Ryan Hartman

@baby sea tuna Yeah I know that was a concern they had talked about when developing the game. That's why I was thinking maybe bring it back as a variant game type option.

I can see the pros and cons of the life pool, and really I'm on the fence about it. I guess in the end I'm human and I'm scared fo change and I want my familar gametype that I've played for the last 5 years to at least be an option.

@Boring K I'm anti-shotgun if for no other reason than like you said, wanting to be different. I go lancer or hammer pretty much non-stop until I'm out of ammo. It's a doable strategy, you just have to work from a distance and move on more of an anticipatory basis as opposed to a reactionary one.

I will say that the active reload lancer and hammer seem pretty strong. It's a nice balance and it helps keep people from getting too close. Or getting to know you on an emotional level. "My parents never loved me, auughhhhh, bang-bang-bang-bang"

@The Pork I agree to an extent. I love the beta and I love gears as a franchise, but this life pool feature isn't my favorite thing in the world. I liked when you had one life per round. It made for more tense moments when it's one and done. And likewise you had to be more coordinated as a group. With this spawning feature everyone seems to want to try and run up in your face and fire off thier sawed off. If they make it, good for them, if they don't, they don't care because they have 20 more tries.

That being said, one of the good parts about having a spawn pool is that you lessen the value of power weapons. In Gears and Gears 2, entire matches hinged on who was able to secure the power weapon the fastest. A boom shot would single handedly win games for you, being able to take out more than half thier team. Now it's like "Oh you got the boomshot? Big deal. That's going to take out 3 people at best from a pool of 20"

On the whole though, I wish they would bring the one life format back at least as just a variant game type.

@Qehb I agree. The unfounded "sense" of superiority from PC gamers can be superfluous.

@TraceurRyuk Part III 29? Might as well be dead by that point. Anyone over 15 should be put out to pasture.

@FreekyWiggle You are in my brain, stealing my opinons

So is this like Resdient Evil: Outbreak but ... fixed? Looks like it wants to be Outbreak meets Left 4 Dead.

This review makes me want to neither play nor not play the game. It's a charming anecdote about a new feature, sure, but I know nothing of how the game works after reading this beyond an emotionless caddy. I've been away from the series for 5 years. How's the online set up? I know that's been shaky in the past. What about graphics? Control schemes? Gameplay? Anything visceral or tangible I can sink my teeth into beyond the cold dead stare of an NPC?

@TraceurRyuk Part III WTF! Spoiler alert, bro!! You just gave away the whole Werewolf twist at the end.

@V3R1TAS What? How can you demand a rank and rating without allowing for a comparison to something else? I mean any given stimulus (a video game, movie, painting, poem, whatever) is going to evoke comparisons to familiar, or even unfamiliar, things. Especially when trying to categorize and rank it.

What is a 5 star ranking system if not a giant side-by-side comparison to other games and media?

I wish they would take the star system out and just speak on their opinions of the games. People get too fixated on numbers, but I guess Joystiq is hoping to be included when metacritic comes calling and that's why they started including them. I also find that when a team of reviewers remarks on games, opinions vary too wildly. I like to stick to a singular point when assessing reviews.