New Gears of War 3 gameplay details have arrived, via the pages of a Russian magazine that appeared on the internet this morning. Prepare for a BIG read...
According to the mag, the third Gears has humanity in pieces, split into tribes and fighting for their survival. After flooding the last human city, Marcus and Dom have taken refuge on an aircraft carrier called Raven's Nest (which you can see here), on which the game kicks off.
Here's the best bit: Marcus and co will occasionally have to defend the Raven's Nest from attack to protect their tomato patch (no, that's not a dodgy translation) as food's a bit scarce in their version of Kevin Costner's Waterworld.
The Locust have been kicked out of their homes and driven out by the mutated Lambent - the main enemy in Gears 3. According to the Russian mag, The Lambet are able to battle two-to-three Gears at the same time and once they're close to death they'll charge and explode on the nearest Human.
As our colleagues at Edge exclusively revealed, they've also got giant tentacles for reaching over cover - and these remain active even after they die.
Now the story rubbish out of the way, here's the stuff you're really interested in: Guns. Gears 3 is set to include several inventive new killing tools, top of which is a grenade launcher that fires organic bombs under the ground. After pulling the trigger, your payload burrows through the earth, underneath your targets cover and explodes - a bit like a subterranean mortar.
We already know about the Pendulum Lancer - the predecessor to the chainsaw version - but one interesting addition we don't have much info on is the DB Shotgun, a double-barrelled boomstick that takes a "long time to reload" and can only hold two shells at a time, the trade-off being that you can fire them both at the same time for massive damage. Sure to be a multiplayer annoyance.
There are three types of grenade in the third game; frag, smoke and ignitable - and they can be combined. For example lobbing an ignitable grenade followed by a frag will create a fiery hell in a closed environment.
Gears of War 3's new Lost Planet-style mech (which you can see here) is apparently called the Silver-Back and carries a hefty machine gun (infinite ammo) and grenade launcher (limited ammo). According to Russia, the Silver-Back is well protected from the front but not so much from behind.
Excitingly (if you're a mentalist), almost every gun in Gears of War 3 will have its own unique execution move, from throat-slashing bayonet kills with the Pendulum Lancer, to a neck-breaking shotgun move, head-squishing mortar smack and a flame thrower manoeuvre that sets people on fire... from the INSIDE.
Even cooler, with the meatshield you can now shove a grenade inside a captive Locust's armour and kick him towards a crowd of baddies - Sparta style.
On the multiplayer front environments now constantly shift and crumble during battles, which you can somewhat see in action via these scans. In Gears of War 3 players can also swap ammo and weapons, which is bound to solve a lot of the mortar squabbling from games past.
... aaaand breath. Many thanks go to Russian man 'Razor605' of the Epic forums for translating these. We very much look forward to seeing Gears 3 with our own eyes - it sounds biggerer, betterer and even more badass.
Comments
29 comments so far...
altitude2k on 5 May '10 said:
Nice.
pmantis on 5 May '10 said:
no natal support then?
i just want to kill things using a controller, none of this gimmick bulls**t.
Conkers on 5 May '10 said:
Sounds badass indeed, never really got into the multiplayer on Gears so I just hope the single player is decent again, but seeing as I’ve loved the first two I find it hard to believe that I won’t love the third.
TimHotston on 5 May '10 said:
Nice... but I'm still iffy about the mechs in a cover based shooter the other bits like riding the Reavers weren't good in the second the bit on Betty was the best "on rails" section. But the rest of this stuff sounds great I just hope it has a good story.
Mark240473 on 5 May '10 said:
Why, oh why, do MS insist on showing off big games before E3?
Let them stew a bit MS! They'll have more impact if they hold out for the big reveal!
StonecoldMC on 5 May '10 said:
2011 seems so far away right now.
It does all sound as if its coming together rather nicley though.
