"Nulla e reale; tutto e lecito. Requiescat in pace." - Ezio Auditore (Assassin's Creed II)

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations - Review

The Game

After discovering the location of the Apple Of Eden in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Desmond was forced to stab his would-be-girlfriend Lucy and then suffered a mental breakdown and slipped into a coma. To save his mind, his Assassin pals put him into a special area of the Animus called the Black Room, or Animus Island. Desmond wakes up on this island and Subject 16 tells him to save himself he must separate himself from his ancestors, Ezio Auditore and Altair Ibn-La'Ahad. To do this, he must work his way through their memories until they have nothing left to show him. Well that’s convenient because this game happens to end Ezio’s story! So, in 1459, Ezio Auditore is on the trail of Assassin history. He’s left Italy in search of secrets about the Assassins Templars. He ends up in Altair’s old neck of the woods and starts tacking down the Masyaf Keys to Altair’s library which is said to contain something very old and very powerful. 

The Campaign

Myself and the Creed haven’t always seen eye to eye. When I first saw gameplay of the original Assassin’s Creed I was so excited, it looked incredible. An open world where you could run across rooftops like a free-runner and take down targets with blades that came out of your wrists? Sold! But although the premise was great, I felt that the controls were sloppy and the missions were repetitive. Altair was a dick and on top of that there were crappy cutscenes in which you could weirdly change the camera angle and the fact that if you tried going faster than 3mph on a horse you got attacked by nearby soldiers. Because if you look like you’re in a hurry you must be a criminal and deserve to be stabbed. All of that was enough to make me put down the game controller. Which for me is saying something. I mean, I managed to finish Prototype.

But after many recommendations I decided to give the second game a go. And it was breathtaking. An incredible game from start to finish. Then Brotherhood came along and I liked that even more. And now Ezio Auditore’s story comes to a close in Revelations... Will Ubisoft manage to entice me a third time despite our rocky start?

Well... mostly. Assassin’s Creed Revelations is a very good game, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not a great game by any means. It feels like a very long piece of DLC. After an action packed opening you arrive in Constantinople, a city which has fallen under Templar control. Experienced Creed players will know that the game is built around DNA sequences. Several sequences make up a game and many missions make up a sequence. The first sequence usually acts as an intro, letting you get to grips with the control and features. You’d think with this being the fourth Creed game that the tutorials would be be pretty short and the game would get going quickly. You’d be wrong. You reach sequence three and you’re still playing missions that involve some kind of training. In fact, the game doesn’t ever stop treating you like a complete novice. Everytime you need to locate a target it reminds you how to use Eagle Vision. Everytime you need to do a long jump, it tells you how to do it just in case you’ve forgotten how. It’s so patronizing and worse, it’s distracting. You’re meant to be an Assassin Master who rebuilt Rome in a few days! It’s ridiculous!

What makes this even more insulting is that the gameplay has barely changed at all. There are two significant differences. The Hookblade and Bombs. The hookblade allows you to climb faster, travel across ziplines, pull down scaffolding and er... trip up people. Which is cool but hardly revolutionary. Bombs come in three different types. Lethal bombs, diversions bombs and tactical bombs. Each type can be modified with different cases and ingredients and all have different effects. Once mastered they become a welcome addition to your inventory. They really help out on missions during which stealth is essential. However, everything else is more or less business as usual with a Turkish twist. The Borgia towers from Brotherhood are back but are called Templar Dens which you have to retake. Which, by the way, makes no sense. You kill the Den Captain and then you climb the tower and ignite it. Apparently, this lets the Templars know to flee. Why? Why would they flee just because funny coloured smoke is coming from the tower? Surely that would be a sign for ‘We’re under attack. Grab your sword and get stabbing.’ But nope. They flee and that Den is yours. But maybe not forever. If go round causing a lot of ruckus your notoriety will go up and then the Templars will attempt to retake Dens. You then have to go back to the Den and play a game of Den Defense. Den Defense is a real time strategy mini-game. You control various units of attack and defense and try to fight off attacking Templars and reclaim the Den as your own. To begin with, its incredibly frustrating as it isn’t explained very well and you’re thrown into it without any real warning. But the more of these that you play, the more fun it gets.

Once you’ve taken over a Den you can rebuild that area of the city by purchasing various shops and buildings. Just like in Brotherhood. In Brotherhood it made sense, Rome was a mess and you needed to fix it. But in Revelations it’s just a repeated idea to make up for lack of an actual game. Mercenaries and Thieves are back but the Courtesans have been replaced with the Romani. Which are exactly the same. And these three factions add no value to the story or the game in anyway. During one mission, Ezio makes an effort to get to know the Romani to get them on the side of the Assassins. Nice one Ezio. Except for the fact they barely feature after that.

