Gears of War 3: The Beta

If you haven't noticed by now we try to take advantage of beta testing here on the blog. If there's a beta, sure enough I'll try to get into it and give a game a whirl. Not only does it satisfy my need to try new games, but it also helps provide feedback to developers well before the game ships. Beta testing is almost necessary these days in order to balance the online portion of their games. That is why today I am able to write about the Gears 3 beta that is currently ongoing on X-Box Live. For those of you unfamiliar with the Gears of War series, let me provide some brief history. Gears is a futuristic 3rd person shooter chronicling humanity's war against a subterranean alien species called the Locust. This of course is a very vague description of the story as there are a few twists and turns along the way and I don't exactly want to spoil anything for anyone who may want to explore the games one day. 

Anyway, the point of the beta isn't exactly trying out the final game's campaign but actually the online multi-player aspects. EPIC Games has actually put a nice little twist on the beta in that there are items in the final game that can be unlocked during the beta and later carried over when it releases in September. The beta is in Week Two of operations and currently there is a set number of options available to those participating. First of all you have Team Death-Match(TDM), a staple in every online shooter game. Gears 3 does try to put a nice spine on an old favorite though. Much like regular TDM, there is a score limit of sorts but the spin that EPIC applies here is that your score limit is the amount of respawns you get per match. There are 15 respawns per team and each round ends after a team's respawns have been depleted and the final team members have been killed. So of course the key here is to play smart because you don't have an endless supply of respawns. Your team is only as strong as the weakest link so if your team has someone foolishly running out into battle and using all your respawns you are essentially doomed to fail.

The other game type available during this phase of the beta is King of the Hill. Pretty basic here formula; the first team to collect 170 points from the hill points is the winner. Of course each point rotates from one area of the map to the other after a set number of points have been collected. It might sound basic but this is by far the craziest mode of the two available. Death-Match is all about decision making and some levels of strategy because you don't want to waste all your respawns. In King of the Hill however, things are completely opposite and that's why things tend to get hectic. There will be shots flying and body parts flailing all over the place in attempt to take hold of the hill. And trust me, Gears 3 has no short supply of weaponry to blow each other away with.

Standard issue gear returns from previous games in the form of the Gnasher shotgun, the Lancer chainsaw rifle, and the Hammerburst sub-machine gun. Gears 3 does introduce two more weapons into the default classes though in the forms of the Sawed-Off Shotgun and the Retro Lancer. The Sawed-Off is exactly as it sounds. It doesn't carry the same amount of ammo as the Gnasher but it does pack quite a punch, making it devastating at close range. The Retro Lancer isn't very good from a distance but at mid-range it can be very powerful. The recoil however can become problematic so it's best used as a burst weapon. As for the melee aspect, instead of a chainsaw there is a bayonet attached which can be used in the form of a roadie-run melee attack that essentially gores your opponent. Gears 3 also introduces a new series of weaponry procured on the maps themselves, along with several new executions. 

The One-Shot

Previous games gave us a sniper rifle in the form of the Long-Shot. Very simple in it's execution and extremely powerful in the hands of a skilled player. A team with a proper sniper could definitely do lots of damage. The One-Shot however puts this weapon to shame. This hefty piece of machinery carries only three shots but you can really make them count as the weapon is essentially blows a hole through any living person(s) it's aimed at. Think of it as the Long-Shot on steroids with laser sight. Takes a little while to engage, much like the Mulcher gatling-gun, but when you get that shot off and your opponent explodes it is very much worth it. 

The Digger Launcher

Grenades are definitely a big part of Gears game play. Right now there are frags, smoke grenades, poison ink grenades. The Digger Launcher takes this a step further, launching a projectile that burrows underground, traveling in a straight line and surfaces just in time to explode in the face of your opponent. Much like the One-Shot it comes with a limited number of rounds but the amount of damage it can inflict upon your enemies is far greater. Considering how important cover is in a cover-based shooter, having a weapon that circumvents that creates havoc for the first team to get the Digger. 