Conkers on 5 May '10 said:
I would also defend my tomato patch to the death: Touch my tomato, feel my wrath.
gothchild on 5 May '10 said:
The whole Locust vs lambent vs humans reminds me so much of covenant vs humans vs flood. That's not a good thing.
Most of it sounds awesome, but the lambent sound like zero fun to fight against in a cover shooter.
flash501 on 5 May '10 said:
Sounds more like that dragon movie (Reign of Fire?) to me. Good movie that.
Sinthetic on 5 May '10 said:
HELLLLL YESSSS.
bipod on 5 May '10 said:
its an xbox game it has to have a story similar to halos.
zombiesinmyhead on 5 May '10 said:
I'm sure tomato protecting will be an emotional rollercoaster for Dom Santiago.
shpid1 on 5 May '10 said:
Does anyone else think this is looking more like an almost finished game, rather than a game that still has a year in development to go.
zombiesinmyhead on 5 May '10 said:
Apparently the release has been delayed to aviod the release of natal.
altitude2k on 5 May '10 said:
My God, man. You're a genius.
On a completely unrelated topic, I hear Gran Turismo 5 is going to be a clone of Ratchet and Clank.
flash501 on 5 May '10 said:
crimbo you say?. Interesting shout.
CrispyLog on 5 May '10 said:
Yeh. I can see why they threw them in, to make this 3rd one different to the others and to progress it. But what made Gears so great was that it was satisfying to take down locust. It's a shooter so they have to really make the enemies enjoyable to kill so I hope they know what they are doing by throwing the lambent in the mix..
altitude2k on 5 May '10 said:
The clues are there. All we need now is to see the bunnies.
KK-Headcharge78 on 5 May '10 said:
Looking sweet, always loved Gears as it is still reasonably unique in the gaming universe. I hope the locust don't take too much of a back seat as I have grown rather fond of the butt ugly pigs! To coin a popular Locust phrase; 'BOOOOOM'
Dajmin on 5 May '10 said:
But will they fix the online matchmaking or are they going to continue to ignore what the fans have been asking for since 2006? If they're going to steal Halo-style storylines they'd be as well stealing the brilliant matchmaking system while they're at it.
wwinterj on 5 May '10 said:
I have to admit this did remind me of Halo.
It is a while off yet. Nice info though.
SleepySheep28 on 5 May '10 said:
A WOMAN!? Is that really a woman in the background!?
I didnt play the second GoW so this could be old news... but isn't the idea of GoW meant to be a bunch of closet gays pumped full of testosterone, to the extent its spewing out their eyes?!
I bet this is the work of feminists..
And dont call me sexist... sexism is wrong... and being wrong is for women...
sonic_uk on 5 May '10 said:
Sounds good so far. The new weapons sound cool, still not sold on the mech thing though.
NEOnburN9 on 5 May '10 said:
Oh her, oh she is just Dom's dead girlfriend been cloned and injected to her eye balls in testosterone steroids. She will do just fine...
MrPirtniw on 5 May '10 said:
No that's not Dom's dead girlfriend
(I know you're kidding), That's Anya Stroud- from the previous Gears games- only she handled the intelligence side of things (sending the meat heads to carve up the locust).
@Sleepysheep- there was also a female Gears who appears in the books- Bernie I believe she's called, an aged, steroid pumped, lady biatch. Sounds... hot?
pye024 on 5 May '10 said:
Prob on my own here but I hope Dizzy makes a return. He seems to just disappear in the Gears 2 storyline if I recall...
eye.of.despair on 6 May '10 said:
if need be i will be a 2nd 360 for this game.. gears of war is the best franchise on the 360.
Mar27w on 6 May '10 said:
tentacles?whats this bulls**t,i want to be stomping cool well designed warhammer like enemy heads not shooting generic tentacled monsters,terrible idea epic
Nitramuse on 6 May '10 said:
Maybe it will be tentacles with chainsaws attached.
Or perhaps those tentacles are there for Anya....