Minor Awards

Best Musical Score

Bastion – Darren Korb
Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Michael McCann
Shadows of the Damned – Akira Yamaoka

While music doesn’t carry a game on its own, it certainly can add a great deal to the ambiance of a game. Each of this year’s nominees definitely had scores which elevated their respective titles. Darren Korb composed a chilling and masterful soundtrack fused between guitars and synth beats. Michael McCann’s score really fit with the world of Deus Ex, and Akira Yamaoka’s score definitely was one of the strong points of Shadows.

Best Voice Acting

Bastion
Batman: Arkham City
Portal 2

Bastion really only had one voice actor in the mysterious Narrator, but it does an amazing job of proving a backbone to the entire game. Batman featured experienced voice actors including Mark Hamill’s Joker, and Portal 2 had a returning voice in GlaDOS, and a new one in Stephen Merchant’s Wheatley.

Best Technology

Gears of War 3
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception
The Witcher 2 

Uncharted 3 had some amazing visuals, but the most impressive technology was the water simulation in the pirate/boat levels. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game with such impressive water. Gears of War 3 may be seen as a high point in extracting performance out of the Xbox 360. Finally, The Witcher 2 had perhaps some of the best PC visuals seen this year, and it was one of few titles where you really needed to upgrade if you wanted to turn everything up. Battlefield 3 likely would’ve competed in this category, had I played it.

Best Art

Bastion
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

This category featured a lot of different aspects this year. You had the beautiful cell-shading of Bastion, the twisted but interesting vector-style graphics from ITSP, and finally the ultra-realistic environments of Uncharted.

Best Downloadable Title

Bastion
Dungeons of Dredmor
Ms. Splosion Man
Trenched 

Some of the best games of this year were downloadable ones, and in fact half of the Singing Canaries this year were of the downloadable variety. The top four was a bit tough to narrow down to, but ultimately these titles were deserving of mention, for various reasons.

See who won >>

]]> http://www.gamecanary.com/2011/12/feature-canaries-of-the-year/feed/ 0 http://www.gamecanary.com/2011/11/review-uncharted-3-drakes-deception/ http://www.gamecanary.com/2011/11/review-uncharted-3-drakes-deception/#comments Sat, 26 Nov 2011 06:26:16 +0000 Sanjay http://www.gamecanary.com/?p=1169 Months back, when I was looking at the holiday gaming calendar one of the titles I was looking forward to the most was Uncharted 3. I had such a great time with the last iteration (other than the ending), that I was hoping the third game would recapture that magic. Unfortunately, in most ways it [...]]]>

Months back, when I was looking at the holiday gaming calendar one of the titles I was looking forward to the most was Uncharted 3. I had such a great time with the last iteration (other than the ending), that I was hoping the third game would recapture that magic. Unfortunately, in most ways it feels like the magic was nowhere to be found. While Uncharted 3 isn’t the worst game you’ll play this year (that award is all but locked up by Duke Nukem), it is a strong contender for my biggest disappointment.

What was the next part of the story??

Well before Shia LaBeouf was cast, the scene with the lead refrigerator was filmed, or the screenplay was even written, the last Indiana Jones movie was going to be a dud. That’s because the MacGuffin, the crystal skull, was something that no one would ever care about. Steven Spielberg himself admitted in a recent interview that he never cared for it himself, and only went along with it because he saw George Lucas as the primary storyteller of the series. The irrefutably two best films in the series focus on MacGuffins which have a huge aura of mythology surrounding them: the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail. The two weaker films in the series focus on the wholly fictional Sankara stones and the aforementioned crystal skulls.

Since Uncharted is so inspired by Indiana Jones, I find it interesting that the series also has fallen into the trap of less interesting MacGuffins. The first game (which I admittedly never played) focused on El Dorado, a legendary city which is relatively well known. In Drake’s Deception the target is “Atlantis of the Sands,” which I had to look up online. It turns out it’s also known as Iram of the Pillars, which is well known in parts of the world, though not in Western culture.