Incendiary Grenades
Sure the poison ink grenade is great at flushing out enemies and causing damage but what if you just wanted to punish the hell out of your opponent? Well that's where the incendiary grenade comes in handy. Plenty of times a fire fight can break down into two groups hidden behind cover firing away at each other. It can get hairy and while a smoke grenade is a great distraction it also means you still need to close the gap and fire  away at the other team. Sure you could toss a frag grenade if you have one but there's still a chance once it's engaged for your enemy to dodge away from the blast radius. This is where the incendiary grenade shines. Much like the ink grenade the incendiary grenade releases its contents as soon as it lands. But instead of a cloud of ink the enemy is instantly set ablaze. The grenade canvases a fairly large radius so it can easily be used to trap an enemy team and flush them out or simply burn them to a crisp. Basically it all comes down to preference. By far it is one of my favorite new weapons, right behind the One Shot.

Playing around with these weapons has been great fun so far but there are some definite cons to them as well. The One Shot for instance scopes in, leaving you vulnerable to incoming attacks at your sides and the Digger requires that your enemies be straight ahead in order for you to nail them as it only travels in a straight line. But I think we all know that with certain weapons and tactics come certain risks. Let me tell you the risks are definitely worth it if you succeed in your task. Which leads me to the level progression in this Gears game.

Before leveling in Gears was pretty basic. You collect experience points(XP) for different tasks you do in game. This was great especially in the fact that the game also took certain stats into count with this. Each round tallies the amount of kills, deaths, downs, and revives you've had. Much like Modern Warfare 2 though, the game now has badges and medals that you earn each game. There are also little cosmetic unlocks such as weapon skins and titles for your name of course. Lets face it, in this day and age we all expect a certain level of customization in our online shooters and EPIC provides us with just enough. Several unlockable character skins to choose from after starting off with Marcus and Dom for the COGS and your base Locust warriors. Some of these unlocks come from challenges while others come from just playing the game itself so there's a nice mixture of things that each person can unlock.

Now I know this all sounds lovey-dovey and like this beta is godly. I'll be honest I am really enjoying this beta but it still has a lot of the faults that Gears of War 2's multi-player had. For instance there are no dedicated servers. I get that this is a hard task to achieve for some games as it takes a lot of extra maintenance and work to include dedicated servers for a console game. This means that most games are hosted by the person with the strongest connection. Because of this the host always seems to have an in game advantage because of their superior connection. This leads to a lot of occurrences in game where one player completely dominates the competition. It can become frustratingly difficult for the other team to even put up a decent fight as the host's hits will connect faster and do more damage. It's an uphill battle for those of us who don't have the best connection.

After a while it just becomes disheartening for a player when they clearly know that despite what they're doing on screen there is an intangible factor preventing their shots from connecting with certain people. If anything it's one thing keeping me from logging in some serious time with the game. Not to mention some of the hit detection issues that have plagued some of the weaponry from the last game. I understand that the Gnasher shotgun is very powerful, but that doesn't mean that from a distance it should in any way be able to fire two shots and down me while I fire an entire Lancer clip into their chest. To borrow a phrase from South Park, that does not make sense!

Chewbacca Defense - That Does Not Make Sense!

And while I love the addition of the Sawed-Off Shotgun as a more powerful weapon with certain drawbacks, it's already proving to be a bit of a headache for some players when coupled with faulty hit detection and host advantage. This leads to some sad scenarios that end up with your head blown off via someone's Sawed-Off while you sit there puzzled about what just took place. Don't think much about it and just realize what happened does not make sense sometimes. If you really want a clear picture of the difference then watch the following video of Gears 2 in action. I'm not saying Gears 3 isn't great so far but it's starting to appear that the same pitfalls from Gears 2 are still there. These are problems that can potentially keep the game from being balanced and I hope there is some way to address them because the game play itself is very fun.