Gears of War 3 Review

Okay guys, here it is: My review of Gears of War 3.  And just because I can I'm gonna go ahead and throw one of these in here:

Obvious warning is obvious.

Okay so now that thats out of the way and those who don't want to know anything about what happens have left I can get on with it!.

So if you remember, last week I kinda covered what happened in Gears 1 and 2 for all those who either couldn't/too high to remember or who were too lazy to go play it through themselves.  Well it turns out that most of those events were deemed "unimportant" by Epic seeing as they didn't end up in their "Previously on Gears.." video.  So eh, be glad I posted it or hate me for wasting your time.

Gears 3 on the other hand starts off with a flashback, Marcus in prison, only this time Anya releases him.  After going out side tou fight Locust in a dream about how Marcus' father, Adam, "died".  Waking from the dream Delta squad is called to action stations, this is where we meet Jace.  We go outside to see Labment stalks surrounding the ship.  Prescott lands, after a mere 18 months of being on vacation from saving humanity, and brings with him news of Adam.  The Lambent attack, people die and remember that GIANT FISH?  Well this time its back, only now it glows in the dark.  Needless to say you gotta kill it, so lets take these things called Silverbacks, exosuits with a machine gun and rocket launcher, or in other words:  fun.  You serve fish Medium Rare and cut to Cole and Baird.

Samantha Byrne

Jace Stratton

Cole and Baird were sent to look for supplies along with Clayton Carmine, the badass older brother, and Sam Byrne, some badass female gear who tries to act like she's not a girl.  They visit Coles home city of Hanover, and eventually his old stadium where he has a cinematic moment of famedom for old times.  Then onto the bridge to see Stranded Locust, and Tickers in crates, which is how they kill the Lambent Leviathan.  Act 2 goes through some clean up of the wreckage to find Delta squad and get to Prescotts dying ass to see why he came back.  Turns out there is a research base called Azura where Adam Fenix is working on a Lambent killer so we set off to a place called Anvil Gate.  And on the way we dodge Locust attacks and Queen Myrrah and here skank ass as Cole so adeptly puts it.

Queen Myrrah

After picking up Dizzy and getting to Anivl gate to meet up with Hoffman and Bernie, and Islander with a few screws loose in her head.  The locust attack, followed by Lambent and oh joy our favorite thing in the world: a Lambent Berserker.  If you thought the Berserkers had some bad mood swings the Zerker makes them look like a well behaved child in 16th Century England.  After the Zerker blows up we see what is going on with Azura, and how to get there: by submarine.  Delta goes off to get fuel from Mercy, where Dom's wife Maria is from, and Char, the first place to be destroyed by the Hammer of Dawn.  In Mercy some bad shit happened and we now have Lambent humans, oh the humanity.  Something else happens that I won't tell you as to not ruin the moment.  Next door in Char we meet up with some Griffin guy, voiced by the one and only Ice T, who runs a Immulsion factory there, needless to say he doesn't like the COG.  Myrrah attacks and everyone gets pissed and leaves to find a submarine to take to Azura. 

After fixing the sub up and having a nice fun little moment of fishing with rocket launchers we get to Azura, and let the revelations hit the fan.  I won't ruin all of them so don't worry.  Delta proceeds to turn off the Malestorm generator that protects the island in order to land some backup from former enemies UIR state Goryasna.  You climb a tower to get to Adam Fenix where our favorite Queen tries to stop you while she bitches that despite working on the Lambent problem for twenty years he has had no success and she wont let her "people" die.  After wiping out the Locust guarding Adam you reach the top of the tower and proceed to turn on the "Weapon" which is like a giant microwave emitter that combusts Lambent cells all over the planet.  Turns out the Lambent are actually a parasitic mushroom that kills its host because its not a very good parasite.  Long and short you stab the Queen, watch Adam die and see Carmine Live/Die (come on, did you really think that I was going to ruin this one?).

