Gears Of War 3, The Final Chapter In Epic Games’ Trilogy

Gears of War 3 was released in late 2011.  It is the final part of the Gears of War trilogy and certainly delivered what everyone was expecting out of it.  It has a lot of content for players who favor different kinds of play.  It introduced the all new beast mode, brought back an updated horde mode, along with multiplayer and up to four player co-op campaign.

The campaign in Gears of War 3 was very well done, providing hours of gameplay.  The story wasn’t incredible by any means, but it was good enough for me to find interesting at least.  It wrapped everything up at least, unlike a lot of other games, which just leave things open.  The ability to play with four players was a big improvement over the previous games in the series, which only allowed for two players.

Horde mode in Gears 3 was better than ever.  It varied the waves that came, so that each time you played it was different.    The addition of money and buying defenses to help you was also a very nice idea, adding more strategy to the gameplay. It also added boss waves every tenth wave.  I just wish that they could have found a way to make everything harder without just increasing the enemy health and damage like in the previous games.  One thing about horde mode is that it didn’t seem to take the number of players into account, which means that whether there is one player or five it has the same level of difficulty.  For players like me who enjoyed going it alone against the horde, this can make things incredibly difficult, especially during boss waves when distraction and lots of firepower is needed.  Other than that though, horde is a lot more interesting, with more enemy types, more weapons, and all of the flexibility that money can bring.

Beast mode was a new game mode added in Gears of War 3.  Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations.  The point is to play as different Locust, and overrun COG positions before time runs out.  For every defense you destroy and COG you kill, you receive money and time.  You spend that money to play as different Locust.  The stronger the creature you play as, the more money it will cost.  After receiving enough funds, you unlock the next level of Locust.  It’s a lot of fun the first few times you play, but it just loses its luster after a while.  Everything is just too repetitive for true replay value.  The enemies are pretty much the same every time and the forces you choose from are also the same.  After annihilating the COG with a Berserker a few times, it kind of loses the thrill.

Multiplayer is surprisingly intense, especially now that the game has been out for over a year.  In my experience, almost everyone who plays is very good, leagues above say, people who play social slayer in Halo games.  If you aren’t all that great at the game, then you will have a very difficult time playing this game online.  Also, prepare yourself for constant shotgun battles, which can be a good or bad thing for you.  There are a lot of multiplayer maps and they are quite varied, allowing for plenty of different experiences.  The servers are good, so there isn’t much lag, unlike Gears of War 2.

In the end, Gears of War 3 has a lot to offer, especially now that the price has dropped.  It allows for splitscreen as well.  Even without an online connection you can still team up with a friend against bots and have a good time, or go head to head with a friend of course.  The game is well polished and is definitely work checking out.

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