Yesterday (14 September 2011) we got a chance to sit down with Gears of War 3 at the Microsoft HQ in Johannesburg, and play through about an hour and a half of the single player campaign. First impressions were generally positive, and as expected, the game looks, feels and plays like a Gears of War game. Controls are fluid, the cover system slick, and overall third-person shooter mechanic remains unchanged.
Unexpectedly, the game does not pick up where the previous game left off, despite Gears of War 2’s cliff-hanger ending. Executive producer Rod Fergusson told Joystiq that they “wanted things to settle in and the novels fill that gap between the second and third game.”
“We wanted time for the weight of the war to settle in on people, for the civilization to collapse and for Dom’s beard to grow in. If we [picked up from where Gears 2 left off] then we wouldn’t have that weight of it being about survival and then we’d have a game where you’re just cleaning up after that big battle. We wanted to make it a more personal story,” said Fergusson.
So enter Gears of War 3. Things are looking pretty dire for the remaining humans on Sera, with the last of the COG forces hulled up in a massive tanker sailing about in search of supplies and survivors. The planet is overrun by Lambent Locusts who have been infected by the imulsion – a natural energy source the humans used to power their machines.
The Lambent, or “infected” Locus are a lot like the regular Locus Gears of War fans will have become accustomed to over the past few years, except scarier and they explode into green gas/guts clouds when you kill them, which is totally awesome. In fact, the Lambent Locus are so scary that both humans and regular Locus are fleeing their growing hoard.
The first hour of the game vaguely introduces you to your new enemy as the aforementioned COG tanker is attacked by a seemingly mixed selection of enemies. The game delivers pretty much exactly what you would expect from it: the progression through the levels is linear and directed, combat set-pieces are designed with the classic Gears of War cover system in mind, and the characters, weapons and general tone is about as butch as we have come to expect from the franchise.
Like in Gears of War 2, once you have been downed, you can crawl to cover and wait for a team mate to revive you. This makes for a generally forgiving gameplay experience, but it also keeps things moving at a steady and agreeable pace.
One of the most exciting features Gears of War fans will be looking forward to is the campaign co-op, which will allow up to four friends to play through the various missions together. In this context the revival system makes sense, although in the code we played the AI was still a little foolhardy, running into danger to revive a downed ally only to be taken out themself.
One of Gears of War 3’s big selling points is the introduction of new characters. Whereas the storylines from the previous games revolved mostly around Marcus and Dom, Gears of War 3 promises to mix things up a bit.
In the first act Jace and Sam are introduced, although not very comprehensively. There were however obvious hints that the new characters have back stories and agendas that are just dying to be fleshed out, so we can expect these developments to be a fairly important and hopefully well executed addition to the Gears of War canon.
The first hour or so of Gears of War 3 is exactly what most fans will be hoping for – more Gears of War. The basic gameplay seems unchanged for the most part, but with some new characters thrown into the mix and what could be an interesting storyline, we are rather excited about the next itteration of this classic Xbox 360 exclusive franchise.
Gears of War 3 is being launched on Xbox 360 on 20 September.
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