Preview: Gears of War 3 Multiplayer Beta - Preview
by Daniel Share-Strom , posted on 20 April 2011 / 5,128 Views
When I jumped into my first match in the Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta, three things were immediately evident:
1. Anya Stroud’s screams when she dies sound a lot like Link from Zelda.
2. Lancer rifles with bayonets on the end are oh so satisfying.
3. These are not the Gears you’re looking for.
That last point I mention with some disappointment. I have the utmost respect for the fact that this is only a beta, and doubtlessly, five thousand things will be tweaked before launch. However, there are some fundamental design choices that I’m concerned about which, while not making it a ‘bad’ game per se, make it hardly feel like a Gears game at all. You know what I mean. Tactical. Methodical. Tense! This game is... not.
The main culprit is the ruleset for the sole multiplayer mode on offer in the beta. In the previous games, the main multiplayer modes were Warzone and Execution, both of which afforded a player one life per round — if you died, you stayed dead. This, combined with the series’ cover-based combat and emphasis on teamwork, made it seem like every man was important — if you lost three guys on your team, you had to pull off a miracle if you wanted to win. You stuck to cover, moved forward only when you knew the coast was clear, paid close attention to the condition of your teammates, and felt like every kill was a major achievement.
1. Anya Stroud’s screams when she dies sound a lot like Link from Zelda.
2. Lancer rifles with bayonets on the end are oh so satisfying.
3. These are not the Gears you’re looking for.
That last point I mention with some disappointment. I have the utmost respect for the fact that this is only a beta, and doubtlessly, five thousand things will be tweaked before launch. However, there are some fundamental design choices that I’m concerned about which, while not making it a ‘bad’ game per se, make it hardly feel like a Gears game at all. You know what I mean. Tactical. Methodical. Tense! This game is... not.
The main culprit is the ruleset for the sole multiplayer mode on offer in the beta. In the previous games, the main multiplayer modes were Warzone and Execution, both of which afforded a player one life per round — if you died, you stayed dead. This, combined with the series’ cover-based combat and emphasis on teamwork, made it seem like every man was important — if you lost three guys on your team, you had to pull off a miracle if you wanted to win. You stuck to cover, moved forward only when you knew the coast was clear, paid close attention to the condition of your teammates, and felt like every kill was a major achievement.
Dom has become a man since Gears of War 2--a man in desperate need of a shave.
The Gears 3 beta, by contrast, gives us a standard Team Deathmatch mode, in which each team has a shared pool of fifteen lives. From what I’ve seen, when people know that they’ll just come back in a few seconds, everyone just runs out in the middle of the field and starts shooting, a play style handled much better in shooters such as Halo or Call of Duty. The only time it starts to get interesting is when respawns have been depleted and people go back to using cover and watching each others’ backs — so what’s the point?
That’s my main concern for Gears 3 at the moment. New modes will be added to the beta in the weeks to come, and I hope Warzone and Execution will return in the final product, but I don’t want you to think I haven’t been having fun so far, because I have. That’s mostly due to the myriad new weapons and features on offer here. I’ve already mentioned the ‘Retro’ Lancer with a bayonet on the end, but I did not mention that it allows you to dash forward while holding it, impale some poor sap, lift them over your head and dump them on the ground behind you. Nor did I mention the improved Hammerburst rifle, which now allows you to go into a first-person aiming mode for increased accuracy. Incendiary grenades are cool, too, exploding in a hail of fire upon first contact with an object or enemy. That one is particularly useful for creating an impromptu barrier between you and three or four pursuers. The sawed-off shotgun is a real menace — it has less range than the standard Gnasher and has one shot per clip, but if anyone is standing within five feet from you when you fire, they will die.
But the real star of the ‘new weapons’ show is easily the Digger Launcher, which sends a powerful explosive underground in a straight line towards your target. It explodes as soon as it touches anything, making it just as great a tool for blowing up someone’s cover (more on that below) as it is for insta-gibbing three unsuspecting Locust scum. Unless there’s some distance between you and your foe, if you see the telltale dirt being flung up from the ground getting closer to you... well, you’d better hope there are some lives left in that stock.
