- Feb 7, 2011
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Now that the Gears of War 3 beta is coming to a close (ends on the 15th), I was wondering what everyone's thoughts were on how the game is looking.
Here's my personal impressions on the entire thing:
Pros:
1. Epic fixed the matchmaking from Gears 2. One of my first and biggest complaints about Gears 2 was how long it took to find a goddamn match, upwards of 20 minutes in many cases (and yes, my NAT is open thank you very much). Thankfully in the Gears 3 beta it only took a maximum of about 2-3 minutes to find a match, about as long as it takes in Halo, so that's pretty tolerable.
2. The rank progression system seems to have been improved quite a bit from Gears 2, where it was pretty much utterly useless.
3. Many of the new weapons, like the digger are a lot of fun to use, and add a new dynamic to the gameplay.
4. They finally buffed the sniper rifle so that it can compete with the other power weapons. In the first 2 gears of war games the sniper was much too weak, considering it was bolt action, and couldn't be hip fired. Thankfully epic has finally made it a bit more fearsome.
Cons:
1. Where the hell are the dedicated servers I was promised? Numerous times I got host migration screens. Sorry Epic, there's no host migration on dedicated servers BECAUSE THERE'S NO HOST. I done been lied to!
2. Saw'n off shotgun is totally overpowered. You get hit by the damn thing if you're ANYWHERE on the enemy's screen, they don't even have to aim. I mean really, I get that it's supposed to be really powerful, which is why it takes so long to reload, but come the hell on, right now it's basically a weapon that you charge in with, get a kill, and then die instantly. That's not strategy, it's scrub play, and it's for complete and utter noobs.
3. Retro lancer is pretty much useless. The retro lancer has too much bloom to be a used at anything other than close range, which is already dominated by shotguns in the gears franchise. The only time you can possibly get a kill with it is if you get up close to someone who hasn't switched to their shotgun yet, and even then, if they pull out the saw'n off, you're pretty much screwed at that range.
4. Self revive? No, just no, this is complete bullshit. I down a guy, he crawls around the corner, stands up, and then blasts me in the face with his saw'n off when I come to finish him up? FUCK THAT SHIT. The gears franchise is all about team work, you should have to have a teammate pick you up if you want to get up again (like gears 1 or 2). This is rewarding lone wolves, and punishing people who like to keep combat to a distance (basically anyone who uses the hammerburst).
Final verdict:
Sure, Epic has addressed a lot of my grievances from Gears 2, but they've added more stuff that just utterly pisses me off and makes Gears 3 frustrating and unfun. I was already planning on just renting this game to play through the story, but this beta has pretty much confirmed for me that Epic is way off the mark with the multiplayer AGAIN. I'm really starting to think that Gears 1 was just an accident and that epic has no idea what they're doing in terms of multiplayer at this point. Obviously to them blood splatter effects and gibbed ragdolls are much more important than game balance.
Here's my personal impressions on the entire thing:
Pros:
1. Epic fixed the matchmaking from Gears 2. One of my first and biggest complaints about Gears 2 was how long it took to find a goddamn match, upwards of 20 minutes in many cases (and yes, my NAT is open thank you very much). Thankfully in the Gears 3 beta it only took a maximum of about 2-3 minutes to find a match, about as long as it takes in Halo, so that's pretty tolerable.
2. The rank progression system seems to have been improved quite a bit from Gears 2, where it was pretty much utterly useless.
3. Many of the new weapons, like the digger are a lot of fun to use, and add a new dynamic to the gameplay.
4. They finally buffed the sniper rifle so that it can compete with the other power weapons. In the first 2 gears of war games the sniper was much too weak, considering it was bolt action, and couldn't be hip fired. Thankfully epic has finally made it a bit more fearsome.
Cons:
1. Where the hell are the dedicated servers I was promised? Numerous times I got host migration screens. Sorry Epic, there's no host migration on dedicated servers BECAUSE THERE'S NO HOST. I done been lied to!
2. Saw'n off shotgun is totally overpowered. You get hit by the damn thing if you're ANYWHERE on the enemy's screen, they don't even have to aim. I mean really, I get that it's supposed to be really powerful, which is why it takes so long to reload, but come the hell on, right now it's basically a weapon that you charge in with, get a kill, and then die instantly. That's not strategy, it's scrub play, and it's for complete and utter noobs.
3. Retro lancer is pretty much useless. The retro lancer has too much bloom to be a used at anything other than close range, which is already dominated by shotguns in the gears franchise. The only time you can possibly get a kill with it is if you get up close to someone who hasn't switched to their shotgun yet, and even then, if they pull out the saw'n off, you're pretty much screwed at that range.
4. Self revive? No, just no, this is complete bullshit. I down a guy, he crawls around the corner, stands up, and then blasts me in the face with his saw'n off when I come to finish him up? FUCK THAT SHIT. The gears franchise is all about team work, you should have to have a teammate pick you up if you want to get up again (like gears 1 or 2). This is rewarding lone wolves, and punishing people who like to keep combat to a distance (basically anyone who uses the hammerburst).
Final verdict:
Sure, Epic has addressed a lot of my grievances from Gears 2, but they've added more stuff that just utterly pisses me off and makes Gears 3 frustrating and unfun. I was already planning on just renting this game to play through the story, but this beta has pretty much confirmed for me that Epic is way off the mark with the multiplayer AGAIN. I'm really starting to think that Gears 1 was just an accident and that epic has no idea what they're doing in terms of multiplayer at this point. Obviously to them blood splatter effects and gibbed ragdolls are much more important than game balance.