But what’s worse than the MacGuffin is how the entire storyline is constructed. It feels like Naughty Dog bought an Indiana Jones “Mad Libs” book and used it as a template for the storyline. It doesns’t matter if the nouns are fairly unrelated, that’s what makes Mad Libs fun! Sir Francis Drake, secret societies, Bedouins, mysteriously unkillable characters, and Somalian Pirates (of course you need to have those!) round out a mostly incomprehensible story. The trademark witty repartee is still there, and still is enjoyable. So I’ll give Amy Henning credit for that. But good dialogue can’t save the story from an uninteresting MacGuffin and an unstructured plot.

I might be willing to forgive the story’s missteps if the core gameplay was strong. Unfortunately, even if you ignore the storyline, Drake’s Deception still has quite a few issues. The gunplay is inexcusably horrendous. I’m not sure what exactly happened, because I didn’t really mind the shooting in the last game. While it wasn’t the best, it was still workable for the most part. That’s not the case here. Uncharted 3 utilizes a combat philosophy where huge waves of enemies are thrown at you, and it serves nothing other than to slow the pace of the game. What’s most ridiculous is fighting armored enemies that take 2 grenades or dozens of rifle rounds to eliminate. Somewhere between the second and third Uncharted games, Nathan Drake became an army of one. I’m not sure Rambo is a hat he wears well, and it certainly isn’t one that works well in this game.

Shooting stuff isn't very fun.

Unfortunately, the terrible gunplay carries over into the multiplayer mode. I never played multiplayer in the previous title, and I have to say after trying out Uncharted 3’s multiplayer, I’m glad I didn’t waste my time. It’s jarring how amateur the multiplayer feels compared to the production values of the single player campaign. They took a shot at implementing popular features like parties, playlists, and experience, but they all just feel second rate. And even if it had the greatest modes ever, the fact that shooting a gun in the game doesn’t feel very fun means you aren’t going to have a good time in multiplayer.

What’s more is that the climbing has just become downright repetitive. The controls are as stiff as usual, and compared to the increasingly more fluid climbing in Assassin’s Creed, it just feels more and more antiquated. The first couple of times you jump and avoid a near death, it’s kind of neat. The hundredth time it happens, however, and it’s just become stale. But perhaps the worst sequence is when you play as a young Nathan Drake, and have to run across rooftops to flee your pursuers. The camera, controls, and level design conspire to create a sequence that is much more challenging than it needs to be. Although the sequence only takes perhaps five minutes to complete, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

At least the puzzles are pretty fun.

The puzzle design, at least, works fairly well. Like in the prior games, at times you will be in a room with a puzzle, and you have your trusty notebook that gives you some information on what needs to be done. While the puzzles aren’t terribly challenging, at the same time none of them approach the tedium of the tall cavern puzzle towards the latter parts of Among Thieves. So while I didn’t really get stumped by any puzzles, I did at least enjoy that a few felt a bit more innovative than the standard action/adventure puzzle fare.

But really, the true saving grace of the game is the technology. Uncharted 2 set a new bar for the Playstation 3 and “next gen” titles in general. While Uncharted 3 isn’t quite the leap in technology its predecessor was, in its own right it’s still very impressive. The new technologies this time around mostly focus on improved procedural effects. One of the early levels places you in a chateau that is set on fire. And as demonstrated at E3, the fire grows organically and looks very impressive. The way the sand grains are modeled in the desert areas also is great. I was most impressed, however, by the water physics. One level has you in a boat graveyard, and you later get on a boat yourself. The way the waves crash and the boat responds to the waves is extremely well done, and is miles ahead of anything I’ve seen in any other game. I’m sure they spent a large amount of computational time to run the water simulation, but it pays off in spades.

Feels kinda warm...

Overall, however, I couldn’t help but be disappointed by Uncharted 3. That the story falls so flat is surprising, but the core mechanics just don’t feel up to par anymore. If you haven’t played any of the previous games in the series, I’d strongly suggest playing the second game. Among Thieves is the clear high point of the series. Otherwise, unless you really want to see how they wrap up the last PS3 Uncharted game, you have better games to play.

VERDICT: SICK CANARY

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is available now on PS3. Reviews generally appear every Friday on Game Canary. This was a Thanksgiving catch-up review. The Game Canary review system is detailed here.

