The Gears of war 3 beta is finally out, for those of you who have the epic edition of bullet storm at least. After spending my morning playing the beta for a fair amount of time, I've broken the beta down to some of the pros and cons it suffers from.
Pros :
- Customization
- Ability to set a pre-chosen weapon scheme
- Team death match & being able to re-spawn.
- Lots of things to unlock (medals, skins for guns, ect.)
- New maps
- Maps showing you where the weapons are before each round
- New weapons
- New executions
One major change to the gears of war series is the ability to customize your character. You can set pre-chosen weapons to him/her along with the ability to add skins to your guns. One character which you are able to unlock is "Thrashball Cole". Sporting his thrashball attire and a golden retro lancer, if you unlock this cole in the beta when Gears 3 officially releases he will transfer over. Cole wont be the only transferring over the full game, all of the medals you win will supposedly transfer over as well. Team Death Match in gears 3 is incredibly fun. You and your team share a certain amount of respawns you're allowed in the round so the more you die, the less your team can respawn. After your team uses up all of the shared respawns, you are unable to respawn until the next round, making you pull harder and clutch through the rest of the existing round. One very useful feature is the map of the level you see before each game, this map will show you where all of the weapons will be. This comes in use when you're playing a map you have no experience in and want to go for the frags, or sniper. What makes this game feel more fresh and polished then the previous gears game are the new weapons and executions. The retro lancer for example might not have the the accuracy of the lancer, or the grip but it does make up for it in damage. The sawed off shotgun is an extremely powerful weapon, being able to kill or down an opponent if close. (The gnasher shot gun can kill close range we know, but that doesn't always happen. The sawed off shotgun at just a foot or two away can kill/down an opponent with one shot.)Also the executions have improved and add a whole new aspect of insult to injury to a downed opponent. For example I can keep punching your face while you're downed and the longer I do, the more points I get.
- Ink grenade can now stun. Leaving you helpless and unable to avoid it, if it's tossed head on at you
- Sawed off shotgun id basically a one hit kill if close enough, or a foot or two away. (However it's power is balanced out, the weapon does have a longer reload time and you only have 4 rounds.)
- If you're taking cover and move over the cover you can kick a player leaving him stunned. (Can be unfair and easily abused online, should be tweaked so the stun time wont be as long)
- Retro lancer bayonet is the new chainsaw "n00b" kills.
- Shotguns are still overly powerful
Cons : Discussions
While the game in beta form is still very fun, and entertaining it still has its faults. For one take the ink grenade, in gears 2 you were able to have it fall near you and and side dive away. That is not always the case in the gears 3 beta. The ink grenade now stuns you if you're near it, leaving you unable to move and get downed and even killed without a chance to fight. Another problem I've noticed online is the retro lancer bayonet kills. Listening to people online describe it as being a "chainsaw whore on roids". It's understandable while it is fun to charge the battle field gun first and killing a person whose in front of you automatically, it can be a bit cheap. Especially when while on the charge, if a person has a gun out like the lancer they either have to be farther away from you to down you while running, shooting you the whole time. Or they would have to have a shotgun out and quickly fire it, killing you. It should be noted that while charging you can steer your character, but only slightly no hard turns. As for the cover stuns I'm kind of on the fence about it. While it is nice to end a stalemate by just hoping over that cover and kicking the other person, the stun effect can be unfair. By the time the person is hoping over the cover, you don't always have the time to move leaving you to get kicked, stunned and shot gunned down.
Final Thoughts
While this is still the beta version of the game, it is still very impressive and entertaining. Hopefully for the finalized game, some of the cons I talked about will be tweaked. Leave the cover stun in but just make the stun time shorter, giving the other person a fighting chance. Fix the ink grenade stun, but even with the cons of the game and minor faults, Gears of war 3 beta is still the most fun I had online in a while. The beta gives us a little taste of what to expect, for those who did not get the epic edition of bulletstorm don't be upset. The beta will be open publicly to those who reserved GoW3 from gamestop on 4-25-11. The online play is smooth, the level designs are amazing, personally I can't wait to go offline and see what the campaign mode will be like. It's going to be a sad day when they close the beta, but the way things are looking gears 3 will be the best installation of the series yet.
Gears of war 3 will be released on 9-20-11 and the beta closes on 5-15-11