Clayton Carmine: Professional Badass

The only downsides to the campaign is that they figured that you would have read the books before playing the game, which makes sense but not everyone is a reader (Insert plea for a Gears movie here).  They also seem to forget that killing Lambent takes up a lot of ammo and that more ammo boxes would really help.  Also if anyone seems to recall your favorite non pistol/Lancer/Gnasher weapon and you decide to pick it up, just be smart and conserve ammo, or you will run out.  The large ammo boxes no longer fully restore your ammo to max, or even give you ammo on all guns so it forces you to play smart.  The Retro Lancer makes its debut in Gears 3 and its does give itself a good showing.  While its melee is really good and powerful, aiming with it while shooting feels like trying to steer a charging Rhino while being attacked by a chimpanzee.  The Hammerburst and Longshot also both take on a new feature; The Hammerburst shows off its Iron Sights while the Longshot brags a non zoomed focus where you click RS to zoom on in.

Delta fighting the Lambent.

The Silverback and Civilian Loader both control rather similarly but the both boast a melee attack that can hardly be called effective, or at least under fire.  Two new "turret" weapons make an appearance: the One Shot and the Vulcan.  The One Shot is just that, a high powered sniper rifle that probably shoots bowling balls where the Leveler is a 2 man gun that is fast on the feet but needs a second person to load.

Now, no matter what you thought of the campaign you do have to give them props for everything else, more multiplayer based achievements, community events, 4 player Co-Op, and Berserkes in Horde mode.  Thats right, Berserkers in Horde mode, also did I mention that they come in the Lambent variety too?  Overall all of the multiplayer is really good, people just need to learn how to not leave the damn game after dying one time.

As I said before Horde mode had a total overhaul where you can build barriers and turrets to help defend yourself against attack, or you can save your in game money to buy ammo and weapons, unless the enemies are being generous and drop theirs on the ground for you to loot.  You get money for every point you earn and thats how you get upgrades to your turrets and weapons, and even a second life.  Every 10 waves there is a boss fight that can range from anything from a Brumak to a Zerker (fun).  Every so often you'll get some Lambent and Locust and then its a 3 way fight where you still want to get in close and personal just so you don't loose any chances to make money.  Now opposite to Horde is a mode called Beast mode.  In Beast mode you play as the Locust to kill humans.  Now thats an interesting twist, you play as the underdogs for once, wait, wait, in the whole campaign don't they always complain that Locust are so much "more powerful" and "better equipped" than humans?  Well Beast mode doesn't feel that way.  This may be because you're timed, and all the barricades are pretty much fully built with auto-turrets.  Its pretty fun, but its also pretty hard, yet again making you think.

Lambent Berserker

Overall Gears 3 is a great way to end a great series.  Going out on a high note on almost every aspect of the game, with stress on the almost part.  The graphics and sound keep up from the last games and like I said the gameplay is almost the same.  However I do thoroughly enjoy it and will keep playing it for a while yet to come.  Gears of War 3 gets a blood-gushing 9 curbstomps, out of 10.

Gears of War 3: Everything you Need to Know

Next week we are going to be given a game that will end an era of our lives (and not like Halo where they claim to have ended it but Microsoft then announcing another trilogy).  Of course I'm talking about Gears of War 3.  Now for those of us who are unfamiliar with the Gears of War franchise Gears is a video game trilogy which takes place on the planet Sera where a horde of creatures, The Locust, from the bowels of the planet has arisen to fight humanity and seize the planet.  This being after humans have been fighting each other for near 100 years in what was called the Pendulum Wars.  The last remaining group of civilized society is called the COG, the Coalition of Ordered Governments.

In Gears of War 1 we are introduced to our rather overly disgruntled group of heroes: Marcus, Dom, Baird, and the Cole Train.  Marcus is a war hero of the last war who was sent to prison for abandoning his post to attempt to rescue his father, is the main protagonist.  Him and Dom have a very distinct history, I'm not going to get into it mainly because the books are just hard to cover since they jump around so much, all you really need to know is that Marcus, Dom, and Carlos (Dom's older brother) were childhood friends.  Dom is desperately trying to find his wife which is a prevalent factor in both games.  Baird is some sort of mechanical super genius, a natural engineer if you would.  This comes in handy as he fixes almost anything that breaks that Delta Squad come across.  Cole is a former 'thrashball' super star who turned to military service on E-Day, when the locust first emerged.  He acts all tough but he really is the squads teddy bear.

