Saturday, May 21, 2011

The good, the bad and the really ugly!: Gears of War 3 Beta

The Gears of War 3 beta has ended and people are cleaning their chainsaws before putting their Lancers to rest, but how was the beta? Well for the most it was a good run, we saw some interesting kills and shouted a fair few times at the screen, there were a few annoyances though;

Trenches and super weapons
The 'Trenches' were one of the better maps but too often, when there were super weapons available, you'd find people camping the trench at the very back of the map. Unless your team were well organised then you'd have difficulty getting even two people out of there for any length of tie. On the King of the Hill maps this just meant that two people could exploit the Hammer of Dawn with abandon while their team mates captured the objectives. Not fun, just frustrating!

Gnasher
Sometimes capable of one shot kills, sometimes capable of just annoying your opponent the wild inconsistency of this weapon means the sawed off is usually the more preferred choice. Which is a shame because a good fire fight between people wielding this weapon is good fun!




Lets go team...wait a minute

Due to something being a bit wrong with the re spawn mechanic it's possible to find yourself re spawning right next to a member of the opposing team. Usually this resulted in the one who was paying attention promptly sending their opponent back to the graveyard. Hopefully this will get fixed and situations like this won't exist any more.

BE QUIET!

Why can't there be an option in game that’s easily accessible to mute other players? It wasn't common but there were occasions when you would find yourself with team mates who had confused their headset with a Singstar microphone. Very annoying!

Decals
Yes your flaming lancer is very nice, but what you don't know is that it makes you easy to spot from a mile off. Is that bunker on fire? No it's just somebody with a dodgy decal. If you're going to give people modifications for their weapons try not to make it ones that put them at a disadvantage!

So these are the few annoyances with an otherwise wonderful beta but you may have noticed that the obvious option is missing here, the sawed off. Admittedly a one shot kill weapon is annoying but the fact that the reload time is measured in days and that it's completely useless at range means that it's a perfectly balanced weapon. If someone is giving you grief with it, try using the lancer for a bit that should surely dissuade them.