Tombs return again. We had the Assassin Tombs in Creed 2, the Lairs of the Romulus in Brotherhood and this time we just have Hidden Tombs which contain the Mysaf keys. However, the tombs are built into the game this time round rather than being a side mission which is more evidence to the fact that there is nothing going on in main game. The first couple of these tombs are pretty dull but the last two get quite exciting and offer a nice change of pace. Elsewhere, there’s plenty to do. If you like doing the same thing as we’ve done before that is! 

You can recruit and train Assassins and then send them round Europe completing missions. That sounds familiar.  You can spend money in shops and collect items like books. Which you can do NOTHING with. You can collect Animus Data Fragments (which replace the flags and feathers we’ve seen previously.) However, this time around collecting these fragments does something a bit different. They unlock extra missions on Animus island that explore Desmond’s history. These missions are Portal style puzzles. You have to reach a point and you use blocks to get there while Desmond recites his life story. It’s interesting but repetitive and sometimes very frustrating and since there is only four of them it’s over pretty quickly.

I think the real problem with the story mode is that there isn’t really a story. Ezio is just keeping busy collecting the equivalent of Assassin Pokemon cards. Saying that, I love the fact that that Ezio is almost doing what Desmond is doing. Exploring his heritage and trying to discover the purpose of his actions through Altair’s memories. The Altair missions are great but they are far too short and infrequent, especially since him coming back was a major selling point of the game. To be honest, I was surprised they brought back Altair. I assumed that since they moved onto a new character in the second game that they’re couldn’t be much more to do with him. But what made me actually laugh out loud with self-righteous glee was Altair’s bio in game. “Thanks to the memories stored in Altair’s five Masyaf Keys, we can now get a good glimpse of the man himself, instead of settling for vague glimpses through the Templars’ (frankly quite primitive) Animus 1.28 avatar projection system.” They’re basically admitting that they did a poor job with the storytelling in the first game and wasted Altair’s character. I love being right.

What Ezio lacks in this game is a real enemy. The Borgias and Cesere in Brotherhood were brilliant. You hated them and wanted to stop them. In this game you’re just fighting some soldiers that you’re told are Templars. I bet even the soldiers don’t know that they’re Templars. Eventually, you get a real enemy with a name and face but why does he end up being your enemy? Because he threatens Ezio’s girlfriend. Wow. That’s some clever writing. The game plods along at such a slow and dull pace and suddenly picks up speed at the end. The last few missions are brilliant and exciting and really show off what a Creed game is all about. But then it’s over and you feel like it only just began.

This game set out with two main purposes. To end Ezio’s story and provide many Revelations about the Creed universe. Ezio’s story does end but he basically just retires. The trailers for the game made it look like Ezio was making a final stand, that he was all in and might end up sacrificing himself for the Creed. But all that was in the first five minutes of the game. That should have been at the end surely? A build up to an inevitable but noble end for Ezio? But no. 

As for the revelations in Revelations, well, maybe I wasn’t following it too well but it made no sense to me. I’ve always maintained that although books and comics about a game’s universe are great, a person should only need play the games to understand and follow the story. I had no clue what was meant to be going on in the fancy cut-scene at the end of Revelations. The world used to look different and then imploded? Something to do with aliens? Where do wrist-blades fit into all of this? It’s all a bit of a mess really. And speaking of Revelations, what the hell happened with Lucy? We hear from the disembodied voices of Danny Wallace and Whatshername that Lucy died after Desmond stabbed her and that she was buried outside of Rome. Do they know Desmond wasn't in control of his actions? Is Desmond in trouble? Why did the aliens want to kill Lucy? What was the point of even killing her off? IT MEANT NOTHING FOR THE PLOT! It’ll probably get wrapped up in Creed 3 but I don’t care. This isn’t Lost. I don’t want little hints of plot that span across games. Things need to have purpose and be clear from at least game to game or it makes it all pointless.

On top of all that, the game engine is looking very dated. The cinematic animation is almost embarrassing. There is one particular scene where Ezio is in a graveyard with his Assassins and he’s trying to inspire them with a final battle speech. But it was like a badly dubbed advert. His lip movements didn’t match up to what he was supposed to be saying and it looked more like how a Muppet talks than anything else. I know graphics aren’t everything but when we’ve got games like Gears Of War 3 and L.A Norie, developers should really be aiming higher.

The Multiplayer

The Multiplayer portion of Creed makes a welcome return. There’s nothing like this anywhere else. It’s the best game of hide and seek ever. It rewards patience and style. Although it’s essentially the same concept there are some new game modes and a few twists. You now earn credits over time than can be spent on new abilities. You could spend these credits on customising characters but this is a complete waste of money because you the changes are so subtle and each character is pretty dull.

My main gripe with the multiplayer is the menus. They are incomprehensible and throw information at you that means nothing. I’ve been playing since the game came out and I still have no idea what Friend Points are.

