The culmination of Epic's epic trilogy has arrived, and it's well...epic.
Gears of War 3 is everything it was supposed to be. A rare thing to see when it comes to a sequel in video games. I will review this mode by mode and keep my complaints, however minor, for the end. With that, it's time to talk about the campaign. The original Gears of War campaign was as basic as can be. Aliens are here, let's bomb them. That's essentially how things played out. Characters didn't develop too much and the backstory of Marcus was never really explained. The story for better or worse, never felt finished. Gears of War 2's campaign added a surprising number of questions to arise with the setting of the game as well as developing Dom's character highly. Something that comes to resolution here in Gears of War 3.
Now, being the end of a three game trilogy, lots of stuff has to happen here. It should only be logical that the campaign SHOULD be the best yet, and it is. Epic has spiced it up with some interesting plot twists that even fuel the gameplay experience, while also keeping the level design varying and fun. It's still good with two people but if at all possible I highly recommend playing this with three other friends. The team aspect of Gears of War is what has always made it interesting and fun, and there aren't too many games that ask me and my buddy to provide covering fire from the fort walls while the other two players ride out in a truck to rescue some of our NPC squadmates. It feels like a real, quintessential sci-fi war. The format of changing squads/timelines was interesting while it lasted, but it didn't really go on too long. I recall Epic hyping the feature up and I actually wish we would have done more sequences like that. There were some late details in the campaign that didn't get answered but overall it was a great experience that isn't commonly delivered with multiplayer-driven video games. I found the ending to be very satisfying.
Next up is the new Beast mode. There isn't much to say about Beast mode. It's fun and it does what it does. One to five players try their hand at completing 12 waves against increasingly difficult human enemies as the Locusts. You start with a set amount of money and pick your beast of choice, hoping to destroy fortifications and kill humans to get more money to unlock more, stronger Locusts to use as the waves go on. It's not meant to be a survival mode the way Horde is, but rather a competitive score-comparing mode where teams attempt to complete 12 waves in the fastest time possible. I think it's a nice change-up and while it's not something I can see many people playing almost exclusively like Horde, it is fun to just hop into Beast mode every once in a while and try to get one of the crazier monsters, like Armored Kantus or the Berserker.
Horde mode gave birth to the bro-tastic survival modes that have become a huge trend in games ever since Gears of War 2. All of this zombies, Firefight, Onslaught stuff you hear about being new in every other game is really just each franchise's own, usually weaker excuse of a Horde mode. Horde 2.0 takes what was simple before and adds a tower defense depth to it. At the beginning of the game players get a free command post of their choosing to establish. The command post basically begins your base-building and gives you access to be able to buy barriers, decoys, sentry guns, turrets, or the Silverback mech as you gain money for killing enemies, completing wave challenges, or completing waves at all. You can even buy more command posts as the waves go on to extend your defenses all over the map. This is a very fresh and interesting way to enhance Horde mode and I personally love it. Between waves the team will have 30 seconds to scrounge for ammo, or repair/rebuild and buy new fortifications. Every tenth wave is also a boss wave giving you some random, super-tough Locusts to deal with. What I notice most about Horde mode now is that it really requires everyone to be on the same page and working together. Any tenth wave could mean your defeat otherwise. I like the fresh additions and I don't think anyone could ask for more.
Last but certainly not least, the Multiplayer. If you didn't know, Gears of War 1 and 2 didn't really vary in weapon use beyond the power weapons and due to this, the Gnasher shotgun became the choice primary weapon to use as well as developing a specific way players played the games. Epic Games has decided to make Gears what it was always supposed to be and make every weapon useful, crafting the multiplayer experience and weapons as a game of ranges. Each weapon has an optimal range and damage within that range, which obviously means you can no longer run around thinking you're God with a shotgun and dominate people. This is a great improvement over the previous games and puts more emphasis on cover, flanking, and teamwork, which is fun. The dedicated servers have also not given me any trouble. I have not yet experienced consistent lag in my 200-plus versus games played, and matchmaking speeds are very fast too.
The modes vary and are for the most part, very fun. Warzone, Execution, and Wingman return from the past titles with minimal changes. King of the Hill has been somewhat merged into Annex creating a KOTH experience not unlike the stuff people who play Halo may be used to, with a constantly moving hill but all power weapons spawn on the map regularly. Submission and Guardian from Gears of War 2 have also had kind of a merging into Capture the Leader. However, this doesn't really play much like Guardian and more like Submission with a player controlling the person who has to be captured. I really enjoyed Guardian in Gears 2 and would not have objected to bringing it back in Gears 3. Capture The Leader is still a fun, fresh mode though. I like that the leader can squirm to slow down their captor. Very nice touch. The big new mode and now most-played mode in Gears of War 3 is Team Deathmatch. Rather than having two teams fight to reach a score, Team Deathmatch in Gears has two teams each starting with 20 lives, and it's game over for whoever hits 0 first. I like this approach and that it requires teams to protect and revive each other, and work for that save constantly. Like many other players, this is what I'm playing most often in multiplayer.
I have some minor complaints though. Some of the maps in Team Deathmatch are too easily set up to promote spawn camping which really takes away from the fun for either team. A few other maps have far too strong chokepoint areas which forces teams to fight over it to see who gets it first for the significant advantage. It becomes the only way to play those levels which makes it dreadful and boring every time. I also don't know why they don't let you bring in a regular Guest for Horde and Beast mode when you could do that in Gears 2. You can still bring a Guest into any of the competitive multiplayer but for Horde and Beast (I'm not sure about online campaign), they need to have their own gold account to sign into.
My final complaint is one I'm sure every Gears of War 3 player has heard about by now. The Sawed-Off Shotgun is meant to be a newbie-friendly weapon and I'm all for letting everyone play the game. However, the weapon doesn't work as advertised ("within melee range") and actually beats out the Gnasher cleanly. The problem with this is that it takes so little effort for people to get kills with this weapon because of it's immense power and having more range than it should. It causes some players to constantly hide and camp around corners just to make a suicide blitz to try to quickly kill someone with it, and then due to the gun's long reload time, they run away to find a new hiding spot and try to repeat. It hurts the pace of the game and devalues the close-quarters combat. It's not a significant problem and it isn't ruining Gears of War the way some people claim, but it is frustrating to see people exploit something that was intended to give less experienced players help, when in fact it has become a weapon that experienced players are using to prey on those that don't understand how it works.
Overall, Gears of War 3 is one of the most stacked, re-playable games of 2011 and a very strong contender for Game of the Year. There are lots of unlocks and tasks that reward the player no matter what they choose to play and the universal XP system (similar to Halo: Reach but without unrealistic high ranks) is smart. Gameplay is at it's finest and tightest, making it one of the most smooth to handle multiplayer games on the market. This is definitely one of those hyped killer apps that everyone should check out.