27th September
So, the Gears of War trilogy comes to an end after 5 years. Created by Epic Games in 2006, Gears of War was one of the first games on the new XBOX 360 console, and one of the most intriguing shooters of all time. It uses a 3rd person cover system that has been replicated now in many over games including Mass Effect. The game has now come full circle, and its time to see who is victorious on Sera, the Humans, or the Locust.
Story
Gears of War 3 takes place 2 years after the end of the second game, which briefly descibred, has the humans struggling for survival against not only the locust, but also the newly discovered lambent. With the sinking of their main city Jacinto, in order to flood the locust tunnels, many humans live in small strongholds, and the main COG army has all but broken up. However Delta Squad is still up and running, and even seems to have grown with new recruits Anya, Sam, Jace and Clayton Carmine.
The game starts with a flashback to the first game and a dream sequence with Marcus and his Dad, it's quite a nice segment to get used to the shooting system if you are new and a bit of nostalgia if you aren't. When Marcus wakes up he is on a ship with Dom, Jace and Anya, just staying alive, they recieve a transmission that Chairman Prescott will be arriving on the ship despite being missing for the past 2 years. When he does land in his helicopter, the Lambent decides this is their time to strike and attack the ship. Prescott is injured and Delta Squad have to fend off the attack.
It's just not going to be that easy, as a giant Lambent Leviathan attacks the ship, which is more than a match for Delta Squad and 2 silverbacks, luckily the rest of Delta Squad (Cole, Baird, Sam and Carmine) are waiting on the bridge with an ambush. The game then cuts back to 3 hours before, showing Cole's squad attempting to find supplies for the group. It is very clever how they have the 2 segments intersecting each other and you actually feel that you need to get there to help your team-mates on the boat.
The main story involves trying to find Marcus's Dad and find a way to stop the lambent and Myrrah and her locust army. With many twists and turns and tragedies along the way it is the kind of story where all chapters are of a strong standard and make you not want to stop because you want to know what happens next. A really great story one of the best out of all the 3 games.
Gameplay
As I have mentioned before, Gears of War 3 is a 3rd Person Cover Based Shooter System. This means that it heavily places work on taking cover and picking shots carefully. It is also largely squad based, having at least 4 people working together at one time, allowing for 4 player co-op online, meaning strategy can be important, especially on the higher difficulties. The game is mainly combat based but also has some minor puzzles or occasional tedious exploration. However these really don't add much to the game at all. The combat itself is very satisfying, with some gratfyingly gory kills and good force feedback from the guns it can be very immersive.
The game really comes into its own with the multiplayer however, with 6 game modes over 10 maps of normal team deathmatch style games, as wellas Horde mode returning and updated, and an all new Beast mode. The multplayer has 5 players going against 5 enemies in matches such as Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill and Capture the Leader, rather than capture the Flag the opposing teams leader must be captured and held for a certain time limit. The games have an option of choosing from 3 assault rifles and 2 shotguns for the starting two weapons, all with very blanced advantages and weaknesses. There is also a pistol and smoke grenade to start with. Other weapons are placed round the map and can be swapped out. The player is also able to choose from a range of characters to be, however these choices really affect nothing but the looks, so choice is entirely on preference.
Horde mode is rather different than its Gears 2 predecessor, although the same premise is there, to survive waves of attacking locust (and lambent) enemies, however there is now fortifications that can be purchased and upgraded, as well as weapons needing to be bought. The player gains money by killing enemies and helping out their squad-mates, and purchasing upgrades improves the players proficiency with them allowing them to be upgraded further. The game mode also changes as the 10th wave ( and 20th, 30th etc) is now a boss wave with a stronger enemy that needs to be taken out, this boss can range from 5 or 6 Reavers to a Brumak.
The final game mode is beast, while not as long as horde mode it acts in the same way but in reverse. You play as a locust creature, trying to destroy a group of Survivors and COGs, which get progressivly tougher and more fortified. To spawn as a creature costs money depending on the size and effectiveness of the creature, from lowly wild tickers to the devastating Beserker. Money is again gained for taking out enemies and also for detroying fortifications. There is a mixture of normal enemies and Heroes, where Heroes need to be taken out with an instant kill or an execution. By gaining money you have the chance to spawn as more powerful creaturesuntil you finally get that 4th row and access to the powerful but expensive beserker. Like all multiplayer modes, Beast is 5 player co-op.
Graphics
The game improves upon the second game's amazing graphics with new character models that seem more realistic and extrremely well animated, voice work is up to another high standard. The world environments have impressive scale and are very diverse and well created, gameplay rarely affects the graphics, however ther can sometimesbe an issue of texture rendering slowly when first entering an area, as well as the occasional graphical glitch. The biggest of these has to be in horde mode on some levels if a Brumak is spawned as a boss, the Brumak will occasionally just walk through parts of the environment, somtimes causing it to get stuck or sneak up on the players and attacking them through a wall.
Longevity
The story is a good 10 hours long on an ordinary difficulty, longer on Insanity, and with over 40 collectibles to obtain can keep a user immersed for a long time. Horde and Beast are fun game modes that can take up alot of time, especially horde with 50 waves that can last for well over 5 minutes each. There are also a large number of unlockables such as new executions for the weapons, mutators for the campaign or horde, ribbons, medals and characters. Put that with the amazing multiplayer and you'll find that Gears 3 is a very hard game to get bored of, the multiplayer can get tedious after a long while playing it continously, but then there is so much more to do than that.
Story --------------- 10/10
Gameplay --------- 9/10
Graphics ----------- 9/10
Longevity ---------- 10/10
Overall ------------- 9.5/10
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