Gears of War 3

Well, it's finally come to an end. The trilogy of buff, grunting guys shooting buff, grunting aliens who don't like buff, grunting and glowing monster/aliens is over. It's been quite a ride. Remember that time that...or that one time that...

The first thing I noticed about Gears of War 3 was that I remembered next to nothing about Gears 1 or 2. I remembered a few names and some character relations but that's about it. I couldn't remember anything about the Lambent or the Locust or a million tiny things that seemed really important in this game. I was so lost. Of course, I just recently noticed that there is a cinematic which sums up the events of the past games, which would have been helpful. Too bad for me, I guess.

The game starts out on a ship. You are Marcus Fenix, Bender-voiced space-badass and player character for the past two games. Dom is back as well, sporting a well-earned sadness beard and a strange plant fetish. Cole, Baird and the new and improved Carmine weave themselves in and out of the story along with Anya who is strangely strong and not just a disembodied voice, Sam who is a new female character and strangely Australian, Jace who is the new black guy with no other distinguishing characteristics who strangely lives through the whole game. The story revolves around Marcus trying to find his father and other stuff. Really, that's the best I can give you. I never felt connected to the characters, I never got a sense of place or geography. With the exception of a few somewhat tropical locales, I remember a lot of dirt and broken buildings. The game goes by in the blink of an eye and all your left with is the weird image of Marcus and Anya (SPOILERS) holding hands. Nothing has ever looked so silly as Marcus's T-Bone-sized hand clasping Anya's circus midget hand.

I'm not totally down on this game, though, I'm not a complete douche. The game does have a few cool ideas. The gas barges, giant living airships, were cool. Of course I have a soft spot for zeppelins so I may be biased. I liked the non-twist about the origin of the Lambent that I won't give away even though it's super obvious. There were a lot of little moments where there were sparks of genius. The biggest pro I can think of is that, to be superbly superficial, it's fun. It's just a big, dumb bag of fun. There's vague allusions to the energy crisis, but this game doesn't have anything to say other than never follow Ice-T in the event of an apocalypse. In fact, the game is at its worst when it tries to transcend the standard of fun set by the 80's action movie. There is a death I won't give away in this game that everyone knows is going to happen from the very beginning of the game. When it finally happened, there was about two seconds where I almost felt something (mostly because of the song) before I didn't care again. Katie was actually laughing, but she may also just be very sadistic. The game's writers are not good enough to come up with dialogue that can convey the emotions necessary for me to care about these people, so all I wanted to do was go back to mindlessly shooting bad things.

I just don't have that much to say, really. It's a well done action movie of a game that feels exactly like the other games in the series. There's no real meat to it, although there is a strange issue I'll talk about in a later post, but it's still fun. I didn't get to the multiplayer because, frankly, I don't care. Multiplayer in Gears games has been awful in the past and I don't want to be hurt again. It's been a fitting end to the franchise with fun game play and a tidy ending which should make sure there is never another game in the series, which I really respect. If you've played the other games in the series, play this one too. It's probably the best one, even though they're all essentially the same awkward machismo-driven shootfest. I look forward to seeing what Epic does next. It will probably make me feel manly.

Now I can go back to playing Skyrim!