Joystiq Top 10 of 2011: Gears of War 3

by David Hinkle on Jan 1st 2012 7:30PM

If my life were a book, the chapter covering the last quarter of 2011 would be one page long and contain one phrase, in bold: Gears of War 3. In reality, lots of things happened to me over the last couple months, but aside from a brief affair with Skyrim, most of my time was spent going to farmers markets and crafts fairs with Gears of War 3. You know, committed relationship couple-type stuff.

I've always been a fan of the series -- the multiplayer side in particular -- and my excitement for another Gears of War, especially following a successful beta, was at an all-time high. With dedicated servers, updated weekly playlists and a variety of new modes, including a much-improved Horde mode, Gears of War 3 came equipped with more replay value than any of its predecessors.

But it isn't just about the multiplayer. The single-player campaign, the biggest Epic has ever produced, didn't disappoint. Gears of War 3 traded awful worm surgery for intense firefights and explosions. Each moment of the campaign seemed hell-bent on usurping the one that came before, ultimately creating an experience that can be considered Epic's finest offering to date.

Pacing is another crucial lesson Epic learned and exercised in Gears of War 3. The gameplay never got stagnant -- brief exchanges between the main characters and a few cutscenes propelled the story, as has become the norm for the series, but the gameplay kept a consistent and engaging clip. Skirmishes flowed into larger battles; the scale of conflict and added variety of enemies made each encounter fresh. Gears of War 3 never tried to impress by showing something spectacular. It impressed by making you play through spectacular scenarios.

If Halo: Reach was Bungie's swan song to the Halo franchise, Gears of War 3 is Epic's dissertation paper. It's an exhausting report of the successes Epic has learned, one that's helped Gears of War 3 stand tall amongst the finest shooters in this generation.

Joystiq is revealing its 10 favorite games of 2011 throughout the week. Keep reading for more top selections and every writer's personal, impassioned picks in Best of the Rest roundups. The list so far:

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Gears of War 3
Mortal Kombat

Tags: Epic, epic-games, Gears-of-War-3, joystiq-best-of-2011, microsoft, xbox

Reader Comments (43)

Agreed on every point.

@TheChezDispenser
Gears 3 is my GOTY.
Storyline wrapped up majority of things going on (*cough* Queen question is still unanswered) and executed many scenes very well.
Horde and Beast are a welcome add-on to the multiplayer/co-op component
And multiplayer is still being played by many including myself to this day.
It really works well and not much to complain about.

Too addictive.

@GamingColt

Agreed, my GOTY as well. The multiplayer is the best of the series, 4 player campaign was very welcome, there was far more emotion in the story than the previous games, the addition of base building in horde mode is fantastic, and beast mode is a great horde alternative when you've got less than a half hour. It's just the complete polished package that so few developers can pull off.

@GamingColt
Also possibly my GOTY as well. I played a lot of games this year (and yes, even Battlefield, COD and Skyrim), but this is the game I come back to over and over again. I also love Assassin's Creed: Revelations, but I'm a little burned out after so many Assassin's games.

It blows my mind that people thought the GOW3 campaign was anything more than okay. I wasn't a fan of the multiplayer but not because it was a mess; it was the exact opposite in fact, and a lot of developers could learn a thing or two from Epic. I just didn't like the play style.

@The Pork

Gears 3 was my least favorite campaign of the series. Not enough questions were answered, Dom's whole ... thing ... felt forced, and Carmine lived. Lame.

@The Pork What does God of War 3 has to do with this game?

@The Pork What does God of War 3 has to dowith this game?

@ChitownPnoy

Apparently someone never learned about context clues in school...

@ChitownPnoy

What's GoW got to do, got to do with it?

@The Pork

Grapes of Wrath?

@A Sandwich

How was Carmine living lame?

*Gaze slowly lowers to meet 'Carmine Must Die!' t-shirt*

I actually forgot about Gears of War 3.
It's not really my type of game but I still think it deserves a spot on the top 10 ; a lot of my friends really enjoyed it.

