Hands-On Impressions: Gears Of War 3 Multiplayer Beta

An assault rifle with a mounted chainsaw. This weapon - the Lancer - epitomizes the Gears of War experience. A fight that begins with careful sniping and manuevering behind cover can quickly devolve into chainsaw duels and curbstomping. The competitive multiplayer of Gears of War 3 proudly continues that tradition. It also offers up plenty of changes to make the knock-down-and-drag-out fights even more gory and fun.

The biggest shortcoming of GoW2's multiplayer was the matchmaking. Epic seems to have ironed out those difficulties with GoW3, though. Finding a match, even with the low player population of the multiplayer beta, has been quick and smooth thus far. Unranked public matches, which you can join mid-game and which fill out empty slots with bots, are especially fast to start. Epic's providing dedicated servers for multiplayer as well, making ping issues a rarity.

Team Deathmatch, one of three modes included with the beta, is your standard two-team slugfest. It varies from Warzone in that you're able to respawn every fifteen seconds. Each team gets a shared supply of respawns and the first to run out loses. One advantage of this set-up is that you're always playing; in single-elimination matches, you might die immediately and then sit there watching for the next five minutes. In TD matches, you're able to jump right back into the action - provided your team's got respawns to spare, anyway.

No matter who I was playing with, the tempo always seemed to shift as the respawn count dwindled. Everyone plays fast and loose toward the beginning. However, once those respawns are about to run out, players start being more cautious. The team that's losing badly might hunker down in a corner of the map while the winning team, still fat with reinforcements, charges in like some kind of barbarian horde. Sudden death is a common thing in this game - again, assault rifles with chainsaws - so many of these matches end up closer than you'd expect.

King of the Hill, like Team Deathmatch, won't bowl you over from the description alone. A circular capture point appears somewhere on the map and each team tries to grab and hold it for as long as possible. After a set amount of time, the capture point will disappear and another will spawn at another part of the map. Teams rack up points by holding these objectives until they hit a target score and win the match.

What's nice about KOTH is that often these capture points are very exposed positions. As Gears veterans know, your life expectancy's a lot shorter if you're not behind cover. It's rare, then, that any team will hold a point for its full duration. The scramble to get to the next capture point also leaves players exposed, as they rush to get there before the other team.

The new "Capture the Leader" mode also requires you to be very aggressive and mobile. One player on each team is designated the "leader" and it's your objective to capture the other team's leader and hold him as a human shield for thirty seconds. That's really not much time at all so if your leader is caught, you're forced to either launch a desperate rescue mission or try to grab the other team's leader (which freezes the timer). The team holding a leader can't just hide in a corner because their hostage can be freed by either the captor dying or getting hit by a smoke grenade. They need to keep dragging the leader around and manuevering away from the enemy team while the clock runs down.

Gears of War 3's multiplayer is really at its strongest when it's taking you outside your comfort zone like that. Because it's a cover-based shooter, the danger is that players may just hide behind cover the whole time. However, in GoW3 that's not always the best idea. A new digger launcher weapon shoots a mine that burrows underground - past your precious cover - and then detonates when it resurfaces. This new addition, along with the mortar returning from GoW2, makes it easy to annihilate teams that are "turtling."

Close range combat has always been a bit awkward in GoW - a lot of side-stepping and missed pistol whips - but there are many new incentives to fighting at point-blank range. If you and an opponent are hiding on opposite sides of the same cover, vaulting over that cover will force you to dropkick him and send him sprawling. It's a disorienting whether you're the kicked or the kicker but with practice it'll give the latter a second or so opportunity to finish off his opponent.

Two new weapons encourage close range combat as well. The Retro Lancer is a less accurate but more powerful version of the standard assault rifle. It has a mounted bayonet so you can charge and instantly impale an opponent. The sawed-off shotgun is more powerful than the standard Gnasher but has very low range and only holds one round at a time. It can take about four or five seconds to reload so you're really taking a gamble by using it - you'll either one-shot your opponent or get gunned down while fumbling for a new shell.

Whether you're a newbie or a seasoned veteran, the progression system for GoW3 will make you feel like a rockstar. There are many different Medals to earn that give you points toward your next experience level. While many of these reward good play, there are also a few that exist as consolation prizes to people who are sucking. For example, you'll earn a Medal for having the most deaths in a match or dying first. Little progress windows will pop up in the lower right corner throughout the match, letting you know how close you are to completing each challenge. They'll also tell you what unlockables - such as weapon skins and character models - you're close to earning.

As the shiny new toy, the co-op Beast mode is going to probably going to draw the lion's share of praise when Gears 3 releases in September. The competitive multiplayer may not be "new" but the changes Epic has implemented greatly improve the experience. The developers haven't changed the multiplayer so much as they've enhanced its signature characteristics. It's more tense, chaotic, and satisfying.