The only real complaint I have about the multiplayer is that it can be quite hard to pick up and even harder to become a pro at which can mean that new players don’t stick around for long. This means that the game becomes rather exclusive which is a bit self-destructive.

The Achievements

One thing that I can really praise here is the achievements. There’s an excellent blend of mission specific ones, weapon based ones, side mission ones and more. Most can be earned randomly just by playing the game and some need to be worked on but ALL of them are achievable. Highlights include ‘Most Pit’ which involves you having to have 10 Guards poisoned all at the same time. Low points include ‘Tax Evasion’ where you have to get your money from back from a Tax Collector. The reason this achievement is terrible is because it’s completely random. A Tax Collector will randomly appear on the map and you have to chase and trip him to get your taxes back. I’d completed the campaign, most of the side missions and was mopping up some odd achievements when I saw first the Tax Collector. That’s after hours and hours of gameplay. What if he had never appeared? There’s nothing you can do to trigger his appearance so it doesn’t seem fair. He should be at least be more common if nothing else.

Finally, Ubisoft have got the multiplayer achievements right. I personally don’t think there should ever be mulit-player achievements in any game. You can’t guarantee that people will continue to play a game online so achievements shouldn’t be tied into that portion of the game. But in this case, the achievements are all fairly simple so you can get them quite quickly. The only real tough one is unlocked by reaching level 20 but you rank up so fast anyway so it doesn’t really cause an issue.

The Verdict 

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is a pack of crisps. You know tea is coming but you just can’t wait, so you have a packet of crisps to hold you over. This game is just the filler while we wait for Assassin’s Creed 3. It gave Ubisoft the chance to tie up some loose ends, Ezio was a great character but I’m glad his part in the saga is now over. This series needs a real shake up. It needs to be redesigned almost completely. Because at the moment, everything feels a bit stale. It’s still miles ahead of a lot of other games but it makes me think that while time is being invested into Assassin’s Creed 3, money is being made by these cheaply produced, in-between game sequels and I feel a bit cheated for it. Entertaining but lacking in diversity and excitement.

7/10

"Had you ever considered that all this is your fault? Your presence creates these animals..." - Professor Hugo Strange (Batman: Arkham City)

Batman: Arkham City - Review

The Game:

I'm pretty sure that right now, there's some big Marvel executive sitting in a conference room with a bunch of scared looking employees, shouting "WHY DON'T WE HAVE A DECENT VIDEO GAME?!?" It hasn’t been all bad for Marvel, there have been a couple of good Spider-man games and the Ultimate Alliance games were good fun for a bit but it’s mostly been film-tie-in crap. For some reason, Marvel haven't been able to produce a video game like DC has.

Back in August 2009, Rocksteady released Batman: Arkham Asylum and no-one expected it to be the hit that it was. It was a huge financial and critical success and more than that; it was a proper Batman game. It was faithful to the comic books and had the bat-geeks (like myself) foaming at the mouth. So a sequel was inevitable.

Enter Batman: Arkham City. Batman managed to return order to Arkham Asylum after the Joker took over it. However, warden Quincy Sharpe took credit for Batman's work and soon became Mayor. He then went ahead with his plan to expand Arkham Asylum into Gotham and create a super prison, Arkham City. The show is being run by the shady looking Professor Hugo Strange. What's worse is that he knows Batman's true identity is Bruce Wayne. The caped crusader will stop at nothing to shut this prison down but before he can do that, he has to deal with all the inmates like the Joker, the Penguin, Two-Face and Mr. Freeze to name but a few. It's going to be another busy night...

The Campaign:

I'm going to warn your right now. There be spoilers ahead. Lots of spoilers. I can't review this game without talking about the plot. So if you haven't finished it yet, run off and complete it and then come back and read this. OK?

Through a series of events, Batman manages to get himself into Arkham City to try and shut it down from the inside. You soon learn that every villain wants to carve a little of Arkham City for themselves. The Joker, the Penguin and Two-Face control different areas but for these psychos that’s never going to enough... Besides, the Joker has more to lose than anyone else.

The Joker is sick. The Titan formula he injected himself with in the first game is having some very nasty side effects and he's dying. But this is the Joker we’re talking about, he’s not going to go out easy! He manages to get some of his blood in Batman and in the Gotham hospitals, forcing Batman to find a cure. As evil plans go, this is pretty clever but as a way of driving a game forward? Not so much.

It feels cheap. An easy way to force Batman to deal with every criminal who might have a scrap of information. I really felt like it affected the gameplay too. Arkham City is supposed to have an element of freedom to it. There are loads of side missions in which you can help Bane recover Titan containers, track down Deadshot, discover a face-stealing serial killer to name but a few. But in the back of my mind I kept thinking, if Batman is on death's door along with most of Gotham, is he really going to really be helping Bane right now? I'm not stupid. I know that Batman isn't going to die just because I do a side mission but the fact that he doesn't have a lot of time left is so integral to the story and something that you're told by Alfred, Oracle and the Joker time and time again that I feel like I shouldn't be doing anything but focusing on the story. Which made no sense since I was being reminded all the time that there's loads more to do. Maybe it's because that's how Batman truly is; torn between helping so many people and ultimately having to prioritise.

