Videogame review: Gears Of War 3

A woman photographs the Gears of War 3 game display at E3 in Los Angeles.

A woman photographs the Gears of War 3 game display at E3 in Los Angeles.

Published Oct 4, 2011

Share

Gears Of War 3

Xbox 360

HHHHH

18 rating

People who don’t play videogames will have a hard time not laughing at sci-fi shooter Gears Of War 3. My wife took one look at the muscle-bound space marines in my team and asked, over the gunfire: “Do they put steroids in the tap water on this planet or something?”

The YouTube trailer ending on the slogan Brothers to the End is so macho it’s hilarious.

But ignore the ridiculous surface and awful, awful one-liners and Gears Of War 3 is flat-out one of the best action games ever. It’s so brilliant I spend my working hours hankering after it wistfully.

Even the ludicrous plot about a planet over-run with aliens who climb from beneath the surface nearly had me s h e d d i n g a (manly) tear.

Early on, your hero, Marcus Fenix, finds a video that suggests his father is still alive, after two games built around his notional loss. It’s genuinely affecting, even if the characters are all Arnold Schwarzenegger clones.

The graphics are just astonishing. Every special effect - that games usually struggle with such as smoke or fire is gorgeous here.

Just to show off, there are even sections where Fenix reluctantly lays down his trademark weapon the Lancer, a machine gun with a chainsaw for a bayonet for a fire extinguisher, complete with billowing white jets.

Team play is the core of Gears. If you don’t have a microphone headset and an internet cable for your console, it’s worth the investment to play online with a friend, with one of you equipped with an arsenal for long-range attacks, the other using weapons for closer range such as a shotgun.

Just make sure no other family members are nearby as you shout “Cover me!”, though it’s not a good look.

Should you choose to stick to oneplayer mode, you will be joined by artificial companions who are smart enough to let you sit back (in Easy mode, anyway) and who will even run in to help heal you mid-battle if you have been shot.

The way that the artificial intelligence has been ramped up is one of the improvements that raise this head and shoulders over Gears 2. Others include an easierto-use objectives overlay , which shows you where everyone is and where to go next.

There are more guns, of course but it’s the variety in the settings and in the battles that win it. The game’s much imitated cover system (to survive, you have to hide, rather than the usual guns-blazing approach) is milked for every drop of drama.

You end up in gunfights with no ammunition, where plentiful use of the chainsaw bayonet is essential for survival leading to scenes that really earn this game its 18 rating.

If you are a serious gamer, and you have an Xbox 360, buy this immediately. - The Mail on Sunday

Related Topics: