Gears of War 3 Beta Impressions

When I jumped into the Gears of War 3 Beta on Friday night it had been at least 6 months since I had played Gears of War 2, but I was surprised how quickly the controls came back to me.  I was never a hardcore Gears player but I played enough with my friends to have put dozens of hours into the multiplayer. Jumping into Gears 3 felt natural and the few new controls or changes were easy to pick up. The grittiness is still there but the graphics look smoother and cleaner than I remember from Gears 1 or 2.  The new maps seem to be a little better lit and smaller than the old maps.  There are only 4 maps in the beta so it could be the darker and larger ones just are not being shown off because they are not yet ready but I like the ones that I’ve played so far.  After over 20 matches there has not been a time when the next map came up and I was not looking forward to playing it.  Maybe it is the newness of Gears of War 3, but there were definitely maps I preferred to avoid in Gears 1 and 2.

Many of the weapons we’ve come to know and love are back in Gears 3.  Some with little changes but at the core pretty similar.  However, there are also quite a few new weapons.  I’m already quickly becoming fond of the Retro Lancer and the Incendiary grenades. Watching a guy burst into flames from a well tossed grenade is something that I do not think will ever get old. The traditional weapons are still as fun to use as ever. Tearing a guy to bits with the mulcher or tagging someone with a frag still brings that same grin to my face as it did in Gears 2.  It is going to take me some time to get use to the addition of the iron sites on the Hammerburst and the single shot on the sawed off shotgun, but once I do both show the potential to be great choices.

I know there are only a few people playing in the beta currently but so far matches are running butters smooth with no lag on the dedicated servers.  It is nice to play and not have to worry about not being able to kill the host.  The beta has Team Death Match, Capture The Leader and King of The Hill game modes available.  All three of them are pretty fun. Team Death Match’s limited life count rewards teams for helping each other revive and save their few lives.  It is fun to play a TDM mode where it is not just a bunch of individuals running around looking for kills but actually having a team work together.  In King of the Hill once of the nice changes is that the counter for the hill is always counting down so even if not team can hold the spot if will move after a set amount of time.  This keeps the spot from getting stuck on a spot that is hard for either team to hold which leads to really long matches.  The new Capture The Leader mode might be my favorite.  It takes a lot of teamwork to win and truly rewards teams who work together. To win a round your team must down and then hold the enemy’s leader for 30 consecutive seconds.  Since the team leader is an actual member of each team you have to balance keeping an eye on your leader while trying to separate the opponent’s leader from their team long enough to down him and then grab him as a meatshield.

Gears of War 3 has added a lot of badges and unlocks that did not exist in past Gears games.  Even when you are playing bad there are badges you can get that give you extra experience.  Even being the first person to die or dying the most nets you some extra XP.  It is nice to have these small bonuses offset a bad round.  There are also a lot of statistics being traced each match that let you see if which weapons and maps you do the best with.

While I’m really enjoying the Gears of War 3 beta there are a few things I hope get addressed before the game’s release.  For example in the King of The Hill game mode the order of the hill locations is in a preset order so once you play each map a few times you get to know the order and can mice to the next location early and plant grenades to keep the enemies from getting it.  While this is a completely fair tactic it would make the games more exciting if the hill locations rotated randomly.  I also noticed that in Team Death Match it is pretty easy for one team to get the other trapped in their spawn area and just camp them in there the rest of the match.  In TDM you always respawn in your team’s base area which makes grabbing a few power weapons and sitting outside the door too easy for the other team.  It would be nice to spawn randomly on the map or have an option to spawn next to teammates). Finally, the are a lot of great stats being tracked but after each match you are not given an option to see anything beyond the basic kills, captures and deaths that you can see by hitting the back button during the match.  However, if you leave the room you have the option to see all of the previous game’s stats.  Hopefully that option gets added so that you can see them between matches as well.

Overall, I’ve had a great time playing the Gears of War 3 beta so far and I’m really looking forward to the release of Gears of War 3 this fall.