@Special Agent Steve

This is why I love Joystiq, they do not forget about games. No matter how early they came out in the year, how much they were overlooked, Joystiq always remembers.

@mguniverse

dude gears came out like two months ago

Just for variety's sake (seeing the previous two comments), my opinion is NEUTRAL.

I agree wholeheartedly. Doms thing especially seemed like it came out of nowhere. Not in a "oh wow! I didn't see that coming at all!" but more " wow, they actually did that. Huh." I also didn't find a lot of the basic levels and set pieces to be nearly as engaging and fun as gears 2. The lead up to the gas barge ride and the ash people in particular were comparative snooze fests

Also, I think carmine was very poorly handled. He gets introduce through the contest with a picture of him atop a pile of locust, looking even beefier than marcus and friends. Then he's on the game with the same voice as the others, not remarkably larger than anyone else, totally borked any cool he might have had. Then he doesn't even get a super cool survival/last stand thing. Probably my least favorite part of the game

I haven't had the chance to play through Gears 3 yet, but from what I have played it is a vast improvement over Gears 2.

I remember the previews of the first Gears of War. Not only did this franchise come out with a rich raw style but it was able to grow and evolve into an amazing final chapter.

Hats off to Epic Games and the Gears of War series.

I overall really like the Gears franchise and enjoy the multiplayer quite a bit. Gears 3 was good but I lost interest pretty quickly once I got done with it, granted this had to do with Batman, and Resistance 3 but something was missing. Too many plot holes for me to enjoy and I didn't like the fact that it looked like the locusts were engineered in Gears 2, or how the hell did the queen come about and why does she look human.

@The angry pro consumer gaming ga

Aren't you supposed to be complaining about the weapon skin DLC?

While the game itself had a lot of polish the campaign felt kind of bland to me. Dom's thing felt pointless (Act 4 ultimately has the same goal as Act 3), the overall strategy was to just shoot stuff (unlike the cover-and-flank emphasis of previous entries), and the ending had practically zero resolution. I think most of these problems are attributable to having 4 players

I thought the game was good. Not better than Gears 2 for me, but #9 sounds right.

In my opinion Gears of War 3 has the Best all-around multiplayer. Dedicated Servers should be the standard for every game. Not having them is just pure greed. Looking at you Activision!

Gears of War 3 is my GOTY. The multiplayer is nearly perfect, and I play at least a few matches a day (if not for several hours)

The campaign was polished as hell, but it was easily the least fun out of the 3 games. The flank-based level design from Gears 1 is completely gone, with a more linear corridor style level design to take it's place. The lambent aren't as fun to fight as the Locust. It was still good, but it was far less interesting to play.

But like I said, the multiplayer is suburb. The only online game I might have liked more is vanilla TF2. The balance is near perfect, the maps, aside from Overpass, are excellent, the action feels solid, there's plenty of depth, and it's just too damn fun.

I always play Gears for the campaign, and this is by far my favorite. I am in Act V right now.

Gears of War 3 did a lot of things right and a few things wrong. (This may contain spoilers, please don't read if you haven't finished)

For one, I liked the overall story and enjoyed how each character had a personal moment (which shows you that a great writer was at the helm for the campaign story).

But there were a few things that just make me shake my head -- Ice-T's character was not fully fleshed enough (I personally would have loved for him to do what he claimed he would and show back up towards the end) and the whole business with the Locust Queen (Is she Marcus' mother? A scientist that worked with Adam Fenix? Who knows?).

Still, I love how Epic took divergent influences from different games (BioShock & Lost Planet 2 especially) and made an enjoyable overall game. The multiplayer is still great (I know I spent at least 8 hours playing Horde Mode 2.0).

2 words: HORDE MODE

I agree, God of War 3 was amazing.

@Marshillboy
God of War 3 is hands down best game this generation.

@Marshillboy

cept for Xenoblade right?

"...a brief affair with Skyrim"

When I read this, I immediately thought of William Shatner in those classic Star Trek episodes. You know, the ones where he gets a god-like computer to fry its own brain trying to figure out a logical paradox?

