Time to gargle some boiling oil & get your man voice on!
Gears of War 3 was amongst the most anticipated titles of this year, and with good reason! The Gears franchise both reinvented the way that players view the classic third person shooter genre, and prompted developers to up their game when it came to both the visual & gameplay aspects of the genre. So obviously the third and final chapter in the story had a lot to live up to given the well-deserved success of its predecessors. So does it live up to the hype? Well, yes and no. For those who are unfamiliar with the series, the story is set in a gritty & post apocalyptic future in which humans are losing the battle for survival against a species known as ‘The Locust’, who emerged from deep underground in order to claim the surface of the planet from the humans. This game, set several years after the events of the previous game, sees the government & the COG armies mostly collapsed, along with the last human stronghold Jacinto, which was sunk into the locust’s underground caverns at the culmination of the previous game. This game has added in a new species of enemies – ‘The Lambent’, made up of a combination of the planet’s native creatures, along with locust, who have been infected & mutated by the planet’s ‘miracle fuel’ imulsion. Early on in this game, Marcus Fenix – the game’s protagonist – discovers that his believed to be long dead father is still alive, and has developed a weapon which could be used to destroy both the lambent, and lambent infected locust for good. Fenix, along with Dominic Santiago and other surviving members of COG set off to rescue Adam Fenix from captivity & unleash the weapon in order to save the rapidly dwindling human race.
While Gears 3 doesn’t necessarily feel fresh, it is probably the best third person shooter to have been produced in recent years
The gameplay has undergone a few refinements, but is largely unchanged from the previous game. Most of these refinements have to do with making the existing gameplay mechanics work more smoothly, and the difference is somewhat noticeable. The running & cover systems now work much more effectively, and I found myself getting much less frustrated with them than in the previous games. Locust enemies will now burst out of the ground, rather than climbing out of ’emergence holes’ that can be closed, and Lambent enemies explode from pods on stalks that grow from the ground like something out of a fairtale. Other changes include the addition of some fun new weapons, such as the ‘Digger’, an underground grenade launcher, as well as the ‘Retro Lancer’ – a modified version of the game’s previous lancer, which sacrifices accuracy for extra power, and replaces the synonymous chainsaw attachment with a bayonet, which can be used in a rather effective charge attack. Epic seem to have opted not to attempt to reinvent the wheel in the final instalment to the series, which can lead to much of the gameplay feeling slightly familiar and sameish. One of the main aspects of the game I noticed this in was the boss battles, which all felt a little predictable and lacked the excitement and thrill factor of some of the boss battles in the previous games. While the lack of unpredictability & new gameplay elements was a disappointment, the game never allows the player to feel too bored, and the gameplay is to such a high standard that the lack of anything that’s significantly new is really a minor niggle. The multiplayer in the Gears of War series has always been one of the stronger elements, and the campaign mode for this game can be played through co-operatively by up to 4 players (through Live). On top of this, the standard verses mode is still present, and the Horde mode has had a bit of an overhaul from the previous game. Killing enemies now earns you a currency, which can be spent on various defences & weapons, leading to a much more interactive gameplay experience. The new ‘Beast Mode’ pitches you as a Locust, fighting off waves of COG & stranded survivors. Here, killing enemies unlocks more powerful character types. Overall, the multiplayer content will keep players interested for far longer than the 15-20 hours offered by the regular campaign. I can’t really praise the game’s graphics enough – they are above and beyond the typical level of graphics for a game of this type, and every character model & texture is intricately detailed and looks totally flawless, with everything contributing to the gritty, ravaged and war torn world that the game creates. One thing that I did notice was that the collision mechanic doesn’t seem to work seamlessly, meaning that walking into most walls & surfaces will lead to your gun disappearing into them, and some of the larger enemies can simply be walked through after you have killed them, although this was a little rarer. While Gears 3 doesn’t necessarily feel fresh, it is probably the best third person shooter to have been produced in recent years, and while it’s not perfect, all of the niggles I had with it are so minor that they don’t really detract from the game in any way. The story rounds off the trilogy well, and the ending fits, even if it is slightly abrupt and underwhelming. Some of the emotional scenes feel a little forced and out of place, but overall they manage not to detract too much from what is, overall, an excellent game. This is definitely one of the better games I have played this year, and is well worth anybody’s money.
The Good: Small refinements make for a much smoother gameplay experience, Graphics which outclass most of its contemporaries, Excellent & varied multiplayer modes.
The Bad: Doesn’t introduce many new gameplay elements, Feels somewhat familiar in places, Slightly underwhelming ending given the epic scale of the overall story.