Delta Squad - Baird, Cole, Marcus, and Dom

The game starts with Dom rescuing Marcus from prison to help him on a mission to drop a sonic resonator inside the locust tunnels.  From there we meet a man named Hoffman.  Turns out, because you can't resist dramatic tension, that Hoffman and Marcus have a rather colorful past.  Marcus was in Hoffmans' unit when he abandoned his post to look for his father, so Hoffman has a tiny bit of a grudge.  Here we also meet Anya, the only woman that's left in the world.  She's the voice that you hear in the back of you head the entire game, literally the entire game.  So after fighting through Jacinto and reaching a place called The House of Soverigns, the COG capitol, we are introduced to Cole and Baird.  After we meet them and get the sonic resonator they fight a female locust on steroids called a Berserker, how the Locust reproduce I have no idea.

From here we meet a group of stranded who say they have a Truck for you, you just gotta go get it and fuel it up, oh and did we mention that there is flying bats (the Kryll) that will literally cut you in half if you walk in the dark?  Good thing we have flashlight, oh no flashlights?  Well too bad, deal with it.  So we get the piece of junk beater, drive back, fight some more locust, rescue Baird and Cole and get back to our objective: Going to an abandoned imulsion, fuel, mine to place the resonator.  Yay for exploding monkeys.  So Delta fights their way through the refinery, Dom and Marcus through the upper part and Baird and Cole through the sewers, more "Ahh, Shit!"'s are to be had and they place the resonator.  Then its back to the surface to find out why you fail.

On the surface Hoffman contacts Delta with bad news, the resonator didn't work (because Baird didn't make it) and it turns out that Marcus's fathers bots have mapped more of the tunnels than the resonator did so its up to Delta to get the targeting data.  Marcus and Dom go to the Fenix estate to find the data that the COG is looking for.  But that's not all they find, they also find the entire locust horde having a BBQ outside the estate, needless to say Marcus expresses his one feeling: being pissed off.  They clear the house, get the data then off to the (Cole) Train station to get on a train to blow up the Locust tunnels.  There on the Train they encounter General RAAM, the big bad Locust General.  They kill him, launch the Lightmass Bomb, more aptly a missile, into the Locust tunnels.  They do this, everybody celebrates, we won the war, games over.

General RAAM

However 6 months later we find Delta in yet another similar situation, only this time Jacinto is going to fall to the Locust.  Turns out the Lightmass didn't do anything, save for kill the Kryll, and only made the Locust even more resolute to kill humanity.

The COG and Chairman(Furher) Prescot, being desperate, decide to attack first.  So after Marcus, Dom and Tai (an islander that is tougher than a rock and more shamanistic than a Wow player during his weekly raid) rescue a hospital from the Locust, by literally destroying it, they head out of town to the Derreck Docks.  It is here we meet the Dizzy, and Betty, one of the many Redneck powered land assault platforms the COG has in its arsenal.  As you make your way to a place called Landfall you are given plenty of opportunities to mow down Locust in a turret to help kill time on the ride.  Outside of Landfall you must get out to kill some new Locust called Tickers, little walking bombs that like to run up to you and nom your face off with explosions.  So you gotta escort Betty on foot.  300 tickers later you reach the cemetery and set off to The Hallow, but not before being attacked by Skorge, a Locust general that dramatically wields a Two-Headed chainsaw.  Tai and Dizzy fight him while the rest of Delta go underground to find what is sinking cities.

