Gears of War 3 is a third person shooter that relies heavily on co-operative gameplay. Gears 3 is developed by Epic Games and Published by Microsoft Game Studios. The previous games in this series are two of my favourite games on the Xbox 360 if not overall. So it isn’t surprising that I was extremely excited about this games release.
The game opens up 18 months after Gears of War 2 with both the COG and the Locust on the run from the infected Lambent. Now that the COG now in their worst state yet, on the defensive, having to scavenge for supplies the battle seems useless. After a short while the shit hits the fan (surprise). The ship that Marcus and his crew are stationed on gets attacked by a Lambent Leviathan, while defending the ship Marcus finds out that his father who he once thought dead is still alive. It is now down to Marcus and his team of Gears to find his farther and hopefully end the Lambent and Locust threat for good.
The game at its base is a Third Person, Co-operative shooter that relies heavily on taking and firing from cover (much like Gears of War 1 and 2). This works excellently and feels fantastic. Tapping A to pop into a covering position and then using the analogue stick to pop out of cover and fire on your enemy works perfectly. After a while it becomes second nature and I actually wish more games would use this same cover system (and actually use it well not fuck it up). The Co-op is great too playing through the campaign with 3 friends (which is how it is supposed to be played in my opinion) messing everything up in your path. Co-op allows you to work together to flank enemies and fire on them from all sides. The Co-operative aspect of the game actually carries over to every single mode. You can take your party from the campaign into the Horde mode or verses multiplayer. The campaign is not especially long but is an average length for today’s games. Although even if you do think that the campaign is too short for you there are plenty of other modes to play. There is the Horde mode where you take your team into a round based game which gets more difficult as it progresses. Verses multiplayer which in itself has multiple modes but the basic death match is my favourite you are given a set amount of lives per team and the first team to lose all those lives loses that round. But my ultimate favourite mode of the whole game is the beast mode which is basically the Horde mode in reverse. Your team plays as the Locust and you have to take out a team of human survivors that have set base on the map. Each level getting progressively more difficult. In this mode only the base Locust are available until you amass enough points to unlock the next tier finally opening up the final tier allowing you to use the likes of the Berserker (my favourite) and the Armoured Kantus. The game has a hell of allot to do and is enough to keep anyone busy.
The game runs on Unreal’s own engine and looks bloody fantastic. The other Geaars games look great but this has to be the best looking game on the 360 of this generation so far. The browns and greys of the original 2 games are still quite present but there are times, frequently too the Gears of War 3 throws allot of colour at you. One level in particular stood out to me as looking fantastic. It is a later level in the game that takes place purely underwater, the water effects and lighting in this section is amazing.
Gears of war 3 is purely amazing, one of the best games I have played ever. Definitely the best Gears of War games. The selection of game modes, the great story (I know I was surprised of that in a gears game too) and brilliant gameplay mechanics make one perfect game in my opinion. The boss battles do seem a little tacked on but only occur twice and barely take away from the game overall. Purely brilliant game. Thumbs up.