Gears of War 3

After two successful instalments of the Gears franchise, Gears of War 3 has finally rolled around to close the epic story of Marcus Fenix and his Delta Squad. The Microsoft exclusive third person shooter continues with the battle between humanity and the locusts; however the game throws up a new type of threat in the form of the lambent, a glowing, explosive and more vicious type of creature.

Playing predominantly as Marcus alongside a raft of former characters including Dom, Cole & Baird, Gears 3 takes place in a host of destroyed cities as you battle against the Lambent beasts in order to rescue Marcus’ father Adam who holds the knowledge of how to rid Planet Sera of all lambent life forms. The actual gameplay remains the same for Gears 3, however the developers at Epic Games have done a fantastic job in keeping the game interesting with a host of new beasts introduced, including the astonishingly tough berserkers, glowing Drudges that have the ability to morph creating additional limbs and finally an encounter with Queen Myrahh, the queen of all locust life. The new creatures combined with different challenges including taking to the seas in a submarine and blasting the crap out of this giant squid-like thing help to refresh the game and avoid it becoming stagnant and repetitive.

One of the major disappointments with Gears of War 2 was the poor multiplayer which sullied arguably the best shooting game ever to be created. This time around Epic Games haven’t left anything to chance as dedicated servers mean there are no more problems playing online (hooray!). Epic have also taken some of the best features from other games and added them to their own, for instance you now obtain ribbons online for certain acts i.e. 5 kills without dying, which is remarkably similar to a system the Halo series adopted. At least Epic don’t try to hide this fact, some of the ribbons even have the same name! Horde has been brought back once more too, which allows you to fight wave after wave of beasts alongside four online partners. Epic have made improvements on this too, you can now fortify a base and build a variety of different defences, so no more arsing about trying to steal a shield and block any enemy from getting close. Beast mode is a nice introduction too, you take on the role of a locust/lambent and finally get to attack the good guys! I personally enjoy killing the character Sam Bryne; her Australian accent throughout the game is horrific and stands out more than Michael Barrymore at a swimming convention.

In addition to the revamped multiplayer games, Gears of War 3 has increased the war journal from the previous two games to include more medals, stats and the option to customize your online appearance with unlockable characters, weapon skins and the option to give everyone infinite ammunition, or give everyone giant heads so they’re easy to shoot. It might not sound like much of an addition but it all adds to the replay ability of the game, especially when you need all medals & ribbons to get 1000 gamerscore too.

Despite the game having tons of new features it’s far from being the perfect shooter. With the main story there are simply too many characters, for instance Carmine (The 3rd) is barely noticeable when his two brothers were noted characters previously, whilst Jace, Sam & Griffin were all needless additions and added little to the plot. With regards to the multiplayer, improvements have been made and the level of customisation is a nice feature. However the removal of several games types including my personal favourite Annex is disappointing, plus adding a few extra maps from previous games surely wouldn’t have killed Epic.

Judging this as a standalone game, it is a fantastic piece of work. However the level of improvement between Gears of War 1 and 2 was unbelievable and perhaps fans may be a little guilty of expecting too much from the Gears 3. There is more than enough here to satisfying loyal Gears followers and fans of third person shooters and in terms of games this year it’s definitely the best shooter by a mile. More cynical fans (like myself) will pick out little errors and room for improvement, but honestly this is a worthy addition to the franchise and a fantastic way to round off one of the best games franchises since Resident Evil.

Fancy a game online? Add Lordzola2011 and I’ll do my best to play a few rounds in the next couple of days.

Tom Crowther