New Characters, Weapons, Enemies Revealed for Gears 3

[keithlewis]

New Characters, Weapons, Enemies Revealed for Gears 3

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3179279

Gears of War 3 will be released in a little less than a year, but Epic Games is already ramping up their media blitz. IGN reports that a new Gears 3 preview in the latest issue of Game Informer reveals many new details on the game, including some of the new characters, weapons, and enemies we can expect to see.

Curiously, some of these details actually corroborate some of the info from a previously leaked Russian magazine preview of the game, which Cliff Bleszinski himself at the time dismissed as "false info." According to Game Informer's preview, Gears 3 begins a year and a half after the end of Gears 2 and the fall of Jacinto, with the Gears now living on an aircraft carrier called "Raven's Nest." In Gears 3, main character Marcus Fenix and his ever-present partner Dom are joined by Anya Stroud and new character Jace Stratton, all four of which will be playable in the new four-player co-op mode.

There will be new enemies as well, with the lambent (Locust mutated after long exposure to Imulsion) evidently becoming the main antagonists in Gears 3. This will include a new enemy called Drudges, which spread tentacles when attacked (that can reach enemies behind cover) and will attempt to rush the player and explode themselves before death. There will still also be new Locust classes, though, including a grenadier and "large, organic catapults."

And to kill these new enemies, players can use a few new weapons: A "Pendulum-era" Lancer with a bayonet affixed and rounds powerful at close-range, and a "digger launcher" that sends creatures burrowing in the ground that seek out and "devour" their targets. Other confirmed weapons include a redesigned hammerburst, sawed-off shotgun, and "massive" one-shot rifle.

A few more details revealed: An "Arcade mode" with a few goofy variables like adjustable gravity and big-head mode, and a scoring and stat-tracking system that allows you to compare your prowess in an area to others like in Shadow Complex; and two multiplayer maps (one over the remains of Jacinto, one in a "ruined thrashball field"), along with confirmation that multiplayer maps will be altered as a match goes on, such as water flooding or receding from the ground.

And that's about the end of this smorgasbord of new info. You can return to patiently waiting for Gears of War 3 to launch on April 5, 2011.