Games Thirst – Amazing Life
The Gears of War 3 reviews are out and about, with most scoring the game 9s and 10s. But only Nick has the final say around these parts, and in his third piece, the aspiring games developer gives the final verdict on Epic Games Gears of War 3.
Gears of war 3 notes. Written By Nicholas ‘Nick’ Mirabito
Things I liked:
1: The graphics really shocked me. Gears has never been known for amazing graphics, nor has the unreal engine 3 though that’s exactly why I was so impressed with this. The texture detail is great, the lighting effects are among the best I’ve seen on consoles, and everything has a nice sleek look to it everything just looks so smooth. Solid frame rate which again really shocked me because UE3 games are notorious for having really poor frame rates. You can really tell the extra few months being pushed back from April to September really helped the game, everything just feels like it’s been gone over with a fine tooth comb which is nice after the last game I gave impressions on resistance 3 which felt like it had been developed within 12 months. By Bethesda!
2: Colour? In a UE3 game? Let alone a gears of war game? Surely not! I could not believe my eyes, almost every level in gears of war 3 is vibrant with colour, and glistening with vegetation. It’s beautiful!
3: The characters have always been one of the things that makes gears so great, and 3 is no exception. Especially Cole, every time he opened his mouth it made me laugh and put a massive smile on my face. Every character serves their purpose. They feel like they have been chosen to give a wide variety of personalities, characteristics to the game, which is so rare in games these days. Very few games get character design right, most games characters feel like they have been plucked from totally different universes. Cough Uncharted. This along with portal 2 are the exception of the rule, best character design I have seen in years.
4: Not many games get the beginning of a game right, but this nailed it. It’s a fantastic introduction to the game, and gives reasonable background to newcomers who have never played a Gears game before.
5: One thing epic are king at is level design. The openness of the levels, the areas enemies spawn, the areas where cover is placed. It’s really nice to be able to explore a little in battle instead of being thrown into cover and told here’s your enemies right in front of you pop and shoot and they will do the same. Cough KZ series. It’s nice to be able to move around and try to flank your enemies, or just get away from the ones you don’t want to kill and try get a better vantage point on others.
6: We have never seen destructible cover in a Gears game before so that was a nice welcome addition. Helps make sure people don’t cover camp, keeps the pace of the battle going and forces you to constantly change up your play style.
7: The one liners. Especially Cole, he’s just so funny! The jokes, and just the style of the game. To put it simply NOTHING puts a bigger smile on my face then playing a Gears game!
8: Another thing epic do better than anyone in the industry is enemy variety. Allot of games have plenty of varieties of enemies but they play the same, how they attack you, how you attack them, how they defend, stays the same. Killzone for example. You have enemies with shotguns, SMGs, snipers, rocket launchers, ect, ect. But the way you take them out stays exactly the same, just pop into cover and pop and shoot because they do the same they very rarely leave cover they always stay in front so you’re not forced to leave cover unless a grenade comes to say hello.
Gears though, you have tickers, the lampent, polups, so many different enemies forcing you to change up your tactics. You can cover camp if you want to but then tickers come or those heavily armoured enemies with swinging grenades come and blow you six ways from Sunday. That’s the whole point of having enemy variety, to force the player to constantly change their tactics and it helps stop the gameplay from getting boring and repetitive.
9: The story is not very good, it’s not in depth, it’s not well thought out, it does not come together too well, but with that said just the characters alone make it a worthwhile journey. The characters feel so life like, so when a character dies you really do feel for them and for the other characters you really do build up a repour with them. Especially between Dom, Marcus and Anya there so close to each other and you really start to grow a affection for them.
10: The gore is fantastic, just the creativity on ways to kill your enemies. Epic have this trademarked that is one thing I love about them you can always tell a game is made by them by the way it plays. If it has creative kills, lots of gore and is extremely humours then chances are Epic had a hand in it. No one does the tong in cheek humour as well as Epic, and that’s what makes their games so great. Allot of games these days take themselves too seriously, oh no you can’t do that its far too unrealistic. Epic say is it fun? Yes? Then to hell with reality son!
11: The weapons have a fantastic feel to them and there is a decent variety of them. Every single one feels well balanced, and extremely entertaining and effective to use.
12: Vehicle levels are so much fun, i was really disappointed there were not more. There was so many of them in Gears 2 but allot less in this which was disappointing I thought they were the games strongest point.