There was one other element of the story that I had a problem with and that was with the exchange between Mr Freeze about two thirds of the way through the game. The Joker lets Batman know that only Freeze can create the cure they both so desperately need. So, through a series of events Mr Freeze makes the cure for Batman, only to lock it away in a safe and then start attacking Batman, demanding that the Dark Knight gets his wife Nora back from the Joker. That I can almost understand. Mr Freeze is a bad guy and Batman’s health is not his priority. What follows is a brilliant and tense fight between Batman and Freeze. Batman beats Freeze (unless you suck at this game) and he opens the safe only to find the cure has been stolen from the other side by Harley Quinn. Straightaway, Mr Freeze is all like “What are you waiting for? Go after her and get your cure and stop the clown.” Hello? You just screwed me over! If you’d given me the cure, I could have beaten Joker, saved your wife and then I could've taken you both out for tea and cake. Instead, you messed everything up. But Batman doesn’t say that. He says “I promise I’ll get Nora back for you.” WHAT?!? This guy just fucked up everything for the both of you and now you’re all hugs and promises?!? SHEESH! It makes no sense at all. It makes me think that Freeze was a loose end that the writers had no idea to deal with. They desperately wanted to give the player a chance to fight him but also wanted him to be a good guy.

Before I stop talking about the story, I have to talk about the ending. The ending that I didn’t see coming. Batman manages to recover the cure takes some for himself before the Joker shouts for the cure. Batman almost debates giving it to him just before the Joker jumps on him and stabs Batman in the arm, causing him to drop the cure and the vial smashes to pieces. The Joker tries to lick up the cure but to no avail. He asks if Batman is happy now and Batman says, “Do you want to know something funny? Even after everything you’ve done. I would have saved you.” The Joker dies laughing and then, in an incredibly moving scene, Batman carries him out of Arkham City with everyone watching, mirroring the painting seen right at the start of the game. It's so well handled. I don’t know of any other villain whose death could invoke that kind of emotional response. He’s a complete psychotic bastard but there’s something about his character that you just love. There’s a scene where Batman believes the joker has been shot and killed and Batman actually seems distraught that he’s dead. Really, a huge weight should have been lifted from Batman’s shoulders but for Batman it would never feel that way with the Joker gone, as much as he would like it to.

Moving on from the story, Arkham City builds on everything Arkham Asylum offered. Although the city isn't as big as I hoped, it's much bigger then the Asylum. Nothing makes you feel more like Batman than running off a building, diving at the floor and then breaking into a glide before dive-bombing at some poor, unsuspecting in-mate. Like the gliding, the combat has been refined too. It feels more accurate this time round, offering more moves and animations then ever before. A favourite move of mine is the ability to break enemies 

weapons. You relieve an opponent of a gun and then snap it half. Brilliant and very Batman. All these fancypants moves have to be unlocked though. The experience you need to get your hands on these new moves and gadget upgrades is given to you by beating up goons and finding Riddles. That's right, the Riddler is back and he's really upped his game since last time. Some of his trophies are in cages and you have solve puzzles to try free them. But the Riddler has taken it one step further again. He's taken six hostages and placed each one in gauntlet style traps. You solve enough riddles, he'll give you a location of a hostage. Which is tricky, because there are hundreds of riddles this time around. I felt like giving up on it at one point. But then he mocked me and I saw his projected image laughing at me, calling me stupid. And that was enough to push me on. I kept going until I had solved enough riddles to save the hostages and reveal his location. Taking him out has to be one of the most satisfying parts of a video game of all the time.

The Catwoman content gives a change of pace but only for four short periods of time. Which I’m glad of. Fighting as Catwoman is fun but she’s so slow at getting around Arkham City compared to Batman. It’s almost painful. What’s worse is Catwoman’s character. I know she’s always acted a bit slutty but this version of her is something else. Everything she says is full of cheese and innuendo. It makes her so bloody annoying that you wish you could beat her up as Batman. I’d much rather have been playing as Robin or Nightwing in the campaign. Catwoman can bite me. I bet she would too.

Once you complete the game you the unlock New Game Plus. New Game Plus gives you the chance to play the game again with all the gadgets and moves you’ve unlocked but the game is more difficult from the get go and you don’t get any counter indicators when the enemy tries to attack you. You don’t realise how much you rely on those indicators until they’re taken away. It makes the game so much more of a challenge and gives it credible extra replay value.

