Gears of War 3

My Limited Edition copy of Gears Of War 3 arrived a day early through the post 19/09/2011. Thankyou Amazon! I've been playing this game now for a good solid day and all I can say is how awesome it is. Epic have made big improvements to the campaign like bigger and better set pieces and more story driven moments, fleshing out the characters we've all come to know and love that little bit more and also making the campaign 4 player online co-op. There have also been improvements to the online games like horde, warzone, execution and etc. I haven't really touched the online side apart from having a few games of team death match last night and I noticed a big improvement in the matchmaking. The presentation of the Limited boxset is something to behold and I will certainly be treasuring this along with my Gears Of War 1 and 2 Limited Edition boxsets. I would highly recommend this game to anybody and to players who haven't even touched a Gears Of War game before.

As there is already an extensive review of the single player, I thought I would concentrate on the Multi-player.
The Multi-player is broken down into, versus, Horde, and the new Beast mode (the campaign can also be done co-op online but as that has already been covered I shall concentrate of the other modes here)

Versus - This is broken up into 6 game types; Team Deathmatch, here each team has a total of 15 respawns, once there gone the match ends and the team left standing wins, this in my opinion is a great spin on normal deathmatch and has been the focus of time during the beta and now on the full release; next mode is Warzone which will be familiar to all previous players of Gears, 5 v 5 team deathmatch, but when you are dead that's it, your out until the next round, first team to 3 round wins, wins the game; Execution is similar except the only way to kill an opponent is a direct kill, i.e Headshot, grenade kill or by performing one of the many amazing executions; Capture the Leader is basically capture the flag except the flag in this case is one of the opposing team who you must first down and then capture for 30 seconds to win the round; King of the Hill is an objective based mode where you must capture designated areas of the map and hold on them for as long as possible and finally Wingman which is 4 teams of 2 in an all out battle, first team to 15 kills across the rounds wins.
All these game modes can be played online, splitscreen or for those preferring to get some practice in first, against AI bots, the great thing is that no matter which mode
you are playing stats carry across all modes.

Horde - This is the mode we all know and love from the previous game, fight against 50 waves of ever increasing Locust. The big difference this time is that each wave you will earn money for kills which you can then spend at the end of the round on fortifications, turrets, and command posts, which brings in a real tactical edge. Whereas Horde in GOW 2 was difficult but not impossible I foresee this new version being a lot more of a challenge, having so far only reached level 17, the range of enemies has increased and with it the difficulty, every 10 waves results in a boss wave, so far on the occasions I have passed wave 9 I have faced a Corpser and a Lambent Berserker, and they took a huge effort from every one on our team to bring them down.

Finally on to the all new Beast mode which is basically Horde in reverse as you play as the Locust and must defeat the humans within the time limit given. You initially start with the lesser locust such as the ticker, drones and the wretch, but as you kill humans you gain more money and are then able to purchase the next level of locust such as the Kantus, the Mauler (the slow one with the shield) before finally unlocking the real badasses in the form of the Boomer, the Corpser, the Berserker etc.
This mode is lots of fun but sadly ends far too quickly as it is over within 12 waves, there is DLC rumoured for this mode and hope it pans out that way as it really is lots of fun.

Overall then this multiplayer is the refinement of everything Gears of War has built up across the previous games, there is far too much to cover in a review, I simply urge you to buy this game, a true contender for the game of the year and a new benchmark in 360 games, with a multiplayer that could last years and a tremendous story mode (as outlined in other reviews) this really is a masterpiece!

Product came with all that i wanted, the game itself is fantastic and overall i think it is a must buy!