Gears of War 3 Review

I wrote this a while back, I just didn't have it posted.

Finally the wait is over. Gears of War 3 is upon us. As of writing this I have had this game preordered for eight months, played the beta, and salivated over every piece of news that comes out for this game. It is the conclusion to one of my favorite stories and a much bigger game than the two that came before it. The game is magnificent and I can say that the wait was worth it. That's not to say everything is perfect though.

First of all, graphically speaking, this game is beautiful. Epic took war and made it pretty. The environments are great looking. The texture work is awesome, even the water looks good. The interior designs are kind of flat and shades of the series past browns and grays, but the exterior environments are where the engine shows it's worth. There are some points where the textures pop in a bit and even an occasional slowdown when there is a lot of action, but these are minor offenses. There are more than grays and browns present though. The outside environments often have greenery and it looks beautiful. The suprise for me was that the women were not nearly as sexualized as I expected them to be. That said, they don't look like trolls and are smaller than the men and more curvy (which unless they were lady Arnold Schwarzeneggers I would hope so) and they move like women, but without the jiggle or sway that most video game women have. Blood spatter and splatter for that matter are excellent. Coating the screen where appropriate and leaking on the ground when needed.

The sound work is pretty alright, the voices of the characters are very well done. Marcus still has his trademarked growly yell and Dom is still a whiney b*tch. Anya and Sam are both very well done. The voice work has a kind of tone that shows the actors do seem to care about their respective characters. The weapon sounds are good with mulchers sounding much heavier than a lancer. The snub pistol sounds almost like a bb gun in comparison to pretty much any other weapon in the game. The chainsaw on the lancer cutting through flesh is appropriately brutal as are the other executions in the game.

The gameplay is where I feel both the most improvements and the most problems are with the game. The single player campaign is long enough and kept me entertained for roughly ten hours on Normal. While playing alone I could tell that the game was designed for two and even up to four people to be playing. The team AI was fairly intelligent at times, and there were other times where I wanted to try and push Anya over a cliff. The enemies were relentless and would stop and pop just as efficently as I could which made me have to either have a backup plan when I went into a fight or change tactics on the fly to try and get beside or behind the enemy while my allies stayed pretty much where they were. Epic has added a kick move when climbing over walls so you can jump on your enemies instead of trying to shoot around the cover they are hiding behind. The end of the campaign provided an ending that most gears players should be happy with.

Multiplayer is better than ever. The host advantage is essentially gone now with the addition of dedicated servers. Players have a spawn immunity keeping them safe for a few seconds after spawn. Epic only shipped with ten maps on disc but the ten we have are pretty great. Thrashball offers a stadium to play in where you can shoot down the scoreboard, Trenches has a dust storm. The levels offer something unique in each one for the most part. My complaint is that the Gears of War multiplayer strategy of charge, roll, shotgun is still pretty much the norm and main way people play online. It saddens me that this is how we play this game. That isn't to say that you can't kill your enemy from across the level with a boomshot or pretty much anything else, just the predominate strategy is the same as always. There is also a casual mode for players under level five to try and get some playtime before being thrown to the dogs in standard matchmaking. There is also a new match type added called Team Deathmatch, which is essentially the Gears of War Warzone mode but with more than one life. So, it's a lot of fun.

So, Gears 3 is wonderful. I love the game and play it daily. The graphics are great. The story ends and Epic did a great job taking us on such a rollercoaster ride for the last game. I am giving this game a 9/10. See you online.