Zero Punctuation: Gears of War 3

[Legion]

You do realize his whole thing is he's a nitpicker. Even games he really likes he'll make negative comments about.

You've got a hundred other reviewers all saying the same good things about a game, he's one who'll say what's wrong with it. Even the games with big money behind it, big enough to get free passes on lots of big name reviewers.

True, but his reasons behind his opinions are more generic than he claims most modern shooters are.

 

[daxterx2005]

Just wait, we'll have a Ge4rs or W4r 4 in the neat future.
Then we can have the pleasure of hearing yahtzee say "Ge-four-ars of wa-four-ar four"

 

[Jezzascmezza]

Harsh review, but then again, it is a brown space marine shooter filled with chest high walls, 3 of Yahtzee's pet peeves...

 

[remnant_phoenix]

If you rip on America's shitty educational system next, you'll have hit the trifecta of things I hate. ^^ Horrah!

(and no hate on any other Teachers here - I lament the fact that we're expected to work miracles with a budget that couldn't buy used chewing gum)

I'm a teacher, and I approve this comment.

"Expected to work miracles," that right there hits close to home...

"Hey everybody! Let's expect the teacher to bear sole responsibility for making a student successful! It's not like the parents or the students themselves should bear any of that responsibility...nope, it's all the teacher! And while were at it, let's add a bunch of paperwork/liability/certification/budgeting bullshit on them and pay them poorly for all they do! I mean, a lot of teachers are in the game because, on some level, they actually give a damn about education and want to make a difference; people like that are easy to exploit because they're willing to put up with a lot of shit in name of their ideals. What a bunch of suckers!"

If you're a teacher in the States, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

 

[rated pg]

TLR version of this review: I don't like Gears of War, therefore I don't remember anything about it, therefore I'm just going to complain it's not well fleshed out enough. And I'll make the entire review about how I don't remember anything instead of the gameplay or, y'know, the reasons people buy games. Also, I'll hilariously point out I'm not paying attention to the story and it's silly and doesn't matter, then complain I can't remember the story and don't know what's going on.

One of the laziest attempts at trolling by Yahtzee yet, and one of his worst reviews ever. Very disappointing.

 

[Reaper195]

Brown shooter, huh? Yeah, god forbid when a game takes place in a canyon that it's not neon fucking pink. Also, Halo was one of the most colourful shooters I'd ever played, yet no one seems to ever mention that.

Of course, I long ago stopped watching Yahtzee for his reviews and more for the entertainment factor since he less reviews games and more rants about them.

 

[JSRT]

This review was kind of "meh", but that's because the game itself is like that. There was really nothing to say about it since it's just a quick cash grab. Sadly, this won't stop it from being one of the best selling titles of the year.

So i'm guessing you don't own it and never played it then. How is a game as polished and feature rich as Gears 3 a "quick cash grab" exactly?

 

[Roganzar]

"Chainsaw vacectomy sidemissions."
LOL

 

[CaptainOctopus]

I find it interesting, wait no that's not the word. Tragic? Well kind of.. Miserable? Yes! Miserable that's the word. I find it miserable that there are so many gamers out there who for some reason find it necessary to constantly defend these kind of dumb shooters as if there weren't enough of them already.

It's like if someone started a political movement with the motto: "We need more corrupt and incompetent politicians in our government!" And then massive amount of people later join that movement. Fucking brilliant!

And before you point it out I am aware that I pretty much described the agenda for lots of political movements like the ridicules Tea Party movement. But at least they don't go out in the open and reveal that it's their real agenda. So at least those dumb uninformed people who join those movement have an somewhat of excuse for there stupid behavior.

 

[JSRT]

It boggles the mind that this game has any fans.

I watched my roommate play while I was cooking dinner. He was at some part where they were fighting some big monster (I'm sure this is vague enough to not require a spoiler, as I imagine there were plenty of big monsters). Every second or third hit he would fall down, limping away, waiting for someone to pick him up. The repetitive battle theme in the background would have put Quest 64 to shame. Their terrible, guttural voices barking out "manly" lines grated against my ears. When I finished cooking dinner, he was still fighting the same big monster. When I finished eating, nearly thirty minutes later, he was done.

Granted, my forays into shooters in general have been limited, with Heretic being my shining example of a great, fun shooter. Is this....is this abomination considered good? With the awkward, clunky chest-high walls everywhere, the hilariously disproportionate bodies, the clunky manly-man dialogue...is this good? There was some multiplayer thing where he played as the bad guys, and 60% of the fight was reduced to him breaking down fences so he could kill stupid AI.

Is this fun?

I am honestly wondering if most of the people here have actually payed this game. The AI is stupid? lol. How are the bodies "Disproportionate" exactly? Even in the first Gears where they wore heavy bdy armor the only really big guy was Cole, Marcus only really got bigger in the third game. If you'd actually played it ( which clearly you didn't) you could see the difference with the "classic marcus" Gears 1 skin in multiplayer is smaller that the newer version. It's funny nearly all of the complaints here seen pretty damned baseless and i bet if Gears was a PS3 exclusive it wouldn't be getting as much flak. You could harp on the story all you want, the FACT of the matter is gameplay wise Gears is a cut above 90% of the shooters out now. Most TPS this gen including the all mighty sacred cow, Uncharted 2 copies mechanics that Gears of War perfected. It was as influential to shooters this gen as Halo was last gen. This is fact....