The Multiplayer:

Although there’s no multiplayer, the challenge maps are back. I’ve always had a love/hate with the challenge maps in Batman. They’re great fun but ultimately frustrating. They’ve mixed things up this time, creating campaigns that consist of a mix of combat and predator maps. It’s basically just another way to play the maps but it gives you different multipliers to apply and this helps change the dynamic quite a bit. You get to choose whether you play as Batman or Catwoman and there is now DLC with Nightwing and Robin as playable characters. Each character feels unique and they all have different moves and weapons. However, since Nightwing and Robin are only useable in the challenge maps, they feel quite expensive for what are essentially just fancy skins. But if you’re a massive Batman fan like me, that won’t matter.

The Achievements:

The story achievements are great. A real mix of easy and difficult ones. There’s the usual plot ones, ones for the side missions, the Riddler related ones and more. What's great is that all the story ones are achievable. Some more so than others. One of my favourite achievements was ‘Catch’ in which you have to find someone to play Batarang catch with. One of my least favourites was ‘Story Teller’ in which you have to have 12 murderous dates with Calender Man. He has a calender next to his cell with twelve dates circled on it. You have to go see him on every one of these dates. I knew there was no way I was going to be playing this on Christmas Day or New Year’s Day or bloody Labour Day. So I had to change the date on my console, load up the game and speak to him and repeat the process another 11 times. I got the achievement but for only 10G it hardly feels worth it.

The challenge map achievements are ridiculous though. You have to get all the medals as all the characters to get all the achievements. With the Predator one’s this is fine because you can take your time but the Combat ones? No chance. I would have to play it day and night to get good enough to unlock all those achievements, so they're write offs more or less straight away.

The Verdict:

Batman: Arkham City is an amazing game. It caters to the Batman fans and to fans of action games alike. Even though the plot has it’s problems, I know I’ll play it through several times more. Even though I’ll never get those Challenge map achievements, I know I’ll keep coming back to try. You can't stay away from Arkham City for long.

What’s great about this game is that is that it doesn’t try and replicate Christopher Nolan’s films and it doesn’t try replicate everything in the comics for the sake of it. It respects the source material but it finds it’s own footing and takes this incredible franchise and it’s huge array of characters and makes it it’s own. I mean, they killed off the Joker!

I don’t know where they would go with a sequel but I really hope they make one. It’ll be odd without the Joker but I have faith in Rocksteady. They’ve made two superb games and I’d be very surprised if they didn’t have a few ideas for a third.

9/10

"Oooh! What did you sneak in, Bats? You can tell me. Batarangs? Batclaws? Batsnacks?" - The Joker (Batman: Arkham Asylum)

Over the past few years special editions have become more and more commonplace in the video game industry. The bigger, blockbuster titles now offer something a bit more unique for the dedicated fan. Of course, nothing comes for free and these special editions can sometimes leave quite a hole in the bank account and they're not always worth it.

In the months leading up to the release of Batman: Arkham Asylum I was keenly anticipating the special edition of the game. All I really knew was that it came with a batarang. A few days after release, I pulled the money together and planned to try and find a copy. I mentioned this in passing to a friend who quickly warned me against it. A colleague of his had purchased the special edition and while the game was incredible, the batarang that I had set my heart on was less incredible. In fact, it turned out to be nothing more than a lump of plastic in the shape of a batarang. No thought put into it whatsoever. 

So, I decided I wouldn't fork out the extra cash for it and just bought the standard copy of the game.

It goes without saying that when the special edition for Batman: Arkham City was announced I was a little more cautious. Or so I thought! I pre-ordered the Robin Edition from Game which came with Robin downloadable content and had a different cover. However, my good friend Matthew Stogdon pointed out that the Robin DLC would be available for everyone a few weeks after the game was released. He suggested that I, like him, buy the collector's edition instead which was only available online. So I did. And this is what I got.

After a horrible wait for the delivery man I opened the parcel and it looked like this. All very neat. Note the fantastic art-work on side featuring the Joker. Then you take the plastic off...

 ...and it unfolds rather neatly. But then...

You find all this! Included is a Batman statue. (With sharp, pointy bits.) A book with concept art and poster art inside as well as the game disc. There's the soundtrack. The Gotham Knight DVD. The Iceberg Lounge challenge map DLC, the Catwoman DLC which includes The Long Halloween and Animated Series skins and finally The Dark Knight Returns skin.

Quite a lot for only £15 more than the standard version of the game don't you think?

I have two problems with it though.

1) The soundtrack. It's not a disc, it's a download. I'd rather have a disc because it's physical and something I can actually have. Everyone knows you can download pretty much anything for free anyway whereas a disc would have been more unique.

2) It's not the most practical special edition. The sides don't stay up by themselves. I'm surprised they don't have magnets in them or something. This is such a shame because the art-work on the sides is beautiful.

I'm not sure how I'm going to store this one. It's made more difficult by the fact that the disc is inside the book! 

