Zero Punctuation: Gears of War 3
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
Recommended Videos
I'm a bit confused about the part about the planet being blown up as that wasn't part of GoW3 or the previous games either?
I wouldn't expect any mention of multiplayer in the review but I'm surprised there's little mention of it in the comments with the focus on the single player. I bought the game primarily for Horde mode which seems to have been given most of the attention along with the addition of beast mode. In that regard I'm not disappointed as the Horde mode has a reasonable variety of enemies and the various base building options give plenty of scope for different strategies.
My main complaints with the game are that the matchmaking system doesn't seem to work very well as it takes a long time to find a game and match up players then tends to go wrong when the host quits either killing the game entirely or setting you back multiple waves and removing all the fortifications. Also the game format doesn't seem to work too well with randoms as potentially the games are very long and there's no option to drop into an existing game with randoms so ultimately I find you hit one bad wave and one person quits which then causes other people to quit as the reduced numbers make the wave harder just as the waves themselves are already becoming more difficult. Which is a shame because the game does work well as it encourages teamwork by rewarding players for killing enemies and also for building fortifications which ensures people don't hoard money for themselves.
Beast mode corrects some of these complaints as the games are just 12 waves and over in a reasonable amount of time plus it's entertaining being able to control the various Locust enemies who are extremely varied although I generally still prefer Horde mode.
John
I wouldn't expect any mention of multiplayer in the review but I'm surprised there's little mention of it in the comments with the focus on the single player. I bought the game primarily for Horde mode which seems to have been given most of the attention along with the addition of beast mode. In that regard I'm not disappointed as the Horde mode has a reasonable variety of enemies and the various base building options give plenty of scope for different strategies.
My main complaints with the game are that the matchmaking system doesn't seem to work very well as it takes a long time to find a game and match up players then tends to go wrong when the host quits either killing the game entirely or setting you back multiple waves and removing all the fortifications. Also the game format doesn't seem to work too well with randoms as potentially the games are very long and there's no option to drop into an existing game with randoms so ultimately I find you hit one bad wave and one person quits which then causes other people to quit as the reduced numbers make the wave harder just as the waves themselves are already becoming more difficult. Which is a shame because the game does work well as it encourages teamwork by rewarding players for killing enemies and also for building fortifications which ensures people don't hoard money for themselves.
Beast mode corrects some of these complaints as the games are just 12 waves and over in a reasonable amount of time plus it's entertaining being able to control the various Locust enemies who are extremely varied although I generally still prefer Horde mode.
John
About 95% of the problems with the Gears 3 story are directly attributable to Karen Traviss.rollerfox88 said:
Y'see, sometime around the second game, when they decided they loved that spinoff dollar, they needed Gears novels, so they needed a writer. Not being frustrated SF/F writers themselves (like, say Drew Karpyshyn) they had to hire one, so they decided to go for someone already used to working with established franchises.
Not being very clever about the whole thing, but knowing that she gets seriously moist for super special super awesome special forces types who are Just Better than everyone else (the size of fridges or not), they got Star Wars EU writer Karen Traviss, universally derided as among the worst, if not the worst, writer ever to break Star Wars (seriously, if you thought George Lucas could fuck up Star Wars you ain't seen nothin' compared to some of the EU).
So, all those times in Gears of War 3 where something or someone suddenly appears or undergoes a complete change of character with absolutely no setup in the games? It's in one of her fanfiction novels.
Likewise, all those things that were set up in the previous games but weren't explained in this one (what the Sires were, what Myrrah really is, the actual motives of the Locust, for instance), all shuffled off to the novels and comics.
It's basically the exact way not to expand your fictional universe into derivative media, because the overwhelming majority will not have read the books (3 million people bought Gears 3 over it's first week, I'd be surprised if more than 5% of them had read any of the books)
Also, the last 5% was broken by the dumbass decision to end the game with an "all your problems go away" button. After two games where unleashing that kind of superweapon made things worse and left humanity even more doomed pulling a 180 for a completely undramatic Voyager Ending was fuckwitted.
As a PC gamer, I've only played GoW 1, but I think I see the problem with at least the voice acting. The problem is Gears of War's voice directors subscribe to what I call the Steve Blum Method. Steve Blum is a great voice actor (I mean, come on, Bulletstorm), but he is forced into the same Sausage Fest Marine Voice every damned game. That's what happened with Gears of War and its voice actors. Everyone talks in the same style of voice, and the only major different character in GoW1 (Out of the main ones) was Cole Train, who was pretty much a stereotypical black 'roidmonkey on even more steroids. I'M THE COLE TRAIN, *****!JackandTom said:
It's hard to get emotion and anything decent conveyed when everyone's grunting like they've got a bus stuck up their backside.
Though a lot of people trust his judgment, including myself, I don't always. yes, I got Saints Row 2 because of him, and I loved it, but I also really liked Mirror's Edge, a game he found to be rather terrible, albeit unique.WaitWHAT said:
There seems to be alot of hate in the replies from people who haven't even played the game??? Well i've played all three gears games and quite enjoyed them. Yes the plots a bit lacking in originality and the characters are big burly space marines. But you get some weapons and some bad guys and you shoot the shit out of them, blow them up and chainsaw them to bits. Thought it was a good fun way of unwinding. It's by no means perfect but i don't think i've ever played a game that is. If i want to sit watching something with a massively intricate plot where i don't get to shoot anything I'll watch a film or read a book. I like my games dumb and I like my games shooty. Gears of war 3 provides both of these things in droves.
Full of good lines but being a huge Gears fan I couldn't help but disagree.