In 2009, London developer Rocksteady Studios took the gaming world by storm with the surprisingly good Batman: Arkham Asylum. It was perhaps the first good Batman game ever, and certainly one of the few superhero video game adaptations worth playing. The bar was raised for the eventual sequel, and once again Rocksteady has managed to impress. Batman: Arkham City is better than its predecessor in nearly every way.

In the city...the city of Arkham.

The biggest change moving into Arkham City is that the game now features a full streaming city. While the city is much smaller than something from a Grand Theft Auto game, it’s still substantially larger than any of the outdoor areas in the original game. One complaint I had of the prior Batman game was that it felt too claustrophobic at times. Most of your time was spent in indoor areas that didn’t really allow you to maximize your use of the grappling hook. While most missions in Arkham City are still indoors, there’s something liberating about heading out into the city and zooming through. It’s particularly impressive that they achieved this feat using the Unreal Engine, which from experience I can say is not designed for open streaming areas.

The combat functions much like it does in the original game, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s built around the idea of counter attacks and quick strikes to several enemies at once, with some slow motion thrown in for good measure. One thing that has improved is the access to the various Batman gadgets while you’re in combat. It’s now not that hard to mix in electric stuns, batarangs, explosives, and so on. But I still would argue that it’s more fun when you stalk and surprise your enemies as opposed to rushing in and taking on several at once.

Kids, this is why herpes is bad.

One clear point of focus for Arkham City was to add more interesting boss fights. In the first game, most of the boss fights were pretty forgettable. And some, like the battle with Killer Croc in the sewers, were not very good to say the least. In Arkham City, there’s a much greater variety in how and when you engage the bosses. Fan favorites like the Joker and the Penguin are mixed in with some lesser known villains that I won’t spoil in this review. Overall, however, the game is perhaps too easy on the default setting for an experienced gamer. Luckily, you can change the difficulty at any time as you’re playing, so if you want more of a challenge I’d recommend setting it to hard.

The storyline once again makes very little sense, and feels like a typical comic book story. The game starts with Bruce Wayne getting arrested by soldiers of Dr. Hugo Strange, who knows Wayne’s deep and dark secret. And as you progress through the game, a conspiracy involving several of the other villains comes into focus. I’m not really a comic person in general, but I don’t think most will find the story that engaging. It’s worth mentioning, however, that the voice actors do an admirable job with the material they’re given. Just as in Arkham Asylum, the majority of the voice actors from the animated cartoon series lend their voices to the game. Mark Hamill is the headliner, and he once again does a masterful job as the iconic Joker. If he does end up retiring from the voice as is rumored, it will be hard for the replacement to fill his shoes.

Riddle me this?

Given that it’s now an open world game, it’s unsurprising the developers have added side quests. One has you answering ringing phones to track down Mr. Zsasz. Another has you solving a series of mysterious murders, while others have you doing more generic things like stopping random muggings. Most of the side quests are fairly enjoyable, and they do have a decent variety. Though at the same time, they aren’t tremendously exciting, and you wouldn’t miss that much if you skipped them all.

Also making a return in Arkham City are the Riddler challenges. Like in the first game, there are a few different types of challenges. Some have you scanning particular posters or landmarks in the world, while others, have you collecting trophies. It’s like grabbing a flag in Assassin’s Creed, but instead of just having to run to the flag, in many cases you may have to use a particular gadget or jump on a series of buttons in order to grab it. One nice feature that’s been added this time around is the ability to find and interrogate Riddler informants in the world. These informants will reveal a handful of Riddler challenges on the map, so you never get in a situation where you’re missing a trophy or two but can’t figure out where it is.

Catwoman is surprisingly fun to play as.

Being a consigner to Project $10, Warner Bros. included a Catwoman DLC code in the box. This unlocks 4 Catwoman missions which are sprinkled throughout the game. Her missions fill in some gaps during Batman’s story, and do provide somewhat of a change of pace. Playing as her opens you up to a quicker (and in my opinion, easier) style of combat than Batman. Though you can’t complete Batman’s missions as Catwoman, there are certain Riddler trophies which only Catwoman can get.