Clever, but bloody irritating. It would be so much easier if it was inside a standard game box because then the game itself would fit on the shelf fine and I could put the special edition itself somewhere else. I'll have a play around and when I put my review up I'll include a photo of my storage solution. Exciting times hey?

Overall, it's a huge step up from the craptacular batarang. You get so much for your money and I really like it. I just wish they had made it a bit easier to store.

But I haven't just been sitting here for the past 24 hours looking at the pretty edition. I've been playing the game and it's amazing! I'll be putting a review up soon. Don't go far.

"Never thought it would end like this, huh?" - Dominic Santiago (Gears Of War 3)

Gears Of War 3 - Review

The Game:

Gears Of War is the marmite of video games. You either love it, hate it or you tried it once and thought it was alright but didn’t bother to pick it up at the supermarket for yourself. I’m don’t think there’s a definitive reason as to why it divides people though. Perhaps it’s because it’s not quite a first person shooter and not quite a third person action game. Perhaps it’s because the lead characters make the World’s Strongest Man competitors look like a bunch of little girls. Who knows? What I do know is that I hate marmite but I love Gears Of War and Gears Of War 3 is the best of the bunch.

Gears Of War 3 rounds off the Gears Of War trilogy that follows Marcus Fenix and his fellow soldiers Dom, Cole, Baird and friends as they fight off the never-ending threat of the Locust. It focuses on Marcus and his guilt over his Dad’s apparent death. Shock and surprise! His Dad isn’t dead! He’s being held by the Locust who are forcing him to create a cure for the Lambent a new kind of ugly that’s been created by the world’s fuel, imulsion, infecting living things and turning them into an all-destroying super race. It’s up to Marcus and friends to save his Dad, spread the cure, stop the Lambent, defeat the Locust once and for all. Poor Marcus, he’s got it tough.

The Campaign:

The Gears Of War plot has always been fairly simple, using colourful characters, creatures, weapons and locations to make up for the lack of story. However, as with most trilogies in films and video games, the story has been cranked up in the third volume. You start of playing as Marcus and start on a ship that many of the Gears have been living on. Soon you come under attack from the Lambent. In a nice twist, when you come to the end of this section, the game takes you back an hour and you get to play as Cole as he visits his home town. It’s not something that continues throughout the rest of the game but it’s really nice seeing the game’s world from a different character’s perspective. 

One of the problems with the Gears games has been the linear gameplay. Essentially all you’re doing is walking through a section then fighting some guys. Then you walk through another section and fight some more guys. Then you fight a really big guy. Then you get some plot progression. You’d think that the gameplay would get stale pretty quickly. However, they’ve really mixed things up and increased the pace. One minute you’re fighting off a giant sea monster on a boat, the next you’re zip-lining out of a stadium. Before you know it you’re flying a barge and then shooting from a submarine. It’s incredibly exciting and is fall of those shock and awe moments. One of my favourite sequences was trying to keep one of the last human bases safe from a massive Locust attack. They’re trying to breach the main door and you have to fight them from the wall. I was really into it, using a turret to tear into the incoming forces then trying to pick some off with a Longshot. But soon we were getting overwhelmed and they breached the wall so we had to fallback to the next area and try to stop them from getting any further. Again, I gave it everything I had but still they got passed. By then I realised this was meant to happen but I was so focused on the objective that I felt like I had failed. It really gets you engrossed in the story and the atmosphere.

The characters have previously been fairly two dimensional. Marcus is the leader (anyone else noticed that he sounds like Eeyore?). Dom is the one with the wife who has a lot to lose. Baird is the sarcastic one and Cole is the comic relief. But in Gears 3 they’ve got a bit more going on. Marcus is dealing with trying to get his Dad back. Dom is dealing with life knowing that his wife is dead and he’ll never see her again. Baird is still sarcastic but gets to be sarcastic with a girl and Cole visits home and deals with all the memories that brings. There are two particular scenes that stand out in Gears Of War 3 and the following is riddled with spoilers. You’ve been warned.

The first deals with the Cole Train. As I mentioned, you get to go to Cole’s home town where he was a hero as the thrashball superstar. You end up at the stadium where he used to play. As you’re fighting off Lambent you end up in his old locker room. In the cut-scene Cole opens up his locker. There’s a flash and Cole is in his old thrashball gear and is taking his helmet out of his locker and is heading out to the field. His movements are slowed down and it’s like he’s soaking up everything around him. The friendly taunts from his teammates, the plaque with the team’s mascot on, his name being shouted by the announcer and the cheers from the crowd. It’s like he’s living the memory. This then cuts to a sequence in which, as Cole in his thrashball gear, you have to run across the field grab a bomb like it’s a ball and tag a Lambent stalk with it. As soon as it blows reality snaps back in and game continues. It’s such a simple and short sequence but it real shows more about Cole’s character than the previous games did combined. It shows what he lost because of this war and how much he misses it.

