What To Expect In The Gears 3 Beta (Giveaway Inside!)

Let me make this simple. You will not want to go back to Gears 2 after you’ve played this beta. Epic has done something amazing here and the beta will only improve upon it when the final game releases. The addition of ribbons, medals, and dedicated servers have already radically changed the game that we have come to know. If you’re a Gears veteran than is might take you a couple matches to get back into the flow of things and adjust but don’t get me wrong Gears 3 feels like an entirely different game now.

To start, the weapons have been changed quite a bit. The Pendulum Lancer seems to be the weapon of choice with people bum rushing to impale people on the end of their bayonets, but this is kept from being overpowered with the addition of the sawed-off shotgun who’s aim spans the entire width of your screen, but once again, worry not, you need to be close enough to smell the enemies breath before anything can happen. The Gnasher makes its return and it too seems to be able to compete with the Sawed-off for what it lacks in easy kills up close it makes up with in range, you can simply catch someone who is reloading their sawed-off, which takes a good 5-8 seconds by the way and take them out. On top of this, with dedicated servers comes the ability to actually use the Longshot efficientcy, granted I’ve seen mixed opinions on this but coming from someone who could barely use it before, I know find myself getting headshots every time.

Then theres the new weapons, the Digger Launcher is immensely pleasing and it never gets old to launch a clutch shot that takes out multiple unsuspecting people hiding behind cover. Also new is the One-Shot which is in short, and elephant rifle, which takes a couple of seconds to charge while zoomed in and makes a noise and laser that alerts the whole area to it’s usage but it is a, well, one shot kill on anyone, meat shield or not.

On to gametypes, all of you who just gained access today only have the option of playing Team Deathmatch, which is a lot of fun actually. There’s something about only having a certain amount of respawns that puts the pressure on at all times, but this is especially true when you get down to no respawns left. But what you will experience in the future may be even better. King of the Hill is a mix of the two territorial gametypes that previously existed in Gears 2. Its nice to see the hill drain slowly even when neither team has control of it simply to prevent the area from coming a 10 minute deathmatch. Finally theres Capture the Leader which is really a nifty experience to play as its almost always frantic every second of the match. As you struggle to protect your leader while simultaneousness trying to capture theirs and hold them for what seems to be forever.

The beta features four maps, two of which were chosen by the community. Old Town is by far my favorite as there are three routes through the map, which divies up the power weapons. Torque Bow/Longshot to the left, grenades in the middle, and Boomshot/Digger to the right. This keeps either team from getting all three the majority of the time and serves as one hectic match where you almost always need to be watching your back, lest you be impaled from behind. Then theres Thrashball which features the first interactive environment where the scoreboard buzzes each time a person is killed and eventually, can fall given someone shoots the wire holding it up after it has partially fallen crushing everyone beneath. Tranches is next and it features the One-Shot but also a sandstorm, and this time we mean a sandstorm, not like the one on Nowhere in Gears 2, in this one you can barely see two feet in front of you. Finally, theres Checkout which is by far the smallest of the four and is always a hectic map given its circular nature. However, some may notice the fire alarms that can be pulled and may ask what they do? Worry not, Cliff and Rod have announced that in the retail game they will unlock a part of the map and a hidden weapon, but in the meantime it has no effect on the beta.

So expect to have a lot of fun unlocking characters, weapon skins, medals and more. This truly will be the Gears to top all of them and it is set to last a very, very long time as it is the end to the Gears trilogy. In the meantime, if you have the Bulletstorm: Epic Edition go out there and have fun, the rest of you who have preordered Gears 3 will join in on the action on April 25. Don’t have Bulletstorm or a code to redeem from preordering? Well we do, and all you have to do is leave a comment below with your Gamertag and we’ll make sure to get it too you somehow! (Note this is the April 25 beta and a winner will be chosen the night of April 24)

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