Okay Geek Farm
Xbox 360 - Gears of War 3 review
Alex Tretrop
Gears of War made a huge splash in 2006 with its gory goodness and gameplay that’s made shoot and cover a household name. We’re 5 years since the original relase and the series is now one of the most popular franchises attributed to the Xbox 360, making the end to this trilogy one that will doubtlessly be very popular. And the third entry definitely lives up to the Gears name with everything you’d come to expect of it; action out the yin-yang, great graphics, and a story that doesn’t seem important or thought out whatsoever (Halo was the same way, right?). And with this comes a sense of too little change, making it feel just a little too similar to the previous installments, without many meaningful differences. Regardless, Gears does what it does best and the amount of options you have here will ensure you’ll be playing this for a while.
Story
Gears of War 3 is billed as being the end of a trilogy, but it doesn’t seem like that from the beginning. Marcus and the other members of Delta Squad have eliminated the Locust with the flooding of their underground homes — (Spoilers from the second game) — In doing so however, they have unwittingly created a new enemy called the Lambent, which seems to infect both human and locust bodies and turn them into monsters. And if you’ve watched any of the trailers, I’m pretty sure you can tell that the Locust haven’t been completely eradicated just yet.
The story itself is exactly what Gears has been in the past; pretty irrelavent for the most part. For the majority of Delta Squad’s adventure you feel as if nothing really happens until the endgame, and even then they shoehorn in some moments that try to make you care about the characters. In fact, it felt like Dom and Baird, two fairly important squad members, had so little to say, that if it wasn’t for my co-op buddies actually playing as them, they would have had about as much characterisation as the nameless Locust soldiers I was shooting over and over again. It’s irritating because when they do have story moments that are supposed to put them in the spotlight, you feel like there’s little motivation behind their actions. They even try to add in some strange relationships with the two new female gears and man — most of which is simply stilted dialogue and awkward writing that just makes it a pain to listen to.
Gameplay
But let’s be honest here, you’ve come to Gears 3 for the gameplay, and that I’m afraid doesn’t dissapoint in the least. Everything you expect from a typical Gears, be it the over the top violence, extremely satisfying arrayment of weapons, as well as the excellent variety in enemies, are all here in tip top shape with some smart additions that really make for a great experience.
But let’s start with the guns because, as always Epic does a fantastic job at making them feel like they pack one heck of a punch. While you’ll primarily be sticking with your ever trusty Lancer, which for those that don’t know, still has the chainsaw attached to it — (let’s just say that it never gets old, even after three games, and leave it at that) — but you’ll switch it up with a few shotguns and sniper rifles as the situations require. Real quickly however, I wanted to mention just how great all the heavy weaponry feels because for the most part they add a fun gimmick to what you’d typically expect. A great example is the Vulcan Cannon; a huge gatling gun that mows down enemies but has a fairly hilarious catch: it requires two people to operate, one on the gun and the other holding the ammo box, manually cranking the handle to reload bullets, leaving him unable to shoot. So literally, one of you becomes a walking badass, leaving only death in your wake, while your lowly assistant follows slowly behind you cowering in terror as he cranks his little box filled with bullets and hoping he doesn’t get shot to pieces. I could talk for quite a while at just how satisfying they are to use but the key thing here is that Epic, as per usual, gets it really right here.
Perhaps my biggest problem with the campaign is just how restrictively linear it feels. You literally walk up to so many doors that lock behind you and leave you stuck into an area with all your enemies that it gets a little ridiculous seeing the same animation over and over again two or three times per level. While the enemies are fun to fight, you’ll always be taking down every single one with no real room for improvasation in your strategies. As long as you stay behind cover and use common sense, you’ll never really find the game challenging or inventive in the combat situations that Epic puts your characters in.
Another great thing about Gears 3 is the excellent variety in modes on display. Alongside Campaign, you’ve still got the fantastic wave based Horde mode that still works brilliantly in Gears 3 thanks to a new system where you create a simple base and arm it with all manor of traps and distractions for the Locust to wade their way through. It’s still an exciting and challenging mode, making it one of the primary areas you’ll be playing in after you complete the Campaign.
Similar to Horde is the brand new Beast mode, which adds an interesting twist on the general wave based survival formula. In Beast, the roles are reversed as you play as increasingly more powerful Locust characters trying to murder those filthy human scum. It’s surprising just how much faster this feels to Horde, as you and your team are racing around as the generally speedier or burlier Locust characters with usually about one minute to kill all the opposing humans. As such, you’ll generally only succeed with a full group of friends who can communicate but it’s a nice and quick diversion to your standard modes.
Finally, we’ve got Competitve Versus and it’s still got that fairly high barrier for entry that the Gears series has always had. Just the nature of how quickly it moves and how powerful some of the guns are can turn off some newer players while some of the veterans will be able to pick it up quickly and feel right at home here. Once you get passed the higher skill barrier, you’re rewarded with some intense and smooth games featuring all the signature gears weaponry on maps that are fairly small, encouraging more close up engagements during your multiplayer match ups.
Visuals / Audio
Gears 3 is exactly what you’d expect in both the visual and audio areas. The game looks goregeous on the more colorful vistas, while the darker areas look extremely grimy and gritty. I was actually fairly surprised at the number of locales you’ll head to during the Campaign, and even in some of the multiplayer maps. You can be on a Locust airship one minute, underwater another, or running across huge abandoned cities with the ashes of dead civilians still in their frozen positions. It’s pretty awesome and the frame rate stays rock solid the whole way through. We’ve seen most of these characters and art style before, so it’s excellent that Epic still succeeds at making the game continuously look better with each installment.
For the most part, Audio is also extremely well produced. The guns themselves all feel like they deliver true power, and their sounds make that possible. Not to mention the extremely over the top executions sound bone crunchingly great. The voice actors do a decent job with what they’re given, with no one being noticeably terrible but the lack of character development feels like it could have dramatically improved if the actors had had more lines to say. Even characters who seem important, like Dom, never really get any time to say anything other than: “The enemies are in that direction” or “Oh, no they’re holed up in (insert evil badguy stronghold here), let’s go get em!” But the enemies, on the other hand, generally sound more interesting; the grenade launchers always yell “Boom!” in the best way possible before every shot, and the cannon-fodder Grubs do a great job of sounding appropriately monstorous.
Final Thoughts
Gears of War 3 felt like a heck of a lot more of the same, but refined and polished to a mirror shine. You’ve got an entertaining campaign and all the competive and cooperative modes you’ll need as it all comes together in one very complete package. Sure, the story isn’t up to snuff and it can feel ridiculously linear, but I’ve almost come to expect that from a Gears game at this point. Thankfully, you won’t even notice it as you enjoy the wealth of content at your fingertips.
Pro’s
- Fun, gory gameplay
- Environnments look really nice
- Lots of content
Con’s
- Uninteresting Story
- Competitve Multiplayer can be hard to get into
- Fairly boring dialogue
I can’t stress it enough that Gears 3 is exactly what you’ll expect it to be: a linear and gory third person shooter that is still extremely good at what it does best. The satisfying gameplay and number of modes will ensure that you’ll be putting the disk in often to enjoy some of the games excellent cooperative modes. I can’t seem to put off the feeling that it’s quite a lot more of the same and if you don’t like Gears’ particular brand of third person action, there aren’t really many meaningful changes to draw newer players in. Regardless, it’s a fantastic shooter that fans of the series or the genre should really pick up!
