What We Think About Gears Of War 3's 4-Player Co-Op

The Game Informer office is packed with devoted gamers champing at the bit to experience the latest and greatest games. When a hot new title like Gears of War 3 releases with a big four-player campaign, we settle for nothing less than whole nine bloody yards. We spent a few days shoulder to shoulder in the Game Informer office with linked Xbox 360s shooting and sawing our way through the four-player. Here's what we thought.

Dan Ryckert

When I first bought Gears of War 3, I purposely stayed away from going through the campaign right away. I spent hours on Horde and competitive multiplayer, because I wanted to wait until I could get a consistent four-player team to plow through the campaign with. This took less than a week, luckily, as Tim, Ben Reeves, and our friend John were all game to spend a couple of weekends tackling the story in marathon sessions.

It took two extended Sunday sessions and one Tuesday night, but we eventually took down the Locust (and Lambent) on Hardcore difficulty. Playing four-player local co-op seemed to be the perfect way to play that game, as strategizing during battles was quick and easy (“You two take down the stalks, we’ll take care of the wretches”, “You two move forward, we’ll hang back and snipe”, etc.). A few moments had us at our wit’s end, specifically the lengthy fight against the Lambent Zerker. We probably died a dozen times as we desperately tried to revive each other while avoiding streaks of emulsion. When we finally took him down, the massive explosion and sense of victory made us (temporarily) forget about all the cursing and frustration that preceded it.

Gears of War 3 has an excellent campaign, and I’m sure it’s a blast to play through no matter how you choose to do it. However, I’d highly recommend getting three friends together in the same room if at all possible. It made a great game all the more fun to play through.

Tim Turi

I've never played a Gears of War campaign single-player. To me, the constant cover-to-cover shooting and plodding through ruined environments would get boring without a lively teammate. I loved the 2-player co-op of the first two games, so I learned that when Epic would be doubling the number in Gear 3, I was excited.

We breezed through the first sections of the game on Hardcore difficulty, and only started hitting the occasional wall of difficulty until later acts. Oftentimes mindlessly shooting grubs and throwing grenades got the job done, but in the rare instances that we were bested the smallest amount of strategy usually got the job done. Several points in the game seemed dramatically harder than they would have been if we had less players. Once particular boss fight, which I won't spoil, had us dying dozens of times before we finally took it down. More players means more guns, but it also means more liabilities, which can lead to some frustration.

I found myself tiring of shooting dudes in the face after the halfway point. The gameplay of Gears 3 is tight, and having human companions makes each scenario more interesting, but my interest waned with each bullet fired. It wasn't until we revved up our lancers' chainsaws and got to cutting that the real fun set in. It turns out that bum rushing packs of Locust with three other dudes and cutting them to itty bits is a blast. If I could do it all over again, I would play on the lowest difficulty setting and try to chainsaw as many dudes in half as possible.

Ben Reeves

The first Gears of War blew me away. I don’t know if it was the game’s graphics, which seemed so sharp at the time that they almost cut your eyes, or if it was the over-the-shoulder gunplay, which still seemed novel at the time, but the first Gears of War was a refreshing experience. At the time, I remember thinking that it epitomized the future of video games. Fast-forward barely five years, and we have a third Gears of War, but now the series feels like part of a bygone era.
 
Don’t get me wrong. I recognize that Gears of War 3 is a very polished game, the Cole Train still makes me laugh, and I know that I’m going to continue to have a blast with Horde mode over the coming months. However, I can’t shake the feeling that the game’s campaign was thoroughly lacking.
 
When Dan, Tim, John, and I first got together to play through Gears of War 3’s co-op campaign, I was genuinely excited. Honestly, I enjoyed playing through the game with three other guys. The game is filled with several great action moments, and chainsawing the pale, toothy aliens in half never grows tired. Still, I found Gears of War 3’s bombardment of stimuli often felt mundane, the game’s gorgeous brown backgrounds have all blended together in my mind, and the story is completely forgettable.
 
Why didn’t I enjoy Gears of War 3 as much as so many others have? Moreover, why didn’t I enjoy Gears of War 3 as much as I enjoyed Gears 1 (or even 2)? If you stack the games’ feature sets next to each other, Gears of War 3 clearly looks like the superior game. My indifference for Gear of War 3 could have something to do with the fact that in the intervening years since the series first started, games like Mass Effect, Uncharted, and BioShock have all expanded my idea of how video games can integrate action, atmosphere, and story. Then again, maybe the game just didn’t resonate with me.
 
When Mirror’s Edge came out in 2008, it consumed my life for two weeks. I played the game multiple times and tried to accomplish every challenge. I recognize that the game has problems, it is by no means a perfect title, and yet it captivated me completely. I love platforming games, and the idea of a first person parkour experience felt dizzyingly exciting at the time. I wanted to experience everything the game had to offer. My time with Mirror’s Edge was an inverse of my Gears of War 3 experience. Mirror’s Edge was a flawed game that resonated highly with me, while Gears is a highly polished game that rang flat.

Friend of GI, John Carson

"My co-op playthrough of Gears of War 3 was the first time I’ve played any of the series with friends beside me. When you get four people together in a room, there’s a greater sense of bonding and accomplishment than I find playing a game with friends online, which I’m not a big fan of. I don’t think I’d find dying at the hands of the Lambent Zurker quite as tolerable, nor fully enjoy the fun and hilarity of rediscovering melee attacks and running at anything moving with our chainsaws revved.

This was actually my second time bringing Gears to a close, so I played a sort of tour guide. I would point out secrets when I could, kept the guys up to speed on story hooks, and tried to keep us on the right track when possible. We had our hiccups such as loading our game in the middle of a deadly Act 3 firefight, but we made it through the game relatively unscathed. I enjoyed my second visit to Gears 3 more than my first, and while the game is very fun on it’s own, the real difference makers were Dan, Ben, and Tim."