Gears of War ran out of steam with #3, for me. I beat it twice, played the new horde mode a few times, then traded the game in for Arkham City. I thought I would regret it, and could merely pick it up a few months later for cheap, but I'm not sure I'll go about that now. I simply don't miss it. GoW2 was the franchise's height; the franchise is stale now.

Gears 3 deserves to be on any top 10 list.

This game is going to be in my top 3 easily. While Revelations I felt had a better overall campaign (after all, that's the only reason I play AC), Gears had me coming back longer than any other games this year. LA Noire, Halo, Portal 2, Bulletstorm, Battlefield; none of them kept my attention as long or has me coming back.

Gears Of War 3 is my third favourite GOTY. It was second until Skyrim stole first from Portal 2, then I took an ar.... Nope, I promised myself I would do that anymore!

Anyway, Gears 3 was A LOT of fun. I played through with a friend and it was really bro'tastic. THAT moment, you know the one, had us both silenced. Not a word was uttered. There were moments of frustration too, parts we played over and over to get passed but that we kept at it was because we enjoyed the challenge.

And the multiplayer is the most fun I've had in multiplayer in a long time, even when losing.
Sure Gears is far from cerebral most of the time but it's a blast to play.

For me the multi was good but the campaign was underwhelming.

For not liking GeoW2, I was thoroughly surprised by how much I enjoyed GeoW3. Singleplayer was great, multiplayer was great, and horde+beast mode were great.

Unfortunately, I didn't stick with it. After beating it on its hardest setting, I got tired of the MP. Match to match the variety in scenarios left me wanting more, plus the sawed-off basically became a WMD.

I love Gears3 so much and agree that it belongs on any top games of the year list. With so many great games this year it has gotten lost in the shuffle though, which kinda stinks.

Lets not forget the dreaded black screen of death that they didnt fix from gears of war 2, dlc causing you to not be able to play the game at all, or profile issues that would stop you from playing any dlc if another profile had differant dlc on the same hard drive.

This game was a prime example of how epic doesnt give a crap about its quaility. I think this is truly a example of "epic" fail.

Please tell me there are no lame-ass underground segments this time. The campaign in Gears 2 was such a disappointment, I've been highly hesitant to consider Gears 3.

If this was not an Xbox exclusive I think it would have a pretty good chance at being GOTY. It was a well polished game. Even the beta was great!

Gears of War 3

Joystiq Top 10 of 2011: Gears of War 3

Reader Comments (43)

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 7:39PM TheChezDispenser said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 9:20PM GamingColt said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 11:10PM Jenks said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 3:43PM NBear927 said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 7:41PM The Pork said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 7:51PM A Sandwich said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 8:34PM ChitownPnoy said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 8:35PM ChitownPnoy said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 8:51PM squallgengar said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 8:57PM Pure Black World Tendency said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 2:52AM ItsameMatt03 said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 10:58AM Dlord said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 7:41PM Special Agent Steve said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 8:36PM mguniverse said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 8:40PM eat it said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 7:48PM Once known as Shadsy said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 8:28PM TheDarkWayne said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 8:35PM TheDarkWayne said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 7:54PM oO Wallace Oo said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 8:00PM Stevetrop Man of Mystery said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 8:32PM The angry pro consumer gaming ga said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 12:02AM Acosta02 said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 9:08PM 343 Guilty Fart said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 9:09PM Hoops said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 9:28PM HaVoK308 said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 9:37PM CaramelZappa said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 9:52PM ItsameMatt03 said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 10:00PM andrewpoe said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 10:08PM Godemperor said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 10:28PM Marshillboy said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 11:04PM Mustang Fanboy said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 11:37PM Foetoid said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 10:52PM Phinehas said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 11:05PM Ovy said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 11:06PM Master Troll said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 11:30PM Schlecht said

Posted: Jan 1st 2012 11:48PM Styli said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 12:45AM joer22784 said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 1:18AM Ballin said

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Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 9:35AM darcwolf said

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