Outside of the campaign, there’s a challenge room mode which places you in a small area with dozens of enemies. Your goal is to kill all of them as quickly as possible in as big of a combo as possible. Depending on how well you perform, you’ll be awarded a gold, silver, or bronze medal. The completionists out there might spend quite a bit of time getting all gold medals, as there are 24 challenge rooms. The game also tracks the medals separately if you play as Batman or Catwoman. Some special challenge rooms rooms allow you to play as Nightwing (a character I looked up online), and some future DLC as Robin. But in my opinion, the challenge modes really are no more than a minor diversion.

Overall, Batman: Arkham City is definitely an enjoyable game. While I don’t really have any major problems with it, at the same time there isn’t anything I can point to that blew me away. It’s a strong, solid, game; one that I’d recommend if you’re looking for something fun to play. However, at the same time I wouldn’t categorize it as “can’t miss.” And with a packed holiday gaming season, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if you didn’t get a chance to play it.

VERDICT: HAPPY CANARY

Batman: Arkham City is available now on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. Review was conducted on Xbox 360. Reviews generally appear every Friday on Game Canary. This was a Thanksgiving catch-up review. The Game Canary review system is detailed here.

In my review of The Witcher 2, I talked about how challenging the game is relative to most other single player games on the market. However, the difficulty of From Software’s Dark Souls makes The Witcher 2 look like child’s play in comparison. You can spend a couple of hours trying to beat one section of one level, and at times the game is so trying it will almost break your will. But if you persevere, it will all pay off with the euphoria of victory. If you’re the type of gamer who’s easily frustrated and despises a challenge, you will hate Dark Souls, I can assure you. But if you thrive on being pushed to your limit, you will have a blast playing what’s best described as Battletoads for a new generation.

Dark Souls is the hardest game you'll play this year.

How difficult is the game? Well, after I finished the tutorial, it took me 3 or 4 hours to get to and beat the first real boss fight. And as you progress further, the levels get progressively more difficult. Before you know it, you’re crossing a bridge that’s barely as wide as your character’s shoulders, while at the same time there are blades swinging across the path. Or there’s another part where 5-6 enemies are shooting toxic poison darts which can quickly kill you.

But the best way to explain how punishing the game can be is to talk about curses. In the sewer portion of the game, there are frog-like creatures which leave up clouds of magical poison. If you stay in the poison for more than a second or so, you instantly die. When you respawn, you are now cursed. When cursed, you have 50% of your total overall health. The curse can stack up to three times, which means you’d be at an eighth of your total health. The only way to cure a curse is with an item that is a rare drop, or is in limited stock on certain vendors. If that sounds really hard and not fun, then this game is probably not for you.

While I would categorize Dark Souls as an Action RPG, unlike other role-playing games there is a very minimal story. A brief cut scene at the start describes the setting. You’re a “hollow” undead, and must journey back to the normal world. As you progress through the game, characters you speak to give you tidbits about what’s happening and your basic goals. But other than a vague sense of direction, you really aren’t getting much of a narrative.

You can leave notes for other players to read.

But I like that this lack of direction in Dark Souls translates to a lack of hand-holding. There’s no quest log, no map, and certainly no minimap. Characters will usually tell you when you need to go to a particular area, but you’re left to your own devices when it’s time to figure out how to get there. Something that somewhat mitigates this is the unique built-in community hint system. The way it works is something like this. When you first start the game, it connects you to a master server. This server facilitates exchanging of data between players in the same area of the game. For example, as you’re running around you’ll see ghostly phantoms of other players who fought and died nearby.

But the other thing you’ll see is orange glowing notes on the ground. These notes have been left by other players, and can be read to get some sense of what needs to be done. Oftentimes, helpful players will leave you a message to let you know when there’s danger ahead. Of course, evil players might be trying to trick you, and that did happen to me occasionally. But for the most part, the note system functions as a sort of in-game hint system. Thankfully, you don’t have to worry about profanity-laced or useless spam, because the phrases you can use are all pre-written. You can pick a phrase with a fill-in-the-blank noun, and there are 50 or so nouns you can pick from a list.

