Gears of War 3

Gears of War 3 is due out on September 20^th on Xbox 360. Back in May this year the game had already passed the one million pre-order mark making this already the fastest selling game in the history of the 360.

Developed by Epic Games, this is the final part in the Gears of War trilogy. The Gears of War franchise is massive, having won over 30 Game of the Year awards and sold more than twelve million copies, with toys, books and film in production, you can see this is an incredibly popular series, so Gears of War 3 has a lot of live up to.

For those not familiar with the series, this isa third person sci-fi shooter with both a single player game to work your way though, and an impressive multiplayer mode, including four player co-op which is a new addition for this third game in the series.

Once again you start the game as soldier Marcus Fenix, but you’ll get the opportunity to play as other characters throughout the game. There are several new characters in Gears of War 3, some are particularly noteworthy so I’ll mention them quickly. There’s Griffin, the leader of the Stranded, a group of human survivors. Griffin is voiced by Ice-T. If you’ve read the books written by Karen Traviss set in the Gears of War universe, then the character Bernadette Mataki will be familiar to you, and Sci-Fi fans may recognise the voice of Samantha Byrne as Claudia Black, the actress from Farscape and Stargate SG-1.

There are some stunning new enemies and we see the return of the Berserkers, ordinary and Lambent, and you’ll also be impressed with some great new weaponry such as the Digger Launcher, this gun launches small burrowing creatures through the ground that then explode, the Retro Lancer, a lancer with a blade bayonet and the One Shot, a sniper rifle that will take out an enemy with just one shot. There is also a new reload feature called Active Reload. With a bit of practice you’ll be able to stop a pointer on a meter in the right stop and reload quicker.

The story for Gears of War 3 is the most immersive of the Gears of War series. The storyline has been written by the science fiction author Karen Traviss. Karen has also written several Gears of War novels.

You can be sure this game has been thoroughly play tested as 1.29 million gamers have spent the equivalent of 249 years playing the online beta on Xbox LIVE.

The game is visually beautiful, have a look at some of the videos on YouTube etc and you’ll have to agree, it’s stunning. The cinematic sequences are fabulous, you feel like you’re watching a movie and not a game at times, the story is shown to you in these sequences so you really feel you know what is going on, not just what your mission in the game is, but actually why you’re doing it!

There is a lot of variation in the gameplay, from big battles to some very creepy survial-horror type missions, which if I’m honest are pretty scary! There are definitely some parts of this game that call for being played alone in a darkened room for the ultimate atmosphere. It is a fast paced game and you’ll find your enemies are pretty intelligent so there’s a good mix of running around shooting, along with the need for some more methodical tactical techniques. It’s a lot of fun to play.

There are thirty chapters to play through, and as I said earlier, it’s pretty diverse. There’s even a mine cart level, all the best games have a mine cart level in my opinion! The chapters are of different lengths which is nice in that you never quite know when a level will end or how much further you have to go. Some of the environments are absolutely massive, and the level of detail is very impressive.

It’s a visually stunning game, but the sound and music is also incredibly impressive with just the right level of tension and spookiness in just the right places.

There are three difficulties, the hardest being appropriately named Insane. If you can finish this game on the Insane setting, well I’ll be very impressed!

Of course once you’ve completed the single player game, you’ll be wanting to get on Xbox LIVE and play multiplayer online, so what’s that like? Well, there’s a deathmatch mode for eight players in two teams of four called Warzone. You play in either Exection mode where all team members must be killed, or Assassination mode where you must kill the team leader. The maps are brilliantly designed and it’s really addictive, you’ll be playing this game for a long time. You can also get your mates round and play split-screen.

If that wasn’t enough, we’ve also heard there’ll be DLC coming along too!