Gears of War 3

It’s been five years since the first Gears of War introduced Emergence Day and the Locust invasion.  Now Epic aims to end the trilogy with its most exhilarating, emotional, and satisfying finale for the Gears series. Building on brutal battles and fierce melees of its predecessors, Gears of War 3 seeks to take its signature system of third-person cover based combat and revitalize it with notable and welcome alternations. Cooperative and competitive options are back and ample with options, but the most dazzling change comes from the campaign. Unlike the other two games Gears of War 3 delivers a stunning campaign to conclude the adventure in a bang.

Things have gone from bad to worst since the events of Gears of War 2. Two years have passed since the sinking of humanity’s last safe-haven, Jacinto, in an attempt to destroy the Locust stronghold, and now humanity stands on the brink of extinction. Those who survive now cling to isolated forts and ships savaging anything to make it to the next day. The Coalition of Ordered Government, or COG, has disbanded and now every human on Sera is forced into an ongoing battle between what is left of the Locust and Lambert, creatures that have been infected by Sera’s yellow glowing fuel.

Throughout the five acts you will endure a pleasant does of camaraderie between old and new members of Delta Squad and a story that will answer most questions that plagued Gears of War fans since the last installment. As you travel throughout Sera you will be presented with beautifully design locations that each hold meaningful connections to the story. This creates a natural feeling throughout the campaign allowing vehicle sequences to seem logically place allowing welcomed diversity whenever they are introduced.

As the campaign progresses different characters, environments, and events cross one another to create a sense of what life before and during the war was like for these characters. Marcus Fenix deals with his inner turmoil and suppresses these emotions to ensure he remains an effective leader and Augustus Cole showcases a new understanding of what it must be like living on a war-ridden planet. Epic has definitely done an excellent job of creating a polish expression of survival.

Epic definitely went all out in the visuals of Gears of War 3. Right from the beginning you’ll notice that it outperforms its two predecessors with improved visuals, lightening, and surging smoke effects that give each environment a decaying vision of a war-stricken planet. I found myself looking in awe from just the sky itself as the clouds moved from one location to another.

The sound design creates an adamant job of combing music and sounds throughout the game. Bullets zoom, weapons click, heads explode, and creatures yell in pain and joy in combination to well-orchestrated music, to create this clear assault that is easily recognizable.

If you played Gears of War before then you’ll be instantly familiar with the mechanics of Gears of War 3. Everything from moving into cover to reloading your weapon is quick and requires a lot of the player to master each of these skills. Bullets hit their mark with satisfying squish noises and chainsaws roar as they dismember you enemies into bloody chucks of meat. Veterans will definitely be familiar with the weapons within Gears of War 3 while being introduced to a new array of selections.

However these weapons and skills are put to the test within combat zones that are widely arranged in size, shape, and enemies to encourage the player to take new measures to ensure that you come out victorious. New are the Lambent stalks that comes out of the ground, similar to emergence holes, spawn Lambent enemies and requires advance maneuvering to take out the sacks that spawn your foes. The pace and intensity of each combat scenario depends on the difficultly and how many cooperative teammates you are playing with. Gears of War 3 supports two player splitscreen and four player online cooperative play allowing players to jump in and out of their friends games but limiting public searching to acts only. There is also an arcade option that allows players to gain high scores and requires diligent teamwork to come out with the most points.

Gears of War has been notorious for providing a competitive, and sometimes frightening, multiplayer experience. The horrors of Gears of War 2’s multiplayer has been altered or removed to introduce a more refined system that allows for better menus, matchmaking, a beginner mode for those new to Gears of War, and less weird exploits. Gears of War 3 introduces many cooperative and competitive choices that allows up to ten players. These modes include Beast Mode, Horde 2.0, Warzone, Execution, Capture the Leader, and Team Deathmatch.

Each mode offers players distinctive options to play what they find appealing. Horde 2.0 new currency system tasks five-players to manage the cash you build from killing enemies into reinforcements, creating a combination of tower-defense and traditional horde. Beats mode puts you into the shoes of the Locust and task you with killing your human adversaries within the time-limit in order to earn more money to purchase stronger Locust to control. Each Locust controls differently and there is no tutorial on how to control each Locust.

Gears of War 3 takes what it has always done well and refined it to a well-defined game. This can lead to satisfying feelings of nostalgia or disappointing desires for something different. Ultimately Gears of War 3 creates an accessible shooter for both casual and intense gamers that allows players to undertake the fight from either Human or Locust. With a fantastic campaign, intense multiplayer, and expected DLC Gears of War 3 will keep you busy from a long time.

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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