The notes aren’t going to tell you about every little secret in the game, though. For example, every NPC in the entire game can be killed, even if they’re an important vendor. If you kill them, they aren’t coming back. But if you loot their corpse, they may have a unique item that you can’t get in any other way. For example, there’s a specific (and awesome) ring I got on my character that only drops from one NPC. I probably wouldn’t have known about it if someone else hadn’t told me, but I think that can add to the fun. Other secrets include special weapons which can be crafted for you, and several other neat little hidden gems which add to the fun factor.

Your class simply determines your starting stats and items.

Where Dark Souls really shines, however, is in its core mechanics. The combat itself is very fulfilling, and has mechanics like blocking, parries, basic combos, rolls, and so on. In my journey through the game, I started as a thief but then chose to play essentially as a ninja (I had a katana, ninja armor, and a ring that allowed me to do backflips). But the game supports quite a few different styles. You can choose to be a pyromancer, a knight with a sword and a shield, a shaman, and pretty much anything you can think of. The character system is just that flexible.

Characters have roughly 10 primary stats. These stats range from obvious ones such as vitality (which increases your health), to more bizarre ones such as attunement (which determines how many spell slots you have). When you first create your character, like in many other RPGs you pick a class. However, all the class really determines is your initial stat point allocation and what equipment you start out with. It’s quite possible to start as a warrior, but then later on increase your magic by a large amount. Though given the level of difficulty of the game, that’s probably not the best decision you could make.

Whenever you kill an enemy, you gain souls. The bigger the enemy, the more souls you get. Once you’ve collected enough souls, you have a decision to make. You can either use the souls to level up, or you can use them to purchase items from vendors. Unlike games which have separate gold and experience, in Dark Souls the gold is the experience. This provides an interesting dynamic because you’re constantly deciding whether you want to save up your souls for an item, or if you want to level up.

Bonfires serve as your checkpoints, among other things.

The decision isn’t one to be taken lightly because of one little wrinkle in the plan. You see, whenever you die, you drop all your souls. You then respawn at your last save point, and have one chance to return to where you died and pick up those souls. If you die on the way back, tough luck. Your souls will disappear into the ether and you’ll never get them back. So you never want to be running around in a new area with a lot of souls, because you have a good chance of losing them.

Unlike many modern games, Dark Souls doesn’t have “save anywhere” and there are no automatic checkpoints. The way you save your progress is by visiting a bonfire somewhere in the game world. However, when you access a bonfire, all non-boss enemies in the game world respawn. So you can’t kill one enemy, save, and repeat until you’ve cleared an area. You have to be able to complete the segment until the next bonfire in one fell swoop. The bonfire also serves a few other functions. You level up, equip spells, and access your storage, among other things, from your bonfire.

Learn how to parry and riposte. It's useful.

The bonfire also allows you to use a “humanity” consumable to become human again. When you’re in human form, you can leave a summoning mark on the ground. Any nearby undead player (meeting level criteria) can then see this mark, and if they click on it they’ll join in your game. When playing as a phantom in another player’s game, you don’t get any souls. However, if you help them successfully defeat a boss, you get humanity (which is also an occasional rare drop from regular enemies). The downside of being in human form is that other undead players can also choose to invade your game as a black phantom. If they kill you, they then get all the souls you currently have. Once you die in human form, you become undead once more.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to really test the phantom feature that much, because of server issues. A mistake From Software made is that there are several master servers, and you are randomly assigned to one when you start up the game. So it can be very hard to summon the phantom of your friend, because there’s no way to guarantee you’re on the same master server. Furthermore, it may be a function of my NAT being moderate, but I could only successfully connect to other players roughly half the time. This was a bit disappointing.

But other than the server quirkiness, my only other real complaint is the input queuing when doing a combo. The input for your next attack in the combo is locked in while the previous attacks are being executed. So for instance, if you press the attack button three times in rapid succession, you will do a three hit combo. But suppose during the second hit you decide you instead want to roll away instead of doing the third hit. Chances are, you won’t be able to override the input and may end up doing a third attack which gets you killed. This may be a side effect of the framerate, which definitely has some hitches here or there, or maybe it was intended. In any event, I ended up training myself to not mash the button, and instead wait until the previous attack is going before I press the input for my next attack.