 

[pandasaw]

But what Yahtzee did not mention was that this game is awesome!

 

[Jkudo]

I would say I'm glad it's over but we know they'll be making another one since it's selling still. My best friend enjoys them and I've played the first two with him on co-op and Yahtzee is right, the story from both is not worth remembering. First game set off giant bombs to kill Locust, second game completely nullifies the first by saying the bombs did nothing. And the second doesn't even have that much focus going for it, it's all just there to set up the third game's new enemy.

As to the gameplay, I don't see what Gears of War has added. It created artificial looking rooms with lots of neat rows of cover that look completely out of place and it makes you stick to them. Why is that considered a gameplay innovation? What was wrong with the old systems of having to just move behind something while you reload or dodge a rocket or wait for a break in the enemy's firing pattern, or using crouch and lean buttons to make use of cover? This 'sticky' system seems to just railroad gamers into using paths the developers lay out by making the right way forward obvious by the path of chest high walls.

I feel the grappling hook, found in lost planet 1 and 2 added much more to level design and the third person shooter. It's best shown in lost planet 2 but it allows for awesome level design and i think is a better addition than cover shooting, while i have no problem with cover shooting.

 

[Batou667]

I like the Gears series. It's not Shakespeare, nor is it a kaliedoscope of multi-faceted ever-fresh gameplay. It does one thing - namely letting you play as a big cube of armoured meat shooting fully-auto ordnance into aliens - and it does it well, thankyouverymuch. Criticising Gears 3 for not reinventing the genre or appealing to everyone is like saying football games should include more free-roaming sandbox elements: irrelevant.

I also like Yahtzee. Doesn't mean I need to agree 100% with every utterance he makes though. And, you know what, perhaps if I was in his position (having to play through new releases at a rate of one per week) I'd be cynical about games too. I use Zero Punctuation as a handy infotainment guide, but I normally reserve final judgement until I play the demo.

 

[JSRT]

I find it interesting, wait no that's not the word. Tragic? Well kind of.. Miserable? Yes! Miserable that's the word. I find it miserable that there are so many gamers out there who for some reason find it necessary to constantly defend these kind of dumb shooters as if there weren't enough of them already.

It's like if someone started a political movement with the motto: "We need more corrupt and incompetent politicians in our government!" And then massive amount of people later join that movement. Fucking brilliant!

And before you point it out I am aware that I pretty much described the agenda for lots of political movements like the ridicules Tea Party movement. But at least they don't go out in the open and reveal that it's their real agenda. So at least those dumb uninformed people who join those movement have an somewhat of excuse for there stupid behavior.

I find it interesting, no wait what's the word tragic? Well kind of..Miserable? That's the word that there are so many "gamers" who for some reason find it necessary to belittle others for their gaming tastes. The fact that a phrase like "dumb shooter" even exists is laughable in itself. Who are you trying to impress here, exactly? Why do you think people play games exactly? Last time i checked it was for fun! I have been playing games since the Vectrex ( look it up) and my reasons for gaming haven't changed since then. "Gamers" of today i don't understand at all though, it's clear they take things a little too seriously when they start bringing talk of "agendas" and "political movements" and insult people who play what they see as "dumb" games...well...it's pretty clear they forgot or never realized why it is we play games in the first place.


I guess i could rip on those who enjoy the annual COD releases but the fact is they enjoy the game so who am i to question. Fact is Gears gives you a lot of bang for your 60 bucks. And as i said before when it comes to gameplay ( you know THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF A VIDEOGAME) Gears passes with flying colors and yes should be praised for it. Most games today try so hard to be movies and deliver stupid overblown cutscenes while failing hard when it comes to making their games fun! Sorry but you can have a game with an excellent story and character development but if the gameplay isn't good then what is the damned point?

I just wonder when it hapened. When exactly did gamers become such pretentious, dicks?

 

[Tontomanzz]

Generic game, generic complaints. Hell he doesn't even bother complaining about the brown worlds anymore except for a one line comment (as he does for all of them).

Have something a little less generic, like Amnesia, and it's different and game specific issues. The guys got five min to fill on a #3 of a pretty generic fps. You can tell as it's more jokes and innuendo instead of game design.

edit. btw nothing bad about generic, even the plot, as long as other gameplay is there. Just so long as no real plot doesn't mean a dungeon crawl of the same looking areas for hours and hours to pad playing time.

 

[Smooth Operator]

So you liked it then?
Oh the flame wars, they will be epic after this one.

And the GoW games sure as hell aren't over, no sensible businessman will let a cow like that walk away in one piece.

 

[T.A.R.D.U.S]

I don't think anybody buys Gears for the single player.

I bought it so I can chainsaw the shit out of high pitched American teenagers.

...I did.

Anyway, I had a sort-of not really hope that he might give this one a positive review because Gears 2 got one, but then this is a brown shooter with two weapons, a pistol, and a grenade limit. Funny enough, he only mentioned the gameplay in passing and never once pointed out anything wrong with it, this coming from a fellow who holds story in high regard but, if I'm not mistaken, says gameplay is more important, if only slightly so. That is, if I remember correctly. I'll have to find out where I heard that.

So I'm guessing he picked the story angle to make a video about. Fine by me, postitive ones are rarely as funny.

I thought both the game and review were excellent.

He did talk about the gameplay. He said that there were no changes from GoW2. I would say that is a negative in his book.