Game Review: Gears of War 3

Eric Wittmershaus - Knight Ridder/Tribune

From "Call of Duty" to "Halo" and "Mass Effect," video games featuring soldier main characters do a lousy job of showing players what's at stake. Time and again, we're told we need to save America or the world or the human race, but when it comes time to show us the civilians we're fighting for, game developers fumble.

Not so in "Gears of War 3" (rated M, $60 or $150), a blockbuster third-person shooter releasing Tuesday for the Xbox 360. The game places front and center the destruction wrought by the military the player is part of, and repeatedly calls into question the decisions of its leaders. Unlike other games' ham-handed attempts at making players care about a population we rarely see or interact with, Epic Games pulls it off with aplomb.

"Gears 3" concludes the three-act story begun in 2006 and continued in 2008. At the start of the new game, gruff, grizzled hero Marcus Fenix and his companions are trying to keep the human race alive, living aboard a warship after deliberately flooding their last remaining metropolis to defeat the subterranean enemy Locust at the end of "Gears 2."

In "Gears 3," Fenix discovers that his father, Adam, believed to have been killed before the first game even started, is alive. The game is essentially a father-and-son reunion tale, with Fenix and Co. trying to reach Adam Fenix, a scientist who holds the key to defeating the Lambent, a new form of the humanoid Locust that was revealed in the middle of "Gears 2."

Despite levels designed to take advantage of four-player cooperative play (up from two players in previous games), the narrative in "Gears 3" has a more intimate, personal focus than "Gears 2." While the trilogy's middle game featured epic set pieces and huge battles, the third title invites the player to be an ancillary member of Delta Squad. If you've played the first two games, "Gears 3" feels a lot like an emotional road trip to your buddies' old stomping grounds.

If you're a "Gears" veteran, the trappings of the third game will be familiar. Even though gamers can now play as female characters in co-op and multiplayer, a first for the series, gameplay is much the same. You'll once again be controlling a slow-moving tank of a soldier, ducking behind cover and popping out to shoot enemy Locust and Lambent. Though there are a few new weapons, such as the retro Lancer, you'll probably still find yourself defaulting to the standard Lancer assault rifle, with its chain-saw bayonet, or old favorites like the torque bow and Longshot sniper rifle.

The multiplayer offerings of the "Gears" franchise continue to expand. The series' Horde mode, introduced in "Gears of War 2," became so popular it's now the gaming equivalent of Kleenex, a brand name used generically to describe any game type in which players fight off waves of computer-controlled enemies. "Gears 3" evolves the concept somewhat, as players now earn money they can spend on fortifications, decoys and turrets.

New to "Gears 3" is Beast mode. Essentially the inverse of Horde, it has players assuming the roles of Locust and attacking fortified human positions. At the outset, only a few low-grade Locust shock troops are available. But as you eat away at the fortifications, kill humans and advance through the mode's 12 waves, you earn money you can spend on stronger, more advanced units, such as a giant centipede or nearly-blind berserker capable of smashing just about everything. Of the multiplayer modes I sampled at an event for journalists, Beast mode was easily the most fun. The fact that it caps out at 12 waves, though, might mean it has limited staying power relative to Horde mode, which has 50 waves.

The Horde and Beast modes, along with an Arcade mode that has teams play through the campaign together in pursuit of multipliers and high scores, make "Gears 3" a great game for those of us who love online multiplayer but grow tired of the trash-talking grind of competitive games like team deathmatch and capture-the-flag. The great thing about "Gears," though, is that it includes variations on those old favorites, too. If you want to hop online and curb-stomp some anonymous fools while making dubious assertions about their parentage, you can do that.

The robust multiplayer modes, along with the heartfelt story, make "Gears 3" the franchise's strongest entry yet.

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Copyright 2012 by Knight Ridder/Tribune