But my problems with the game are fairly minor in the grand scheme of things. Throughout the 60+ hours it took me to complete the game, I had a great time. Dark Souls is an extreme test of your gaming cred. And just like differential equations, passing is an accomplishment in and of itself.

VERDICT: SINGING CANARY

Dark Souls is available now on Xbox 360 and PS3. Review was conducted on Xbox 360. Reviews generally appear every Friday on Game Canary. This was a Thanksgiving catch-up review. The Game Canary review system is detailed here.

Unwrapped is back from hiatus with the game that will probably top every sales chart for the year. I’ve already finished the campaign, but here you can take a look at the very first mission set in New York City. Overall, I felt the campaign was much stronger than Modern Warfare 2, and eventually I’ll have a review up!

There’s quite a few games still in the review pipeline, with Dark Souls, Arkham City, Uncharted 3, and Modern Warfare 3 on the way. Then I’ll be getting both Skyrim and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, so it’s a busy month of November.

Game Canary Unwrapped is a video series where I take a look at the first 15-30 minutes of a particular game. The commentary is all recorded at the same time as my initial play of the game, so they are honest first impressions.

Epic’s Gears of War 3 kicks off “bro” shooter season in a strong way. The core mechanics have not changed very much since the original 2006 release, and that’s both a good and a bad thing. While it’s not a revolutionary title by any means, it is an unequivocal improvement to the formula. I personally enjoyed my time through the game, and I feel that there’s enough to give the game a shot. But if you’re tired of the genre, then Gears of War 3 is not going to convince you to give it another try.

The cover feels familiar...

Back in 2006, Gears of War felt like a fairly unique spin on a shooting game. It certainly borrowed the camera mechanics from games like Resident Evil 4, but for my money it featured what still reigns as the best cover system around. By the time the second Gears of War was released, I had moved on to other things (I might’ve been playing World of Warcraft again), and to this day I haven’t played it. So while I can’t really comment on how the game has changed since the second one, I certainly have noticed differences from the first.

The main thing that Gears of War 3 really tries to push during the single player campaign is scenarios where you can’t just stay in cover the whole time. In the first Gears, with the exception of the boss fights and those crawler enemies, you spent most of the time popping in and out of cover and just taking out enemies slowly but surely. That strategy even worked on the hardest difficulty setting. In this third rodeo, however, there are more situations where you get into fights with enemies flanking you from multiple directions, and staying in cover is guaranteed to kill you. These new scenarios really don’t present themselves until the second half of the game, however. In the first half I felt like I was going through the same exact strategies as I utilized in the first Gears, but later on the dynamics of the game started to change.

Furthermore, there’s a new type of enemy that actually shoots an explosive which burrows into the ground and explodes on the other side of the cover. So in that situation, you have to be ready to move or face massive damage. But the stick isn’t the only way they train you to get out of cover. There’s a carrot too, because certain extremely strong weapons require you to more or less be out of cover to use effectively. So if you want to use those weapons, you’re going to want to get yourself out of cover.

This boss fight was a bit of a challenge.

The other big change in the gameplay of Gears of War 3 is that there are many more boss fights than in the original. I feel like this is another strong Japanese influence, since games like Resident Evil 4 certainly are very liberal with the amount of boss fights included. I wouldn’t say many of these fights are that memorable, however. It’s been a few weeks since I finished the game, and I only can really recall one or two of the main boss fights.

While the story isn’t terrible, it’s also not going to win any awards for writing. I feel like the mythology of the universe was unnecessarily complicated by the addition of the Lambent (which apparently showed up in Gears of War 2). I preferred when it was just the humans vs. the Locust, but the Lambent provide a third prong for the story. All the popular characters from the original also return, including Marcus, Dom, Baird, Cole, and Carmine. The story does manage to pack a few poignant moments (which I won’t spoil in this review), which was nice to see in a genre that usually is focused on Michael Bay-style explosions.

Outside of just the design and story of the single player levels, there have been quite a few improvements to the game as a whole. The original Gears of War was the first major console game of the current generation to really do online co-op the right way. Since then there have been a lot of other games which have rolled out this feature. It’s not surprising, then, that Gears of War 3 does it justice with 4-player co-op in this iteration. Like in the previous games, there are certain situations where the team splits up, and you have to work in smaller groups. But overall most of the levels allow your group of 4 to roam together as a team.