Loved the game personally as well as thinking that the plot since the first game is brilliant. Linear story telling but I think that I enjoyed it more due to reading the books giving the characters more depth and personality. Albeit the sacrifice was pretty unneccesary.
Opinions I suppose, as I know many people who aren't into the Gears of War games.
Loved the game personally as well as thinking that the plot since the first game is brilliant. Linear story telling but I think that I enjoyed it more due to reading the books giving the characters more depth and personality. Albeit the sacrifice was pretty unneccesary.
Opinions I suppose, as I know many people who aren't into the Gears of War games.
That's because this game bored him half to death.pandasaw said:
I don't think he's found a game "awesome" since either InFamous 2, or back in Saints Row 2.
They added even more Brown?Caramel Frappe said:
Not only does Gear 3 have as much color in it as Uncharted, the lighting in the game especially on act 5 is a sight to behold. It was amazing what Epic achieved on 6 year old hardware.
One of the new Gears maps:
This look like they "added more brown" to you? (Also where in Gears 3 was the planet going to "blow up"? I must not have gotten to that part.) If you are going to shit on a game at least have a valid argument people
Alright! Gears of War 3, finally! I'm so psyched. This means the series is over now and we can go back to innovating shooters instead of dragging them through the mud, right?
1: Exploding planet? Where did you pull that out of? I think even someone who was 1-4th conscious would've picked up that it was more about people being worried about going extinct because of the Locust and Lambent, not the planet blowing up.
2: Marcus had a bad childhood. He doesn't do emotion well. Get over it. You wouldn't do emotions other than gruff and anger well if your mother died, your dad was never around and you spent pretty much your entire existence fighting one war or another.
3: Brown? Is your TV broken? Sure there are a few parts such as the Trench fights that were all brown, but what color were they supposed to be? Pink? And did you have your eyes closed for the entire last level or something, with all the vibrant greens and blues and golds and such?
4: Anya (the blond) was in both of the last games. Prescott was in Gears 2. The other characters like same and Jace are from the books and comics, most of which are surprisingly well written and interesting. They appear in Gears 3 for the same thing that MovieBob praised Captain America for; EPIC figures if you care enough about a game's story to get perturbed over a new character appearing you weren't familiar with you probably read or saw all the other material for said franchise and therefore understand who they are and where they came from.
5: What is the fucking obsession with medkits and carrying 8 fucking weapons at a time? Medkits aren't fun and slow down gameplay, and Doom, Sam, Duke, Unreal and Quake are the only places where having that many weapons really made sense or was fun.
2: Marcus had a bad childhood. He doesn't do emotion well. Get over it. You wouldn't do emotions other than gruff and anger well if your mother died, your dad was never around and you spent pretty much your entire existence fighting one war or another.
3: Brown? Is your TV broken? Sure there are a few parts such as the Trench fights that were all brown, but what color were they supposed to be? Pink? And did you have your eyes closed for the entire last level or something, with all the vibrant greens and blues and golds and such?
4: Anya (the blond) was in both of the last games. Prescott was in Gears 2. The other characters like same and Jace are from the books and comics, most of which are surprisingly well written and interesting. They appear in Gears 3 for the same thing that MovieBob praised Captain America for; EPIC figures if you care enough about a game's story to get perturbed over a new character appearing you weren't familiar with you probably read or saw all the other material for said franchise and therefore understand who they are and where they came from.
5: What is the fucking obsession with medkits and carrying 8 fucking weapons at a time? Medkits aren't fun and slow down gameplay, and Doom, Sam, Duke, Unreal and Quake are the only places where having that many weapons really made sense or was fun.
It's not Gears fault that a bunch of shooters copied it instead of doing their own thing, as much as it wasn't Halo or COD's faults either. Gears was quite innovative when it came out, which is why other shooters ( Army of Two, Uncharted) copied gameplay mechanics from it to begin with.SnakeoilSage said:
Had to watch the video twice to make sure: but it did sound like he was insinuating at a couple of points that the game was too 'brown'. I wonder if he found the game so boring that he misremembered it, or if he's just saying certain things in this review to get a larger reaction in the comments.
Though thinking about it, he's complained previously about the 'brightly coloured bloom' of Halo so meh.
Though thinking about it, he's complained previously about the 'brightly coloured bloom' of Halo so meh.
I don't mind that Gears of War is stupid and idiotic, I just wish Epic were aware of it. With the sole exception of that bit in Gears of War 2 (you know the one I'm talking about), the games' attempts at taking the story seriously are laughable. Any scene that features Marcus Fenix is doomed to unintentional self-parody due to how cartoonish he is. It's like if someone made a word-for-word remake of Saving Private Ryan but replaced all the characters with the cast of Spawn.
Actually speaking of GoW 2, instead of this game ending with the humans gazing wistfully into the sunset having just heroically fought against impossible odds to save humanity despite losing many friends and comrades on the way (I haven't actually played the game, but I'd bet substantial amounts of money that's how it ends), what if Dom was the main character and his search for his wife was the entire point of the trilogy? And it ended at That Scene from the second game? No conclusion to the war, no final boss, just that scene. That would have been awesome.
Actually speaking of GoW 2, instead of this game ending with the humans gazing wistfully into the sunset having just heroically fought against impossible odds to save humanity despite losing many friends and comrades on the way (I haven't actually played the game, but I'd bet substantial amounts of money that's how it ends), what if Dom was the main character and his search for his wife was the entire point of the trilogy? And it ended at That Scene from the second game? No conclusion to the war, no final boss, just that scene. That would have been awesome.
