By Nick Tritschler

One of the most anticipated games of this 2011 year has been Gears of War 3. It recently came out on Sept. 20th at most major game stores. Each store offered a different character skin for pre-ordering the game. For example one character Dom has a “Rambo commando” appearance as opposed to his normal military outfit.

Gears of War 3 offers a newly improved version of the much loved horde mode, which now includes boss waves, a bigger variety of enemies, and an all new system of fortification allowing a player to better defend against the enemy horde. The old horde mode offered limited protection and a limited variety of foes. In the new horde the five sets of ten waves still occurs, but with different enemies each time. Horde mode is a game play experience where you and up to four friends can fight off the locust horde in fifty waves with increasing difficulty. The new range of foes makes horde mode more interesting.

In addition to the new foes, the fortifications in the new horde mode helps the player’s team fend off the horde easier by use of barriers, decoys, manned turrets, unmanned turrets (sentry guns), and controllable mech suits (silverbacks). The more you buy these fortifications, the more you can upgrade them and the more helpful they become.

Another mode offered is the brand new beast mode. In this mode the player becomes the locust horde trying to defeat a group of humans (cog soldiers). This mode lets you play as the enemies that are the most annoying and tests your skills.

The game also offers the versus mode, as in the previous Gears games, but with AI (artificial intelligence) players to fight against and alongside you. Gears of War 3 offers a new team death match mode which allows players to respawn on average fifteen times as a team, unlike the warzone mode which had no respawns.

Finally there is an all new campaign and arcade campaign mode. The campaign mode follows up on where the second one ended with the humans scattered around the world trying to survive. You play as the same characters from Gears 2 but with an addition of five new companions. The arcade mode adds points to the campaign.

The only problem with this game is that less amount of people own it so group playing is limited. It is a gory game so it is not for the faint of heart, but I strongly recommend purchasing Gears 3 if you enjoyed the last two or like first person shooters.