The planet Sera has certainly seen better days, but the Gears of War franchise hasn't. The third installment in Epic's epic is the best to date and a more than fitting finale for the gritty and gory third-person shooter.
The campaign picks up 18 months after the events of Gears of War 2 – i.e. the sinking of the last human stronghold in order to flood the home of the subterranean locust. This tactic has turned the remaining humans into nomads, forced to scavenge across the war-torn surface of Sera for everything from food to ammo.
Early on it's revealed that protagonist Marcus Fenix's dad – long believed to be dead – is alive and that he may have a way to stop the growing lambent threat (glowing fuel source infected locust that explode in a satisfyingly gooey mess once you pump them full of enough lead) and it's up to Delta squad to find him.
The campaign is hands down the most story-driven and well-executed entry into the highly acclaimed series. It's a bromantic romp that manages to tug on the player's heartstrings on more than one occasion without becoming overly cheesy, and it's able to wrap up the series in a nice blood-drenched bow.
But even with all of the emotion intertwined, Gears of War 3 never forgets what it is and, most importantly, what it does best. The game still offers up more chainsaw-revving, head-smashing and limb-severing action than an enraged lumberjack.
However, one minor downside is the boss battles. Whenever you find yourself going toe-to-claw with some of Sera's monstrous wildlife – which happens fairly often – the strategy is always the same: shoot it in the mouth. It's as if some demented dentist designed the gameplay.
Thankfully, the campaign now supports four-player co-op, so you and your buddies can go blow your enemies' 12-foot incisors to bloody bits in a friendly and team-building fashion. Won't your local dental hygienist be proud?
While the core gameplay mechanics may have stayed virtually the same since the original Gears of War first popped up in 2006, Gears 3 is able to feel smoother and more fluent than the previous installments.
The characters don't get caught on the edges of cover nearly as often, and hopping in-and-out of cover feels more like a natural reaction than pressing a button. This means you can focus more on the baddy charging you with his bayonet equipped Lancer, and less on cursing out the random pile of rubble your character keeps trying to jump behind. Not to mention how helpful this is when battling real opponents on Xbox Live.
At a quick glance multiplayer seems like your standard affair, but as the humans of Sera found out, there's so much more beneath the surface.
Naturally, the traditional game modes are there – such as Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill and Gears' twisted take on Capture the Flag, Capture the Leader – but it's the FNG that manages to take home the multiplayer medal of honor.
Wingman, one of the new game modes, is incredibly addicting and perfectly exemplifies the game's brotastic style of gameplay. In this mode four teams of two square off in a carnage and mayhem filled deathmatch that only ends when one duo reigns supreme.
Just make sure you head into a match with a trusted buddy and not a COG rookie.
Then there's Horde: the beloved mode first introduced in Gears 2 that pits players against wave after wave of increasingly difficult enemies. This game type was such a hit that many believed making it better would be nearly impossible.
They were wrong. Horde is one of the most fun experiences you'll have playing, not just in Gears of War 3, but in any videogame ever.
In Horde 2.0 player's now have the ability to earn cash based on their performance and use it to buy various upgrades for their team. These feature weapons, razor wire, turrets and even a cardboard cutout of the Cole train that will distract the enemies. However, the cutout isn't the only visual distraction found in the game.
Gears of War 3 is actually one big visual distraction. While the previous installments featured a colorful level every so often, Gears 3 takes it up a notch. So much so in fact, that it's not hard to imagine the artists being threatened under penalty of Lancer execution to use more colors than black, gray and red.
While it might be hard for some gears heads to accept that this five year staple of the Xbox library may be over, there is no arguing that Gears of War 3 is the send off that the series deserved. With this series, Epic Games truly did live up to its title.
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