That’s my main concern for Gears 3 at the moment. New modes will be added to the beta in the weeks to come, and I hope Warzone and Execution will return in the final product, but I don’t want you to think I haven’t been having fun so far, because I have. That’s mostly due to the myriad new weapons and features on offer here. I’ve already mentioned the ‘Retro’ Lancer with a bayonet on the end, but I did not mention that it allows you to dash forward while holding it, impale some poor sap, lift them over your head and dump them on the ground behind you. Nor did I mention the improved Hammerburst rifle, which now allows you to go into a first-person aiming mode for increased accuracy. Incendiary grenades are cool, too, exploding in a hail of fire upon first contact with an object or enemy. That one is particularly useful for creating an impromptu barrier between you and three or four pursuers. The sawed-off shotgun is a real menace — it has less range than the standard Gnasher and has one shot per clip, but if anyone is standing within five feet from you when you fire, they will die.
But the real star of the ‘new weapons’ show is easily the Digger Launcher, which sends a powerful explosive underground in a straight line towards your target. It explodes as soon as it touches anything, making it just as great a tool for blowing up someone’s cover (more on that below) as it is for insta-gibbing three unsuspecting Locust scum. Unless there’s some distance between you and your foe, if you see the telltale dirt being flung up from the ground getting closer to you... well, you’d better hope there are some lives left in that stock.
My personal favourite map so far.
Of course, there’s no battle without a battlefield, and there's a decent variety of maps on offer in the beta, with my favourites being Checkout and Thrashball. Checkout, as you may imagine, takes place in a destroyed portion of what seems to be a mall. It has lots of long, narrow corridors, with trenches containing chainguns on either side. Since this map is so cramped, whichever team commands the Digger Launcher commands the match. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s the more wide-open outdoor map, Thrashball. Thrashball is the game played by fan-favourite character Augustus ‘Cole Train’ Cole. The stadium’s size and layout are similar to a football field, albeit one with giant chunks of debris scattered around to take cover behind. The scoreboard above is dangling by a thread, which can be shot to make grub-meat out of any poor saps with the misfortune to be standing under it. You can also make use of tight corridors on the sides to sneak around and get the jump on opponents, or take long-range potshots from the bleachers. Thrashball is likely my favourite map because battles shift so quickly from long-range to up close and personal.
That’s about it for the major new features in the Gears of War 3 beta, but there are plenty of smaller tweaks that enhance the gameplay in their own ways. Characters move just a bit faster when walking, making the battle seem that much more urgent. Cover is more destructible now, with explosives like grenades or the Digger Launcher able to take out large chunks and force the opponent to relocate or die. Another useful feature is that you can tag enemies now — the previous games made it hard to point an enemy out to teammates without giving away your position, but now you can place a tag on them that lasts for several seconds. Finally, Epic has learned something from the botched matchmaking system of Gears of War 2, as the beta does not take upwards of fifteen minutes to find a match despite the fact that only 20,000 people are playing at any given time. I did experience one match filled with gratuitous lag — I stood beside an enemy and shot him point-blank with the sawed-off three times, and then I was somehow the one that died. But that’s what a beta is for, and I have little doubt small issues like these will be ironed out before the final release.
That’s about it for the major new features in the Gears of War 3 beta, but there are plenty of smaller tweaks that enhance the gameplay in their own ways. Characters move just a bit faster when walking, making the battle seem that much more urgent. Cover is more destructible now, with explosives like grenades or the Digger Launcher able to take out large chunks and force the opponent to relocate or die. Another useful feature is that you can tag enemies now — the previous games made it hard to point an enemy out to teammates without giving away your position, but now you can place a tag on them that lasts for several seconds. Finally, Epic has learned something from the botched matchmaking system of Gears of War 2, as the beta does not take upwards of fifteen minutes to find a match despite the fact that only 20,000 people are playing at any given time. I did experience one match filled with gratuitous lag — I stood beside an enemy and shot him point-blank with the sawed-off three times, and then I was somehow the one that died. But that’s what a beta is for, and I have little doubt small issues like these will be ironed out before the final release.
Not from the beta, but really freakin' cool to look at!
That’s about all I can say about the Gears of War 3 beta. I need not go into detail about the graphics — the original game was the first to show what this generation of consoles was really capable of, and this one seems to continue that trend of visual beauty. There are a lot of improvements to be found here, and perhaps the new modes that will be introduced to the beta in the coming weeks will make it feel more like a traditional Gears game. From what I’ve seen so far, the game is quite a bit of fun to play, and I’ll definitely be picking up the final product on release day.
Just please, Epic: In the final game, when I kill someone, can you make them stay dead?
Just please, Epic: In the final game, when I kill someone, can you make them stay dead?
