November 2006: the shelves and consoles across the globe had the first taste of a Sci-Fi third person shooter named Gears of War. In a gaming world already owned and dominated by a series known to some as HALO, the company that created Unreal Tournament, with designer Cliff Bleszinski at the helm, dared to raise the bar. The first challenge to any good game is to come up with the icon difference, that character, voice, landscape or weapon unlike any others. Gears of War brought us the Lancer, a combination rifle and chainsaw (modern day bayonet) that along with a COG (The Coalition of Ordered Governments) tag and you had a truly (Pun intended) EPIC game.
The game brought us into a war fought between a race of humans vs the Locust. The locusts come from the ground, grunt and grown, seem short of logical advancement and more an animalistic standard, similar to that of Orc’s (see Dungeons and Dragons). As the story evolves we find a mutatated version of the same called the Lambent, and this stretches across to creatures of all sorts of sizes and speeds. The game format is heavily based on a two player campaign where the primary Hero Marcus Fenix and his side kick Dom Santiago do everything in their power to find survivors, team mates, and bring salvation to the world while sorting out a conspiracy theory as to who is running this war, and what their ultimate goal is. With the help of Anya as your intelligence and Jack your robot sentry opening doors and breaking locks, you and adopted members of Delta Squadron like Cole Train and Baird make the ultimate team of military mercenaries making a difference.
Grears of War 3 was released one month shy of it’s 5 year anniversary and the question is not only what would we come to see in the story and design, but what advancements would the game play take without losing the element that we have all come to love and enjoy.
Characters:
The first thing you notice when you get the game rolling is that the war has taken it’s toll on your team. Dom is now supporting a rugged beard after the loss of his kids, brother and now wife. Anya has traded her military issue dress for more standard issue COG armour and both Cole and Baird are looking like the war has thinned out the number of rations they take in on a daily basis. As for your hero Marcus, he looks as he has since day one, the eyes may be a bit darker, the shoulders and arms may be a bit more on the bulge, but the spirit and grit that this man carries has not changed.
Environment:
The lands your travel through from above ground, to under ground to the skies and seas are all truly beautiful. To add a challenge to the game they have you play on a fairly dark setting, but if you take the time and crank up the light and look around from the blades of grass, to the cascading water, the sky and beyond everything adds an exceptional feel for a true world existing where all this takes place. From time to time I would glance out in the water and see a ship that was either in mid sink, or run a ground and it add’s a certain creepy holocost like feel to it. You get a true sense that this is the Gears’ End of Days.
Sound:
Had a chance to play the first two games? Listened to the soundtracks from Kevin Riepl and Steve Jablonsky? Well Steve returns for the third soundtrack and you cannot listen to the music of GOW3 without getting chills down your spine, or wanting to crab walk to safety and get your eyes peeled for a Beserker. The element of sound from the weapons fire to the heavy steps as you bust from one cover to another, as well as the mix of voices with each character add to an intense experience. Be it the story line spoken while in mid action, the cinematic scenes full of emotion from losses to victory and the screams from the enemy as you here ”BOOM!” make for a truly unforgettable gaming experience.
Gameplay:
Now they have not tried to re-write history with this game but as technology gets better, and as the Dev team has learned how to push the UNREAL engine to do more and more, what you want is to have a game operate faster and smoother and be more life-like. For this I would say EPIC both hit and missed on the matter and I will explain this very easily. The characters you control are certainly smoother, they are faster, and they hustle at a speed that you would expect from characters in that type of shape and with their size. In comparison to the first and second game (although from time to time you still do) you generally don’t get hooked on to many corners or find barriers that you cannot move around or jump, for this I say hats off to the QA crew. The draw back on this is that they gave similar speed and energy to the enemies, and one in particular is a perfect example of this point. The Corpser in Gears of War 1 came onto the scene and you stopped dead in your tracks. It’s simple, slow, menacing movements struck fear in your finger tips on the controller, to the base of your spine as you moved in your chair. You learn how to best her, and bury her in the emulsion, but for a good while you know not what to make of this creature some 20x larger than yourself. Now fast forward to Gears of War 3 and yes there are an addition of smaller faster corpsers, and some medium ones, but even the mother Corpser is faster. That’s fine, but no, we are talking RIDICULOUSLY fast to the point that where when you have her near her end she looks like Brian from “Family Guy” dragging his back end around the ground at the speeds of Formula 1. This although shocking to try and target, took me out of the game and removed that horror story like realism for more of a slapstick like boss fight. The second problem I had in the game play was the under water world. Although it was an interesting add on to take the gears into a new world, like much of that in the newer version of the Star Wars movies, but the pace was a bit too fast and without control that dodging the creatures and mines you might as well hope that the level just ends. I personally was hoping they would have learned from the Krill / APC level in Gears 1 that if something is that fast and removes that much skill the average gamer will put away their gun, and just charge and like a fast meal you don’t really taste the product. That being said every other Act and chapter is fun, to run though, explore, shoot, climb and simply there are no complaints in the hero’s game play experience.
Multiplayer:
This one is a very interesting add on for myself, as although on PC I LOVE getting into hours and hours of multiplayer fun, campaigns, team death match and capture the flag that experience has never been one that transplanted to XBOX for me. This game has changed that, they have found that perfect balance between speed, energy, sound, graphics and over all FUN that not only do I enjoy the multiplayer with my friends, strangers, and online versus the A.I.. Difficulty, you have four settings (Casual, Normal, Hardcore, Insane), where you can play a Co-Op Campaign mode, Versus mode (up to nine other players or bots), Horde (Destroy wave after wave of Locust Horde with up to four other co-op players), and the newly added Beast mode (Destroy waves of Stranded and COG heroes with up to four other co-op players). With over 11 maps to choose from in Horde, mutators (similar to skulls in Halo), and 26 different COG’s where you choose a primary and secondary weapon and the right skin allowing for a semi customizable experience as you dive in for hours of fun. The greatest thing about this version of the multi-player is that they have dialled in that perfect timer of size of maps, number of options, speed and strength of enemy and time to build that you don’t want to put the controller down for what will seem like minutes but will most likely be a quarter to half a day of enjoyment.
Lasting Appeal:
For all the reasons and more, with the story (written by Karen Traviss), the characters, the sights the sounds and the fact that if you want the achievements for playing on Insane you need to first defeat the game on Hardcore, you will be playing the game at least twice and most likely spend many hours raising the ranks of your multiplayer character and unlocking characters and awards as you go. The reality is, you want to pick up this game, and not put it down.
It is sad to know this is the last game in this trilogy. It seems just as you are starting to scratch the surface on the characters that you play, then already the series is over. Now I don’t want this to go in a bad direction like many hit TV shows and movies, but if they were to separate this story into future games of the different squads, or pre- E Day adventures, I know I would not second guess picking up a copy of them. In the mean time this game should keep me busy and playing right though to the end of 2011 with a few interruptions for a few more games that are on there way. Also if you like the Gears of War series, make sure to look up Karen Traviss’s books on the Gears of War adventures, pre and post game action can be read there, or heard on the audio books. Until next time, FRAG OUT!
^GG
9/10 GG9/10 PRESENTATION
9.5/10 GRAPHICS
9.5/10 SOUND
8/10 GAMEPLAY
9.5/10 LASTING APPEAL
9.5/10 GG
Gears of War 3(360)
Release Date: Sept. 20, 2011 (North America)
Publisher: Microsoft Games
Developer: EPIC Games
Genre: Third Person Shooter
Game Play: Single Player, Multiplayer, Online Multiplayer
Platform: xbox 360