Dizzy, Maria, Tai, and Skorge

Once underground we navigate a series of tunnels to find out that the Locust are actually taking human prisoners to work as slaves in their mines, or to rape them horribly, nobody knows.  Aboard on of the tunneling machines you run into Tai again, only hes all cut up from his fight with Skorge, Marcus hands him a shotgun which Tai returns the favor by shooting his head off.  So further down the tunnel we run into a wall that suddenly disappears, what could it be?  After a giant loop we suddenly encounter the city of Landfall, again, underground, along with a GIANT WORM.  This is where Marcus Screams out the most ridiculous line in the series to date: "Anya, its a Giant Worm! They're sinking cities with a giant worm!"  Hooray for terrific writers!  In the sunken landfall Delta meets up with Cole and Baird again, and gets trapped on top of a building and has to fight for evac because the COG's plan failed, yet again.

Yes Marcus, we know.

After getting evac Delta shows how truly bad ass they are by getting eaten, by the GIANT WORM.  They go travel through it to cut its hearts to pieces, kill it and end up having to chainsaw their way out of it proving once again that all of life real problems can be solved by cutting it in half.

Hoffman once again contacts them with a "Special" mission for Delta to investigate an old research lab where they learn of the Sires, children taken from their parents that were turned into locust like creatures, only this is before the locust ever came into the picture.  It raises the question of did humans create the locust?  Probably, we really are that dumb you know.  So after fighting through the facility we run into Razor Hail, quite literally knives raining down to cut you to pieces, well not knives but hail that is as sharp as knives.  So dodging from cover to cover to survive the little encounter Marcus and Dom work their way back to the tank where they proceed up the mountain to make their way into the Hallow.

Once inside Delta runs into a group of stranded who says that they have seen Maria, Doms wife, and that she was with some dude named Stu.  So after finding the camp ground empty they leave to take a boat to the Hallow to continue on with their mission when they encounter a GIANT FISH!!  Yes, a GIANT FISH and a GIANT WORM are in Gears of War 2.  The GIANT FISH, named a Leviathan, quickly is cut into sushi and Dom and Marcus land at a boat dock next to the Hallow.  From here they travel down the highway where they run into a group of cells.  Dom stops to see if Maria is in any of them.  Turns out she is, and she is also malnourished and dies in Doms arm, *inset sadness here*.  Dom and Marcus now go on a murdering rampage to kill every Locust lay eyes on.

A GIANT FISH

Once in the heart of the Hallow they set off a beacon to notify Gears topside to come down and help them clear out a nice place to kill Locust.  They run into Baird and Cole, see a giant palace for the Locust Queen, and head there immediately.  Inside the palace Marcus finds a terminal with a recording of his father on it, and plans that the Locust are going to flood the hallow to stop the Lambent (glow in the dark Locust), Cole goes on a rant about how the locust are all whinny ass bitches and how the COG is gonna layeth the smacketh down.  Now its off to see the Queen and Skorge, epic fight with Skorge while the Queen escapes.  In pursuit, Delta escapes on flying horses with Skorge in pursuit.

Once back in Jacinto Delta informs Hoffman and Prescot of the Locust plans and they set out to sink Jacinto before the Locust can so they can catch them off guard.  Shit hits the fan, Dom and Marcus get on a Brumak (giant walking tank of a Locust) and start killing everything they see.  The Brumak makes it to the center of Jacinto, yet again hooray storytelling, and goes Lambent.  Delta pulls out their satellite lasers, The Hammer of Dawn, and yes I will say it, the drop the hammer.  Brumak goes BOOM, city sinks, and you hear Adam Fenix's voice say "No, what have you done."

So that's Gears of War so far in a nutshell.  Gears of War 3 comes out next week and all indicators point in the general awesome direction with plenty more "Ahh Shit."'s ahead.  So my advice get it, should be a good time.  Next week: Gears of War 3.

Brothers to the End

Hello World

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen and welcome to Breaking The Mold.  Breaking The Mold is a blog about video games, movies and other parts of pop culture and some issues that will arise from them and their impacts on society, or at least in my views.  Its an opinion based blog, but that is the beauty of the internet, I can post whatever I want and still consider it something that, taken with a grain of salt, people can look at to help form their own opinions.  I plan to post either weekly or biweekly and I may reveal a little about my next weeks post during the previous week.  So with that being said I'd once again like to thank you and welcome you to the blog, hope to see you around.