The second standout scene of the game and probably the most important part takes place about halfway through. The gang needs fuel to get a submarine going so they can get to Marcus’s Dad. One of the places they think of looking is Mercy, Dom’s late wife’s hometown. As they explore the town they come across Maria’s parents grave. Earlier, Dom told the crew that this is where he would have liked to have buried Maria and their kids. In a rather touching cutscene, he then takes some time to say a few words to Maria, telling her that he misses her but Marcus needs him to help save the world. He then puts his cog tags on the grave. The game continues for a bit until Marcus, Dom and the rest are fighting Locust and Lambent at the same time with their backs against the wall. Dom can see there’s only one way out. The fuel they managed to scavenge lays in canisters in the middle of the fight. He jumps down to their truck, screams at Marcus and the others to get out of the fight and drives off. He turns around, pauses, then drives full speed shouting to Maria “Who would have thought it would end like this?” He crashes into the canisters causing a massive explosion that kills all the Lambent and Locust but sacrificing himself at the same time. As he does, the music from the song “Mad World” by Michael Andrews Gary Jules plays. Fans of the original game will remember this was the song used in the trailer that got everyone’s attention. It is such a perfectly handled scene. You know as soon as he hangs his Cog Tags on the grave that he isn’t expecting to come back alive. What’s incredible is not only does it round off Dom’s story arc perfectly but it gives Marcus more substance. Dom was Marcus’ brother in all but blood. The grief and the emotion make Marcus seem so much more human and in turn easier to relate to. One of the best handled deaths in a video I’ve ever seen.

Brothers to the end...

I only have a few problems with the campaign. First of all; the Lambent. It may be because I haven’t read any of the Gears Of War books or maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention but I don’t get the Lambent. I get that the fuel is infecting living things and mutating them but I don’t understand what the Lambent’s goal is. It’s not like a zombie virus, it’s seems intelligent but just has no purpose. It also seems a little bit too much like the Flood from Halo. Especially since in Halo 3, the Flood could mutate into different forms, a trick that some of the Lambent use. If I had to guess I’d say  it’s just Epic trying to add a bit more variety to the game.

My other major problem is that several plot points aren’t explained enough. Why does the Queen look like a human? What were the Sires in Gears Of War 2? I know I could type these questions into google and find the answer from some guy who has read every piece of Gears fiction ever written but shouldn’t playing the games be enough?

The Multiplayer:

The versus modes in Gears Of War have been a subject of controversy throughout the series. It’s been riddled with glitches, the matches always seemed to work in favour of the host and it’s basically been a shotgun game. Epic have taken on board the feedback from their previous outings and took things really seriously for their third outing. They even delayed the release of the game to make time for a public beta. A cynical person may say that they only held a public beta to drum up interest, to sell more copies of Bulletstorm or to jump on the beta bandwagon. But I think it was a necessity. And it’s worked. The multiplayer is now fantastic. 

The weapons are much more balanced. Of course, you can still run around with a shotgun but chances are you’ll get taken out by a rifle before you get a chance to fire. Shotguns are now reserved for the close-up fights and the choice of the traditional Gnasher and new sawed-off is brilliant. The sawed-off is insanely powerful and can take out multiple opponents at once but has limited range, takes time to reload and has very little ammo. Whereas the Gnasher has a lot of ammo, reloads quickly but isn’t as powerful. There’s a broader choice of weapons for every type of player this time round. You like to hold back and pick off targets from a distance? Use the Hammerburst. You like to keep a distance but close enough to run out and do some damage close up? It’s the Lancer for you! Or are you the kind of person who likes to be right in the middle of the battle? Soldier, pick up the Retro Lancer. There’s a good mix of maps and gametypes to keep the game from going stale. Traditional FPS players will have a hard time with it (COD players, I’m looking at you) but with enough patience you can become a force to be reckoned with and start racking up the kills.

I think he got the point...

 Horde makes a welcome return. Horde was always my favourite mode in Gears Of War 2. Being able to team up with some buddies and fighting wave after wave of Locust was just incredible. For me, it’s the definitive survival mode. Epic learnt from the players and noticed how people would pick one spot and hold it, placing boomshields down to stop enemies from getting too close. So in Gears 3 they’ve introduced fortifications to the game. Every player has some money. Every map has several Command Posts you can buy. When you buy a command posts you can buy defenses, like spikes to slow enemies down, decoys to distract them, and turrets (which are pretty self explanatory). These can all be upgraded over time. But everything costs money, so how do you earn more? By killing and surviving. These defenses are key to getting to and completing wave 50. Without them, you’ll find yourself getting overrun in the later waves. But best thing about Horde in Gears 3 is the boss waves. Waves 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 are boss waves and the boss is always random. The wave starts and the normal Locust enemies like Drones and Boomers start coming but you get something special turn up like Reavers or a couple of Berserkers or say a Brumak. Yep, I said Brumak.