I don't really like the concept behind the Lambent.

The design of the multiplayer in Gears of War 3 has taken a lot of cues from games like Halo 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. There’s a party system, with up to 10 members in a party, which seems to be a required staple in the big shooter titles. You gain experience as you progress to the game, but like Halo and unlike Call of Duty, there are no perks to improve your character. Your level simply unlocks prestige items like new character models, which I think is a good thing. I dislike the design where you put an inexperienced player at an even further disadvantage than they already are. Then like in Halo 3, there are all sorts of medals you can earn for doing things like getting a kill streak.

The game also features many of the multiplayer game types you expect to see. There’s a team deathmatch, but rather than the win condition being simply based on the number of kills, there’s a limited number of respawns for your team. So once your respawns are exhausted, once you die you’re out. And once your whole team is dead, it’s game over. I actually haven’t seen this approach in a game before, though I’m certain it’s not a new one. I do think I prefer this method of scoring team deathmatch to the standard one.

One thing I found somewhat odd is that the multiplayer actually supports bots to fill out teams. Normally I would be okay with this, but in at least one game I was on a team with 4 other bots. We were matched up against a team of 5 humans (who probably were in a party), and suffice it to say my team wasn’t doing very well. I don’t mind bots if it’s to fill out one spot in the roster, but playing with a team of bots against a team of humans isn’t very riveting gameplay.

Curb stomping with a mech puts a new spin on multiplayer.

Then there’s all sorts of modes such as king of the hill, a VIP equivalent, and a couple of others. One thing I do wish they would have also taken from Halo 3 is the idea of a standard playlist that mixes in lots of game types in one. As it is, it appears that you can only queue for one game type, which has two drawbacks. First of all, it means there’s far more players playing team death match in comparison to other modes, and second of all it becomes repetitive. I prefer the approach in Halo 3 where they mix in different rules and game types, just to keep it a bit fresher.

Finally, for those of you who hate competitive multiplayer, there are a couple of entertaining co-op multiplayer modes. The first is the increasingly common “Horde” survival mode where you work together as a team and have to hold off waves Locust/Lambent enemies. As you progress through Horde mode, you unlock increasingly powerful emplacements and weaponry to hold off the enemies. The second variety of non-story co-op is “Beast” mode, where the roles are reversed from Horde mode. In Beast mode, you play as the enemies, and have to kill the NPC-controlled humans. This was a good diversion, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Horde mode.

Overall, there’s a lot of value in the Gears of War 3 package. However, whether or not you will really enjoy it comes down to how tired of the genre you are. If you still feel like you want to play a cover-based 3^rd person shooter, then Gears of War 3 is probably the best game out there. But with the fall being packed with so many other titles as it usually is, and other major “bro” shooters on the horizon, it certainly doesn’t stand out as a can’t-miss game. What you get is an enjoyable game, but nothing that will blow you away.

VERDICT: HAPPY CANARY

Gears of War 3 is available now on Xbox 360. Reviews generally appear every Friday on Game Canary. The Game Canary review system is detailed here.

I will try my best to have a Gears of War 3 review up this weekend, and also try to finish Dark Souls before the tuesday release of Batman: Arkham City, which will be the next title I’ll look at.

For my final class playthrough video, I play as the Barbarian. This class definitely seems to be one of the stronger ones currently. I’ll be posting an article which compares the different classes in the next couple of days. In the mean time, enjoy the video!

In this playthrough video, I play as the Demon Hunter, who honestly seems pretty under-powered compared to some of the other classes I’ve played so far. It’s no surprise that Blizzard has said they will be revamping the class somewhat to change when you unlock certain skills and alleviate resource starvation issues. As with the previous videos, this is 100% unedited from start to finish. For my final video, I’ll play as the Barbarian. But that video will be going up after the weekend.

In this playthrough video, I play as the Wizard, who seems to be a bit more powerful early on. As with the previous videos, this is 100% unedited from start to finish. For my next video I’ll take a look at the Demon Hunter.