Less darker than the previous instalments in the series, but still violent and badass enough to be a true Gears of War game.

While the gameplay is redefined for the better, with a larger arsenal of weapons and tools to experiment with, the campaign seems like a step-back.

The multiplayer is the star of the show for sure, and the addition of Beast Mode is what the series really needed. The maps are broader than before and there are many new game-modes to play.

Overall it's a solid game and an improvement over Gears of War 2 in some ways, but personally I didn't like it as much.

Final Rating: "Great" ~ 8/10.

A melhor história da franquia

Gears 3 fecha com chave de ouro a história da trilogia, msm deixando uma coisinha aqui e outra ali sobre o background de como tudo aquilo aconteceu, mas a introdução do passado do Marcus e da família dele na história foram delícia demais. Sobre o Cole, achei beeem mais ou menos, acho que prefiro ele como secundário de suporte que só fala umas paradas engraçadas msm. Aqui tbm tem a conclusão do arco de personagens e o jogo faz isso de forma mt legal e digna, o que tbm é um ponto positivo.

Gameplay é idêntica aos outros dois, mas obviamente refinada e continua delícia. Ponto positivo tbm foi a diminuição (msm que leve) das missões em veículos como no segundo game. Aqui ainda tem, mas a maioria é mais divertida do que foi no anterior, tirando a do último capítulo no submarino embaixo d’água que eu achei MT chato aquela parte.

Levei design MUITO bom que se segura MT bem até o começo do último capítulo, mas que eu senti que se perdeu um pouco e fico fraco, mas logo depois retomou a linha que estava antes. Inclusive o jogo tá LINDO, assim como o 2 no Series, mais uma vez parece remaster.

Por fim, tem ali os modos online, horda e tal que já são bem bacaninhas de jogar, inclusive dá pra fazer sessão com bot, mas o divertido msm é com amigos.

No geral é um ótimo jogo, fecha bem a trilogia, tem a história como ponto forte, peca levemente no level design pro final do game, tem sessões chatas, mas é uma experiência sólida. Não lembro do Judgment, do 4 e 5 e vou rejogar, mas já tenho o sentimento de que algumas coisas vão precisar de um “ar novo” para não cansar e extrapolar essa fórmula que é funcional, mas que não dá pra ser só assim.

Is Gears written well? No.
Does it need to be? No.
Did some of the jokes in Gears age well? No.
Is Marcus a good character? Yes!
Is the game still fun? Yes.

Gears is at its heart just an action flick as a third-person shooter, and it sets out what it tries to do perfectly. It's a good time, and respects your time as well. It's a damn good third-person shooter, and the third entry in the series has refined the gameplay enough that it firmly sets itself as the best one I've played in the series thus far. Marcus has his characterization hit a level that is really enjoyable, although the overall plot isn't that complex or intuitive. Some of the jokes involving Sam and Anya, along with some of Baird's one-liners, don't really age well though and just come across as weird at best or borderline cringy at worst.

But Gears isn't supposed to be a pinnacle of writing. It's a pinnacle of gameplay and fun times, and it does that well, so it deserves to be praised for doing that well.

I do want to expand on the Action flick point because it feels very deliberate and that's what I love about Gears. The way the mission structure is and the way it flows feels very intentionally like an action film. Like the way things flow into the next, the way boss fights happen, the places where boss fights happen, the spots where spectacle shots and cinematic shots are added, etc. In that way, I have to give them a lot of credit for that in the way it was designed.

I'll review RAAM's Shadow as well here since I don't like that it'd take up a separate entry on my Backlogged. RAAM's Shadow was also a fun DLC, but it was marred for me by bugs, namely in Chapter 4. There's a section where Zeta exits a parking garage into the next segment, and the game automatically failed as soon as this happened for me, saying that "Drone has died". Who the hell is Drone?! And then upon taking the rooftops, both Kim and Valera straight-up disappeared from the game. Barrick was speaking to them both but they both were silent and were nowhere to be seen. So when me and Tai inevitably died during an ambush encounter in front of City Hall, I got another bug where I couldn't reload from a checkpoint. And I had to redo the entirety of Chapter 4. Not fun. But the rest of the DLC was fun, though. It had a lot of Gears 1 vibes (which likely was intentional because of when its set) and reminded me of how much I dislike E-holes as a mechanic, but if you want more Gears, it's hard to argue with what it offers.

Score: 89