

Until El33tonline’s next bit of Modern Warfare 3 news, I’ll leave you with a quick photo I snapped of Sledgehammer’s Glen Schofield outside of the preview room: