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Next on my list of backlog clearing is Gears of War 3.  I've been playing through Gears of War 2 Co-Op with Drew but wanted to start playing some of the multiplayer in this one so I jumped ahead.  I enjoyed playing it so much that I went ahead and completed the campaign in the next few nights.

The controls in this third installment are somehow more responsive and much less frustrating than the previous games.  I often found my self accidentally jumping to the wrong cover or bypassing it completely in earlier games, but that issue seemed to go away almost entirely without me changing anything in my play style.  I also found enemies easier to target than before and it gave a much better feel to the experience overall.

The change from emergence holes to single enemies erupting from the ground was awesome from both a gameplay and development standpoint.  The enemy going several feet into the air helps ensure the player will see where they are coming into the battle, but also gives the Designer the ability to feed enemies into the battle at any time or place without breaking the intended flow of the level.

The visual quality of the world also took a big leap upward with lots of color added giving a much less drab visual like the earlier games.  Being color blind, I had a lot of issues with the first two games in seeing enemies effectively as they would often blend into the background easily. A lot of that was solved with the visual improvements in this edition.

The environments always have a massive feel even when the playable space might be much tighter in reality.  Epic have become masters at making the game space feel huge which is something it seems a lot of games have issue figuring out effectively (self included). The addition of allies other than the 3 with you helped this feel in certain battles as well...It felt like a real war was going on.

I also tried a few of the multiplayer modes, but want to wait until I have three others with me before I really delve into it.  But it seems like there's a lot of longevity there and a lot of fun to be had.  I might have to jump in with the Pixel Damage Podcast guys soon on one of their weekly play nights.

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