Sunday, September 25, 2011

Gears of War 3 Review -- An Alien's take.

With some series of video games, playing them slightly out of order is all right. Take Legend of Zelda for example. You don’t necessarily need to know what Link did in the last game in order to understand what’s going on in another one. And sometimes you get a very nice recap of what’s going on and what’s happened in the last game, like with Mass Effect. Don’t even get me started about Silent Hill; each one of those games has only a loose setting in common, let alone recurring characters or a solidly continuous storyline (with the notable exception of the first and third installments of the series). 

Unfortunately for me, however, the Gears of War franchise is not one of those happy few which one can play without getting some good background information beforehand. The most I’d ever indulged myself in the series before was my attempt at imitating the voice of Marcus Fenix from the commercials. (FYI, apparently my version sounds more like the voice of Christian Bale as Batman.) It was with complete ignorance that I played 2/3 of the way through Gears of War 3 co-op. 

I was totally lost on the story. A more awake, slightly more intoxicated version of myself would have asked questions every three minutes. However, I was in neither of those states of being, so I was stuck trying to figure out why the glowing things were attacking the humans and why the hell nobody just made cupcakes and decided to be friends. (Also, this is how I imagine the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict should end: with a happy cupcake party. Alas.)

The gameplay overall was fun. The other folks I was playing with (including Tyler) were overjoyed when they got to play their favorite character and dismayed when they were stuck playing as Baird. I really didn’t care either way since I had no attachment to any of these characters. (I kinda looked forward to playing as Baird. He looks like Cid. He also drove an airship in one of the missions. I mean, seriously, how much more obvious can we get here?) 

Anyway, here’s what I understand to be going on: Marcus Fenix is a steroid addict with a case of the grumps. He has a friend named Dom who likes plants and has a relatively fluffy beard, and is sad because he killed his own wife. (Thankfully for Dom, this does not create creatures with pyramids for heads to follow him around and antagonize him.) Marcus also has some latent sexual tension with a blonde chick named Anya (who apparently got hotter in this game) and also has daddy issues. His mother may or may not be a bug. This gives him an excuse to kill all of the bugs that are attacking them: because he hates his mother. His uncle killed his father so he could become king of Denmark, and then Marcus goes insane and Anya obscurely drowns…oh, wait, wrong tragedy. 

Granted, there were some parts that tugged at my heartstrings a bit, even without really getting to know the characters—such as the part in Act I where Cole reminisces about being a thrashball player. (Also, how is thrashball different than football, other than the slight difference in uniform?)

I’m still not sure what the bugs or the glowy things have to do with anything. All I know is that they’re attacking with motives unknown. Do they want to colonize the planet? Do they want to kick the human colonists off the planet? Are we even still on Earth in this game? 

All story aside, the game plays pretty well. The third-person perspective took some getting used to again, and this may or may not be because I’ve returned to my daily diet of six to eight hours of playing Oblivion every day. It feels a lot like the way that Mass Effect felt in combat, only with bigger guns and thirty times the muscle. It was a hard play at some parts, even with seasoned veterans like my co-players are. I can’t even imagine the difficulty that would come with playing this thing by yourself.

I do have to say that my favorite part of the entire experience was Beast mode in multiplayer. This is the one where you play as a Locust and try to kill the humans before time runs out. There are a few reasons for this, the first one being that most of the Locust are a-freaking-dorable. They wiggle when they walk. They’re adorable in the same way that the Zurg are adorable. Call me weird, I don’t care. I’d purchase a Corpser plushie. The second reason was that it was just plain fun. Once you got the hang of it, it was fun to see how fast you could finish an entire cycle with the most damage possible. If any part of this game ought to get upgraded with DLC, it should be this mode. I want more playable Locust. 

I only made it through about half of Act III before I fell asleep. I’m not sure how long I was making Jace run into a wall and shoot the ceiling, but when I woke up that was what I was doing. I removed myself from play so I could sleep, but also to save the ending for when I actually understood what the fuck was going on. 

OVERALL: 9/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10. As a whole, the game was fun to play. I wish there was a better way to toggle cover than just mashing A and praying it works.
Graphics: 9.5/10. Holy cow, these graphics are amazing. I don’t even know how to describe it. There were times too when I was curious why the gameplay graphics were better than the cutscene graphics. (Usually it’s the other way around.) Whatever, I’m not complaining.
Sound: 9/10. The voice acting was pretty good overall. I also want the epic orchestral music to follow me wherever I go and narrate my life. This would make even spreading jam on toast seem way more epic.
Replay factor: 9/10. Lots of multiplayer modes will definitely keep me coming back. Also, I probably should also play the first two installments.

No comments:

Post a Comment