Beginning of the End

     Spring, a time for flowers blooming, bees buzzing, birds chirping, and...heads popping? That’s right, this year Spring comes with the Gears of War 3 Beta, a highly anticipated event for anyone who has played the previous two installments. Starting on April 15th and running until May 15th, thousands of people across the world will be participating in order to vastly improve the Gears 3 multiplayer when the full game is released on September 20th. There are four maps and three gametypes available, each offering a different experience. 

    The new maps - Thrashball, Checkout, Trenches, and Old Town - stick to the traditional Gears style of having plenty of cover to dodge and weave around. However, each one also offers its share of narrow, open passages where plenty of close-quarter combat takes place. The three gametypes, while based off of the old styles, have been redone to offer a new style of play. There is the traditional Team Deathmatch, but this time with a twist. Each team has a pool of lives that each member shares. When it runs out each team member has one more life before they are out for the rest of the round. King of the Hill also makes a debut, where each team strives to take control of a ring that moves every minute or so. There are unlimited respawns and points are awarded for capturing and “breaking” the ring. Finally, there is Capture the Leader, a combination of Guardian and Submission from the previous game. Each team has a leader which the other team must down and then hold for 30 seconds. However, whenever the leader is dropped the time resets, adding a bit of challenge. 

    As far as the actual gameplay goes, anybody who has played a Gears of War game will be right at home. Epic Games has kept all the elements that make the game what it is, but this time around it feels a lot more fast-paced. Because of the unlimited respawns, the action is almost constant and there is barely time to take a breath. This is definitely a far cry from the original game where each person had only one life per round. One thing that could use an upgrade, though, is the spawning system. Countless times I have spawned either right next to an enemy, or an entire team spawned right behind me as I was leaving. As you might imagine this can lead to quite a bit of frustration, especially during a close match.

The new weapons also add a refreshing spin on the game. The two main additions are the Retro Lancer and the Sawed-off Shotgun, which can both be used as starting weapons. The Retro Lancer, while super inaccurate, is more powerful than its modern counterpart and works best at medium- to close-range. The Sawed-off is a powerhouse in that it is an instant kill if shot extremely close-up. This is balanced by the fact that there is a one-shot clip and the longest reload time of any of the guns. Also, unless you are right in the other player’s face, the gun is practically useless. Other additions include the Digger Launcher, a rocket launcher that burrows underground, the One Shot, a large, bulky sniper rifle that is a one-hit kill, and the Incendiary Grenade, which creates a patch of fire wherever it hits. At this point there is still a bit of tweaking to be done in terms of weapon strength, but it seems as though it is balanced by-and-large. 

Yet another new feature that has been introduced is unlockables. Almost everything, from characters, to weapon skins, to special executions, are unlocked in various ways. So far they seem pretty generic, such as “Play x games of y gametype” or “Get x kills with y weapon” but it is a little something extra to keep players interested for even longer. There are also medals that players can earn by achieving certain things in-game. Things like healing teammates 50 times or getting a particular amount of headshots will unlock the medal and a title to be displayed next to your name. Each medal has four levels to it, with the requirement for each level increasing exponentially. In the Beta the unlockables are a bit on the skimpy side, but that will no doubt improve with the final release. At this point it all works quite well and it will be interesting to see what Epic does with it.

So far, the best thing I can say about the Gears Beta is that it is very promising. Epic made a very good decision in delaying the game to do this, especially with the problems the Gears 2 multiplayer had at launch. Not only does it allow for the gameplay to be tweaked and balanced, but it also creates even more hype for the game when it is finally released. If the Beta is any sort of reflection on what the final game will be like, then it will most definitely do the series justice.