Entertainment

Bank shots

Hang on to your dog tags: The Big Apple is under siege.

The visually stunning, ultra-violent and most-anticipated video game of 2011, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3,” out Tuesday for consoles and PCs, is transforming Manhattan into a battlefield filled with daring and complex missions that only the bravest soldiers — well, gamers — would dare to embark on.

The first-person shooter game immediately picks up where its predecessor, “COD: MW2,” left off as the Russian Federation chooses NYC as one if its next targets for invasion. No, that’s not your eyes playing tricks on you. A Russian submarine is surfacing in the East River and the only way to stop it from wiping out the entire harbor is to team with Navy SEALs, board it and subdue the soldiers manning the vessel.

It’s not much safer downtown.

Your mission there is to help Delta Force soldiers destroy a radar jamming installation on top of the New York Stock Exchange, because — in real life — greedy CEOs and Occupy Wall Street protesters certainly aren’t itching to get involved.

So why invade NYC?

“At the end of MW2, Washington is burning and the battle starts to escalate up the Eastern seaboard and continues in the streets of Manhattan,” explains Robert Bowling, a lead designer at Infinity Ward, who along with Sledgehammer served as the game’s creative forces. (Activision is the publisher.) “We looked at what strategic points the Russians would need to take over and the New York Harbor jumped out first. We also pondered what iconic building would bring the best experience for a battle and decided on the NYSE.”

The war continues across Western Europe and spills into Paris, where the Eiffel Tower is engulfed in flames as troops sporting gas masks sprint through the foreground hopping over fried corpses.

With enough profanity and blood-filled carnage to make “Grand Theft Auto” look like “Angry Birds,” gamers are foaming at the mouth in anticipation. MW3, which is rated M for Mature, is completely shattering its own pre-order record it set last November with “Call of Duty: Black Ops” — 3.5 million copies have already been reserved. The game is predicted to easily topple the 25 million units that Black Ops sold.

The new chapter adds a host of new features. Gamers can now add silencers and holographic dual scopes to their mind-blowing weaponry. There are improved, expansive maps. And the new Death Streak option allows players to run faster and quickly pinpoint — for purposes of revenge — the last player who shot them.

“No question the dual scope attachment is the perfect weapon for fighting in the long corridors of Manhattan streets,” Bowling says. “Then you can use it in office buildings too when searching through rooms and close-range fights.”

In addition, a new online multi-player option dubbed MW3 Elite, has been designed to marry your Facebook account and game console, encouraging players to create a profile and make new friends to wage war against. Elite, which will be free to online gamers at launch, is an attempt to turn millions of casual Call of Duty players into a tightly knit community, diminishing the chance teammates will bail before the missions are complete.

“It allows you to stay engaged with COD at all times,” Bowling says. “You can jump in and customize things, download new maps and find new weapons. You can locate friends online and invite them to play instantly.”

Then suffer a gloriously gory death for your country in the comfort of your living room.