13: There are no loading screens between levels which was a shock. Great addition though, it’s really nice switching from level to level in cut scenes instead of ugly loading screens. Only death brings you to a loading screen.
14: The previously in gears introduction was a really cool feature great for those who have never played a Gears game before, or like me has been a while and can’t remember what happens. It’s a shame they did not use it more. More games need to do what Alan Wake did. After each chapter give a short briefing on what happened in the last chapter, that way if you left the game for a while your not scrambling to understand what happened.
15: CO-OP! STORY CO-OP! I can’t stress how important this is, I’m so happy to see story based co-op is coming back! In the old days almost every single game had co-op but this gen very few games did, though this year it’s making a strong come back. Special modes built for it like BF3s or MW3s co-op is nice but it’s not the same as story co-op.
16: Horde mode, arcade mode, beast mode, normal multiplayer. My lord this game has so many different ways to play. Horde mode was a blast, they have really overhauled it since previous gears games Epic have done a fantastic job refreshing the game but keeping it still feeling like a gears game.
17: It feels like a gears game. Now I know that sounds stupid but so many sequels these days change so much they don’t feel like sequels anymore more like new IPs. Infamous 2 for example, the powers were so drastically changed and the level design was so drastically changed it felt like a different game. Gears 3 though does not, it feels exactly how it should. A new game wrapped in the older games. It has everything its predecessors has, it has taken then and polished them to perfection, adding a few minor things and adding totally new things. Exactly what a sequel should be like.
Developers struggle with sequels, they either don’t add enough new things or change the game too much. I have read allot of reviews complaining that gears 3 does not do anything different. So? If you want a different game, why are you playing a gears game? If you want a FPS are you going to go play Gran Turismo? I’m so happy Epic have not fallen with the other developers in trying to change this too much. They have perfected what they could perfect, change what they needed to, added a few things and been done with it. No drastic changes to keep these idiotic reviewers happy. Nothing now, oh please these people should be slapped and banned from reviewing games! Too similar. Isn’t that a sequels point?
18: The game has such an expansive collection of stats you can go through. From mundane things like how many kills you got with each weapon, to all the collectables you found, which executions you have performed, things that really come in handy for those looking to unlock everything.
19: the ranking up system in the single player campaign is a brilliant idea.
20: Timed active reloads really come in handy especially in the overwhelmed areas with low health.
21: The HUD you can pull up with LB whenever you want really comes in handy at times. Whether it’s to figure out where to go, or to find out where your teammates are. One thing I hate about allot of today’s games are they don’t give you enough instructions on where to go so you easily get lost wondering around for 20 minutes trying to figure out where to go. Can’t all games have a HUD showing you where to go? Not much to ask is it?
22: The boss battles, while few are so much fun! The boss battle on the boat Epic showed at the Jimmy Fallon show was by far my favourite moment in the game.
23: The sound effects are really good. Not guns themselves they sound like someone farted, no seriously I’ve never understood why guns in gears games are so quiet but besides those its really good. Explosions have a strong punch, and the smooch sound when you blow a enemies head off is ever so satisfying.
24: There is so many ways to kill enemies, from shooting them to blowing them up but that’s the boring stuff. It’s much more fun to wound them then you can curb stomp them, do a execution move specific to each weapon, or bag them and tag them which entails grabbing a downed enemy then tagging a grenade to them turning them into mince meat.
Things I did not like:
1: NOTHING! No seriously there is not a single thing I did not like with this game.
Things that need improvement:
1: The weapons while fantastic fun, there is not much of a variety. You have a million and one machine guns. A million and one pistols. A million and one snipers. A million and one grenades. But no outlandish weird cool Epic branded weapons. Epic do weird what the $#@% things so well, so it would be really cool to see some new quirky what the types of weapons from them. Every weapon in the game is the standard run of the mill weapon you would see in every other game, come on I want to see the outlandish Epic branded weapons like they do enemies. You see enemies in a gears game and say what the $#%@ how the hell did they think of that! I want to be feeling and saying the same thing when I find a new weapon.
