Gears of War 3
(03/10/2011) For me, the first Gears
of War was the game that justified my purchase of a spangly new
high-definition games console. It was
the first game that didn’t seem like a polished-up PS2 title, that felt like a
genuine generation leap forward. All
that much-lauded ‘next generation’ tech was finally being used for something. And it
was great.
Five years later, we have Gears of War 3. The end of
the trilogy, arriving in the impending twilight years of the Xbox 360. The technology that once seemed so promising
and powerful now feels everyday, even a little dated. People are looking towards the future,
towards the next Xbox. And Gears
of War is still great.
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| New baddies keep things fresh. |
There’s little to say about Gears 3 that you won’t already know, other than that it’s Gears of War at its finest. The formula that made the first game seem
such a revelation was so close to perfect in its first iteration that only the
tiniest of tweaks have been made over the course of its two sequels. Gears 3
will not change any minds; if you loved the first two, you’ll love this
equally. If you’ve never liked Gears, there’s nothing here that’s going
to change your mind in the slightest.
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| Some areas are surprisingly pretty. |
This is probably the best Gears campaign yet, and that’s largely down to the pacing. After working on three games, Epic have got
the formula down to a fine art. They
know where to place choke points, where to allow downtime and when to break it,
when to throw in a turret section; it’s something Gears has always done better than many of its contemporaries, but
this is the tightest iteration yet.
It’s also bigger, bolder and brighter than its predecessors. Fittingly, this final chapter contains more grand set-pieces and large-scale battles than ever before. The maturation of Unreal Engine 3 shows in the number and variation of the locations you visit; a far cry from the almost monochrome palette of the original. Gears 3 is, throughout, a surprisingly varied and colourful journey.
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| Plus, there are girls in it now. |
There’s also a stronger story focus this time around, with
the plot established over the last two games finally reaching its long-awaited
conclusion. It may finish rather
abruptly, and doesn’t answer as many of the series’ long-standing questions as
I would have liked, but in truth, I don’t really care. Gears
of War is not about accomplished science-fiction; it’s about shredding
grubs with a chainsaw bayonet, diving into cover amidst a storm of bullets and
tearing through the horde with a sawn-off shotgun, and it does all of these
things impeccably.
It’s enough to simply say the Gears of War 3 is Gears of
War 3. It’s exactly what you’d
expect from the conclusion to one of the most well-respected series of recent
years. Perhaps now Epic are looking to
the future, working on a game that will come to define the next generation of
console in the way that Gears did
this one. Whatever the case, they’ve
crafted a fitting end to the Gears
saga; grand, violent and bombastic, Gears
3 stands confidently amongst the finest of modern shooters. As if anyone expected it would be otherwise.
