Great campaign, great multiplayer, Gears rules
Yo this game has a fuckin buttload of content, I'm not even kidding. The story mode took me about 5 days, there's 2,3,4 player co-op, regular multiplayer, Horde Mode, Beast Mode; this game is worth full price.
The game's campaign adds a lot to the Gears fiction. If you want to see things escalate with the locusts, the lambent and Marcus n Dom: the story unfolds a bit before the finale. Questions get answered, things change, and it's clear there will be no Gears 4.
I could feel that the Epic team were trying to really dive into their characters in this game, but they still didn't make a big impact. It's the most interesting these characters get in the GEARS TRILOGY-- but compared to some other character-focused games, these guys are still big angry gun-nuts.
This campaign VERY MUCH ASSUMES you've played Gears 1 and 2. They don't spend any time re-introducing you to old enemy types or old weapons, so you better already know what a Mulcher is before you pick one up. Speaking of weapons- There's so much ammo and so many split paths in this game, it's VERY CLEARLY built for co-op. Playing the campaign alone, my AI dudes had a LOT of stuff to do.
There are some new guns and enemies here, but the biggest new addition is the LAMBENT.
The Lambent are not just "exploding locusts"-- some of them don't even have guns. They're mostly a new faction of monsters that'll charge at you, spit acid on the ground, spawn smaller enemies, and do other nutty stuff that the locust don't. They're a change of pace and they make the game feel like more than just shootin grey dudes from behind a bench.
HORDE MODE was my favourite part of Gears 2 and it's almost as good here. If you've played Horde before and liked it: that's back but with more enemies and weapons. They've added some features to set up spike-traps and decoys and turrets around the map, and that's a fun extra. You can level-up your trap-laying abilities to unlock new spikes and stronger decoys over time, and I'm enjoying that.
Every 10 waves they'll send in a brumak or a reaver or some other giant monster, and those can actually be really confusing. There's one SPECIFIC WAY to kill a Berseker, and it can really drag out the game if you or your team-mates don't know how. That could've bin done better.
And Deathmatch is deathmatch. I can't get into a game of Beast Mode because there are about 8 other modes to play in this game, and nobody's playing that.
The multiplayer's absolutely full to death of Medals, Ribbons, unlocks, experience and so on. There are no "perks" in this game, or "kill streaks", but you do unlock a tonne of character models, nametags, weapon skins and Horde turret upgrades very frequently. Next to that, there's an EVENT CALENDER that says things like "PLAY THIS WEEK TO UNLOCK THE GOLD LANCER" or "PLAY TODAY FOR BIG HEAD MODE IN ALL DEATHMATCHES". Epic is really good at that, and I can see this multiplayer staying busy for a long time.
Long-story-short yes it is a great game. No part of this is absolutely killer, but Gears 3 is as strong and worthwhile an experience as any of the games before it. Baird is still annoying.