2: AI needs improvement. It’s really inconsistent, the friendly AI is very good, every single time I died was because of a instant kill like a chainsaw to the back not because the AI did not revive me. MASSIVE improvement over Gears 2! The enemy AI though was as dumb as a door knob. So many times I would be shooting a new hole into a enemy in front of him and he would just stand there like a stunned mullet. I’d be lining up my one shot to give him a new breathing hole and he would just sit there like a stunned mullet. I would drop a grenade at his feet and he would sit there like a stunned mullet.
3: The length is just FAR too short! I did not time it, but on rough calculation I think it took me 10 hours to finish it. That’s far too short, especially for a game of this calibre. I was enjoying it so much I wish it lasted another 20! Last game I enjoyed this much was inFAMOUS.
4: The guns go pop. Why? I have never understood this, Gears games just don’t have gun effects. Why? It really takes away from the experience, you really need good sound effects it adds to the immersion so much! Especially for a war game.
5: One thing that made Gears 2 so good to me was the fantastic gore. It’s back with 3 but sort of toned down. In Gears 2 you could blow off enemies heads so easily and blood would gush like a fountain and enemies would stay upright. Gears 3 only time I blew a enemies head off was with a sniper and they dropped straight down. Also in Gears 2 when you shot a enemy with a shotgun or blew them up with a grenade you could see bits of flesh flying all over the place. With 3 though you don’t, a shotgun just results in a red mist like someone coughed up red cordial. I know complaining about gore is silly, but what makes this game so great is exactly the gore it just adds to the humour. Blowing a enemy up with my shotgun in gears 2 put a massive smile on my face simply because of the bits of flesh I could see flying.
6: Where are the boss battles? As I have said multiple times Epic are famous for their boss battles. I turn you to the giant worm from Gears 2, I was expecting a massive boss battle with a what the creature like that in Gears 3 but it never came. ? This games allot like Resistance 3 actually. A great game, but scale wise its been toned down allot. Both R2 and Gears 2 had lots of epic massive boss battles, but both R3 and Gears 3 don’t. Allot of games this gen are shying away from the massive epic boss battles, why? Come on developers boss battles are essential! They not only add to the story, they change up the gameplay, add in a challenge, and give you a chance to show off your creativity and technical skills.
Nothing wows gamers more than a creative boss battle thats massive. The perfect boss battle is against a enemy that is so weird and creative like the giant worm in gears 2, and massive like the boss battle against Chronos in God Of War 3. That is really the only thing that has not met my expectations, in the upcoming months every time this game was mentioned I was always asking how will Epic top the massive worm from gears 2. I was exploding with excitement to see how they would top the boss battles, but they have not. That really disappointed me.
Conclusion: I had so much fun with this game. I had MASSIVE expectations and it has pretty much met them and in some areas exceeded them. There were a few things I was disappointed on like the lack of epic massive boss battles like what Gears 2 had & the length. But besides those everything either met or exceeded my expectations. Epic have once again brought a intoxicating game with fantastic characters, a tong in cheek story, fantastic weapons, and above all else a massively fun gameplay. The reason I and I think everyone loves Gears so much is the humour, the weird quirky style epic give, the multiple ways you can kill enemies. The humour and the gameplay make the game so much fun! Though with that said I have to say I enjoyed Gears 2 more simply because it was longer, and it had that gritty gore Gears 3 was missing. The level design, the characters, everything was better in Gears 3 except for the boss battles and the gore. Sound familiar? Its resistance 3 all over again. I said the exact same thing about Resistance 3, that it was better than 2 in every aspect besides boss battles. Why do developers hate boss battles? Take the boss battles from R2 and put them in R3 and R3 would of been the perfect game. Take the boss battles from Gears 2 and put them in Gears 3 along with the aforementioned gore, make it longer and Gears 3 would have been the perfect game.
That said though the simple fact is NOTHING puts a larger smile on my face then sitting down and playing a Gears of war game with my friends. NOTHING! There’s a reason why every single time a TPS comes out it is compared to Gears, Gears is simply the best no matter what those Uncharted fanboys will tell you! So for putting a massive smile on my face and more or less delivering on everything I wanted with Gears 3 I have to send out a massive thank you and congratulations to the guys at Epic. Please guys don’t fall in with the norm. Keep your individuality, keep you’re wacky out there humour ways and I will love you guys till the end of time!
Nicholas ‘Nick’ Mirabito is now in college studying to become a games developer, and is currently working on his own game. We can’t wait to see it. He is also Gamesthirst’s most avid and popular user.
