RAmpersaND

@MGSolid86: I'm not ready to admit it's not the best game of the year!

I've only completed Pierce's "City Takeover Introduction Missions", but I'm already in awe of "The Third". This latest installment in the Saints Row series both looks and plays much better than either of its predecessors. I haven't enjoyed unadulterated gaming fun like this since Super Mario Galaxy 2!

The Good: Multi-player is the first of Battlefield 3's two discs for a reason: this is the way the game was meant to be played. I'm fortunate in that I have three close friends who enjoy playing online as three different classes. As our squad's Recon, I hugely enjoy spotting enemy troops and vehicles before rushing into the fray myself. Seventeen hours of service have elevated me to Rank 17 thus far, and I can easily picture myself re-enlisting for seventeen hours more!

The Bad: BF3's campaign, when played on Hard, is brutally difficult; it's not so much challenging as it is downright frustrating. I can't count the number of times I died simply because I'd dared to poke my head out of cover for two whole seconds to shoot someone. On Hard, it took me about 90 minutes and 50 continues to complete the game's penultimate mission, "Kaffarov"; replaying that same mission on Normal took me less than half the time, and I died just once!

Is there really no setting between a Hard mode that feels like Insane and a Normal mode that feels like Easy? On the one hand, the frequent deaths that I faced on Hard nearly ruined the plot's pacing for me; on the other hand, I'm guessing that if I'd played through BF3's entire campaign on Normal, I would've been itching for a more substantial challenge. Yet this is a minor complaint, considering that - as I mentioned before - BF3 is designed for online play!

The Stand-out Moment: Scoring my first Roadkill with the MAV!

The Verdict: 9.5 (out of 10)

I'm new to the Battlefield franchise, but this installment has already won me over. Multi-player reminds me of MW2, if all of the latter's killstreak rewards were replaced with vehicles and larger maps. BF3's campaign feels polished, too... though I doubt that anyone comes for the single-player!

@tunaburn: I already explained how Gears 2 improved upon the multi-player from the original Gears; you explain to me how Gears 3 improved upon the multi-player from Gears 2, beyond adding new maps. Keep in mind that "re-balanced weapons" is a feature that could've simply been a patch for Gears 2.

@TooWalrus: I went into this write-up assuming that most people who read it would've already played and enjoyed the first two Gears, just like I did; those kinds of readers don't need to have all of the things that Gears games traditionally get right spelled out for them, so I didn't bother listing them all.

@Mystyr_E: I expected Epic to innovate the series' multi-player gameplay, just like they did when they developed Gears 2.

@The_Laughing_Man: Shotguns were indeed nerfed; that doesn't mean that they were "100% re-done". Part of the reason why I stopped playing Gears 2 was that other players would exploit host advantage to land chainsaw kills from huge distances. Not everyone was using solely shotguns!

@TheVeteran13: I'm not saying that Epic should have stopped after Gears 2, but "considering that [Gears 3's] single-player is a plodding mess and its multi-player feels like little more than a glorified Gears 2 map pack", they certainly could have, at least from this consumer's perspective!

@tunaburn: If every gun had been "100% re-done", they would've been completely different weapons. "100% re-done" isn't an analysis; it's a marketing slogan.

I admitted that Gears 3's graphics were better than Gears 2's graphics; you counter that they're much better. I don't see how that's an argument worth having.

Lastly, I'm honestly sorry that you loved the story, especially if you loved it for the character development and surprises; both were largely non-existent.

PS: The game's campaign definitely was too easy, even on Hardcore. I just forgot to mention that complaint amidst all my other griping!

The Good: The series made me like Baird for once! The controls are nearly flawless. Multi-player comes in a variety of deathmatch and objective flavors.

The Bad: Everything else? First and foremost, the campaign's story is lacking in every way: its premise, plot, and storytelling all disappoint.

In short, Gears 3 is the story of Adam Fenix's quest to eradicate the Lambent. When I began Gears 3's campaign, I didn't remember much of anything about Marcus's dad or his "glowy" nemeses... which was especially strange given that I had just watched the 2-minute "previously in" video that Gears 3 offers. Said crash course in Gears history discusses E-Day, the Hammer of Dawn, the Stranded, and Jacinto... then introduces the Lambent as if they were a brand-new threat. Am I not the only one who'd forgotten about them since 2008? This video doesn't even allude to Adam, and it's his project that drives the entire plot!

Speaking of Gears 3's plot, it follows a familiar three-act structure. And by that, I don't mean that it follows a traditional three-act structure; I mean that it follows a particular three-act structure: namely, the one outlined by South Park's underpants gnomes in their legendary business plan.

No, seriously. This is Gears 3's entire plot:

• Act 1: Learn the location of Adam Fenix.
• Act 2: Look for fuel.
• Act 3: Look for fuel.
• Act 4: Look for fuel.
• Act 5: Finally reach Adam Fenix.

Literally 60% of the game is devoted to looking for fuel.

Alas - even if Gears 3 had carried a decent plot, its narrative would've been undermined by shoddy storytelling.

Why do cut scenes interrupt gameplay so frequently and abruptly? Why does the game's camera force players to press and hold a button when it wants to focus on something important, instead of just auto-panning? And why does every handle, switch, and knob in the game shimmer like a sun-struck diamond, as if Epic thought that even the most experienced players might need constant reminding of how doors work? These hold-overs from 2006 didn't grate in 2008, but now, they serve only to annoy; I suppose that's just how rapidly game design has advanced in the past five years.

And really, that's the main problem with Gears 3: it does so little to advance even its own series. It features plenty of new locales, but none of them are memorable; it introduces a slew of new faces, but not one of them leaves an impression. Even graphically, Gears 3 is scarcely superior to its forebears.

When the first Gears launched, it offered a fresh experience: roadie run and grab cover, then down foes and curb-stomp them. When Gears 2 shipped, it revitalized that concept by introducing game-changing new weapons and modes, 5v5 matches, and the ability to use downed opponents as human shields. With the release of Gears 3, I honestly don't know that there are any new features worth boasting about. (Dedicated servers for online multi-player sure are nice, but they would've been even nicer three years ago.)

Don't get me wrong: despite all of these complaints, Gears 3 is a perfectly competent game. But considering that its single-player is a plodding mess and its multi-player feels like little more than a glorified Gears 2 map pack, I'm ultimately left wondering, "What was the point?" *

The Stand-out Moment: [Character name redacted] sacrificing himself to save the rest of the squad.

The Verdict: 8.0 (out of 10)

* Obviously, the point was to get suckers like me to hand over $60. And it worked!

To clarify: I wrote this "First Impressions" piece after playing Gears 3 for just two hours. In that time, I completed the first act of the game's campaign, along with one match each of King of the Hill and Team Deathmatch. Having now completed the second act of the game's campaign, I'm more optimistic about the quality of the full single-player experience; after several matches of Execution played with a friend, I've started to enjoy the game's multi-player more, as well.