Taking on a Brumak in Horde is just incredible. Myself and some friends got to fight one during wave 50. Two of us took on the Brumak, my friend tearing into it with a turret while I shot at it with everything I had. The rest of the team held our position against the Locust that was working it’s way up the stairs. We managed to take down the Brumak (with a pistol I might add) and started to clean up the rest of the attacking force. Victory was in sight. Until another Brumak turned up.

Hope you're hungry. It's time to eat curb.

 For something similar and a bit less intense is Beast mode. Beast mode is like the reverse of Horde. You get to play as Locust attacking humans. You start of with basic beasts like Tickers, Drones, Wretches etc. If you manage to keep getting kills or break down their defenses you start to unlock bigger beasts like Maulers, Bloodmounts, Boomers and Berserkers. It can pretty tough but it’s not as punishing as Horde and ultimately it’s about having fun and getting to play as the baddies for a bit. Who doesn’t love being bad?

There’s also the addition of Arcade. Arcade is like Halo’s campaign scoring system. Instead of just playing the campaign and making your way through the level, you’re scored for what you do. You can also turn mutators on (just like the skulls from Halo) and make things easier with things like unlimited ammo or make things harder with things like friendly fire. There are also fun mutators like Headless Chicken. With Headless Chicken turned on when you shoot the head of an enemy off they will run around and attack anything that moves before dying a few seconds later. Very entertaining. The Arcade mode makes the campaign a little more interesting and adds a competitive edge to the experience.

One of the best things in Gears Of War is the ranking system. They’ve learnt from Reach with this one. You can earn in experience in any mode whether it be campaign, versus, horde or beast and you’ll gain experience and progress through the ranks. It even works if you play against bots by yourself in versus. (which by the way is the best way to get some practice in) I hate it when a game has achievements that are rank linked but you don’t like playing the game online because everyone seems to be better than you. Not a problem here. More games need to adhere to this. Not that rank is everything. But achievements are.

The Achievements:

Gears 3 is pretty standard when it comes to the achievements, which is a little disappointing. It seems that the developers have put more imagination into the in-game medals and awards. 

There’s the usual complete a level, complete the game on different difficulties achievements as well as the collect all the collectibles ones too. They’ve also assigned achievements for each game mode as well, just to make sure you play them all. There’s achievements for reaching certain ranks. 6 in total, which is way too many.

Then there’s the usual Seriously achievement. Each Gears game has had a Seriously achievement. The first game’s was to get 10,000 kills in ranked versus games. The second game’s was to get 100,000 kills throughout the game. The third’s is to reach level 100 and rank all your medals in game to Onyx. For example, to upgrade the Doorman medal to Onyx, you have to manipulate 2000 objects in the game. That basically means press 2000 buttons. I’ve played the game twice through already and I’ve only managed to manipulate 200 objects.  And that’s just one medal. There are more for kills with specific weapons, reviving so many people in the campaign, playing 4000 matches. The list goes on. This is a stupid achievement and is next to impossible. No one has that much time to dedicate to one game.  (Unless you’re one of those people who only plays Call Of Duty and deserve to have your fingers broken.) 

There’s a couple of moderately interesting ones like the Judge, Jury and Executioner one where you have to get a kill with every possible execution and Wreaking Locust Vengeance where you have to get a kill with every Locust monster in Beast Mode. 

 The best achievement of the whole game is a secret one. Just a quick note here; I bloody hate secret achievements. They should only be used for story related achievements which you are guaranteed to unlock just by playing the game. Anyway, this interesting and secret achievement is called Respect For The Dead. At the beginning of Act IV during the chapter Ashes To Ashes you walk through the ruined city Char which was destroyed by Hammer Strikes. The citizens of the city have been turned to ash statues, frozen in the position they were in when they tried to escape the strikes. If you manage not to destroy any of the ash people and then talk to the lady in the weapons room in Griffin’s tower she’ll notice how you respected the dead and let you have some heavy weapons. And give you a lovely achievement too. WHICH IS ONLY WORTH 5 BLOODY GEES. That’s my biggest problem with the achievements in this game. They are worthless! 10G for completing all 50 waves of Horde? Piss off! That should be worth at least 50.

The Verdict:

Despite the odd issue here and there, I loved Gears Of War 3. You get so much for your money. There’s so much variety with the different game modes and there’s loads to unlock and achieve. It’s one of those games that’s built around a single player experience but it’s best played with friends. I would pay £40 for Horde alone, it’s that good. The whole game feels like it’s been a labour of love from start to finish. This probably isn’t the last we’ve seen of Gears Of War and I can’t wait for the next installment, whatever that may be. But I’ll still be playing Gears Of War 3 until that arrives. I can see it’s going to be one of those games like Reach and Left 4 Dead that I’ll always fall back on.

10/10