It’s been almost three years since the COG last got down to the bloody business of saving mankind from the Locust. A lot’s happened in the videogame industry since then, so how does the Xbox exclusive ‘Gears of War 3’ stand up? Has Epic Games revamped ‘GoW3’ to make it feel like something new? Does it go the way of ‘Call of Duty’ and give fans more of the same, only with a bit of polish here and there? Or is this the first ‘GoW’ game to just blow?

OK, let’s go through the checklist of things that make a ‘Gears of War’ game awesome: Blood and guts? Check, and a BIG check. Groovy third person controls? Check, and even a little tighter than the last game. Co-op? Check, a glorious 4-person online and 2-person couch co-op check! New enemies and decent boss fights? Check. Scenes where you ride in a vehicle or aircraft? Check. Vehicles that you can operate? Check. Multi-player and Horde Mode? Check and Check. That’s a lot of checks. Did I leave anything out? Oh, right, how could I forget? Cheesy incomprehensible story? Check.

Well, that last check should only be a half a check. Yes, the story is very silly, but I think Epic Games went the opposite direction with this game as to make the story so accessible it’s just trite. There are a TON of cut-scenes that range from interesting to confusing to downright mindless. The voice acting is at about the same level, which is to say slightly below average – except for a surprise voice actor (you may very well know his identity, but I won’t spoil it for you here) whose character you meet about midway through, and who, despite being a mediocre screen actor, does a fabulous job here.

I have only two real complaints, one is pretty big and the other is nitpicky. Let’s start small. Videogame manuals have never really been that helpful, but if there is one thing they all MUST do, they have to allow the player to quickly get a good bead on the Heads-Up Display and the controls. Epic has tried something fairly progressive here, where you only get a bi-fold insert that simply shows you the control layout and gives you a web address to see the full manual. OK, I like the idea. However, while the online manual is very complete, it is SUPER clunky. I really liked how complete and informative the other games’ manuals were. I suppose that, since not much has changed, you could basically pull out the ‘GoW2’ manual, but that brings me to my big complaint.

‘Gears of War’ has definitely gone down that ‘Call of Duty’ route in terms of innovation and diversification. I had a feeling of déjà vu throughout the entire game. Sure, there are new enemies and new bosses and new areas, but a lot of it looks very similar to what we’ve seen before. It looks like Epic Games tried to brighten the game’s image as well as broaden the color palette with a splash of green or yellow here and there. This is a very welcome change. However, the color scheme is still VERY heavily bent on light brown, brown, dark brown, gray, dark gray and black. This isn’t to say that ‘GoW3’ doesn’t look the best out of all the games in the franchise. It certainly does. But I just never really liked how plain and non-vibrant most of it looks. The game mechanics and controls are also near identical, which was expected, and the few tweaks are appreciated. I’ll go into more detail about the sameness of the series in a follow-up post.

I’ve played about half way through, with two additional players, in online co-op. On the “Normal” difficulty, that equates to about eight hours so far. So, what are my initial impressions? The refinements are nice, but the story is goofy. Sure, it’s the same tune, but it’s just as badass. My initial impressions have been good and I’m looking forward to finishing the game. Stay tuned for the wrap up!