Gears 4.

[Havok]

I think I'm gonna just get it for the multi. 5 player teams. COG on COG action. Looks like some semblance of dress up.

I didn't really play Gears 3 multi at all because I got it so late, but what improvements do you guys that played it see in 4 compared to 3, assuming you have seen the the multi videos that are out?

[Stark]

Multi that isn't a) boring as shit and b) utterly dominated by one-hit-kill weapons?

You'd have to pay me to buy another Gears game after 3. Pooch was screwed.

[Flagg]

Hav might actually pay you to buy it and play with him, too.

[Havok]

Multi that isn't a) boring as shit and b) utterly dominated by one-hit-kill weapons?

You'd have to pay me to buy another Gears game after 3. Pooch was screwed.

Was 3's multi boring? I seriously played it with Ken like for two hours and that is it.

If I get it and play it and it is good, is my recommendation enough for one of those "I'm Australian and I get to steal games" thing you guys get to do?

[Stark]

That you played it for two hours is a good example of how boring it was. It had shit maps and the whole game revolved around 'get one hit kill gun, turn stick sensitivity to max, kill everyone with one hit kills'. Gears multi always sucked, and Gears 3 didn't solve anything (but made Horde suck instead).

TBH I'd be more likely to play ME3 multi. If ME3 multi was a F2P game like Happy Wars I'd be playing it right now.

DO YOU HEAR THAT BIOWARE

[Aaron MkII]

Val and I will pick it up to play with you if you want.

[Havok]

Thanks Sarge.

Stark is gonna get it though 'cause he can't resist Baird, but the only reason I only played for two hours was because no one else was playing anymore. I waited quite a while to get it.

[Stark]

Everyone played it for a shorter time than Syndicate. Thats a pretty bad sign.

[Esquire]

Syndicate - that was the definitely-not-Deus-Ex thing from last year, right?

EDIT: I can spell, I really can. I just need to remember that sometimes.

[Stark]

Syndicate was probably the best original shooter of 2012 that got no support and people were too stupid to play. Really awesome coops, interesting combat and abilities, etc etc etc.

So not Deus Ex at all, because Deus Ex was a fucking terrible game. :V

[Havok]

The scout/sniper class is almost enough to make me wanna get it by itself. Going places the other can't eliminates sniper hunters except for other snipers which is pretty cool, even if it is an unintended tactic, that is probably going to evolve into an unofficial mini game among the people that favor the class.

[Havok]

Was Syndicate the one set in Japan?

[Stark]

The scout/sniper class is almost enough to make me wanna get it by itself. Going places the other can't eliminates sniper hunters except for other snipers which is pretty cool, even if it is an unintended tactic, that is probably going to evolve into an unofficial mini game among the people that favor the class.

It's like everythign that sucks about multilpayer shooters in a 'mini game'! :V

And no.

[Havok]

Why does that suck with shooters?

[Stark]

Go play one. Its the fastest way to find out.

Heaps of games can boil down to 'team of snipers snipe the snipers' anyway, and it's amazingly not fun for anyone else.

[Havok]

Oh. I thought that would be an interesting mechanic to have in there. Sniper/Countersniper. Gears 2 and ME3 are the only multi shooters I have played. Most games that I have watched others play seem to go out of their way to not have places where snipers can camp for long.
I thought it was interesting to have spots that only snipers could go to. Apparently not.

[Stark]

Yeah, because snipers a born cowards who ruin games. Amusingly in BF3 the areas of a map each team could get to were different... so each time just set up unkillable mortar guys in the 'safe zones' and camped ferociously. FUN!

It'll be even better in gears, where 80% of guns take 10000 hits to kill but you instantly die to the other 20%. The possibility of a sprawling gunfight was already zero in 3.

[Darksider]

You'd have to pay me to buy another Gears game after 3. Pooch was screwed.

Out of curiosity, what about Gears 3 was bad enough to make you rage-quit the franchise? I mean yeah the ending got stupid with it's technobabble-esqe deus ex machina crap, but to literally go and say "I will never buy another Gears game ever" is a pretty extreme reaction.

[Stark]

Don't try to devalue my opinion by using your nerd chic bullshit, dumbass. The game sucked and im happy to explain how to anyone who missed it; you dont have to poison the well.

Even Epic knows, because their trailers for the next game say things like 'a return to' 'classic' Gears play.

I'm sorry 'product sucks, will not buy again' seems extreme to you. I have a different word for it - 'learning'.

[Darksider]

I was just inquiring as to exactly what you thought about gears 3 was so bad. The stuff with the ending was shit, but to me it wasn't an "I swear i will never buy another game in this series" level of shit, and wondered why you thought it was.

You don't need to bite my goddamn head off.

[Stark]

Sorry for assuming you had a spine and weren't just a passive aggressive coward I guess.

Anyway, the play in SP showed that they didn't realise their flow was stale and actually made it worse and less exciting for most of the game. Whole hours of the game were quite obviously 'listen to the thrilling story expounded by our dom replacement while stopping in each square room to shot the 12 mans', and when the actual act of shotting those mans is not entertaining, that's bad. The very last level and the very first level were probably the only ones that weren't fucking dead boring, and that really shows that their designers had no idea regarding what was 'fun' in gears, even as other games had adopted its ideas and gone in different directions.

The MP was so hilariously broken and bad that they had actual for serious 'one hit kill day' events where every gun was a sniper or instagib gun, thus rendering 80% of the game mechanics totally useless. Beast mode was probably the best part of the multi and was obviously tacked on and not very complete/well thought out.

This is all without even touching the story so bad it took interest and engagement with the franchise from FUCK YEAH to zero in a day. 'Don't worry, all our problems are solved. Dad built a Kill All Niggers machine!'.

[Vendetta]

I was just inquiring as to exactly what you thought about gears 3 was so bad. The stuff with the ending was shit, but to me it wasn't an "I swear i will never buy another game in this series" level of shit, and wondered why you thought it was.

You don't need to bite my goddamn head off.

The game is fundamentally much more boring to play than previous installations. Gears 3 is just a succession of rooms with monsters in, you enter a room, shoot the monsters, enter the next room, shoot the next monsters, and it's really transparent that this is what the rooms are, there's much less of a feeling that you're traversing an environment than in previous Gears games, just "here's a box full of monsters, shoot them so you can get to the next box".

Also, they broke Horde completely with the introduction of the tower defence bollocks, because all of it except the Silverback is useless and the Silverback is so broken that it basically ensures 75% or better of the kills go to the person who has it.

Also, the story is broken on many more levels than just the ending, all of the interesting stuff is ditched from the previous game (that research base with the Sires in Gears 2? Hope you read the intervening novels because they're completely not in this game. Hoffman's character? Off playing bitch to Karen Traviss' self insert, hope you've been reading the novels because who the fuck are all these other wankers we're saddled with. What did Adam Fenix mean with his "what have you done?" in Gears 2's ending? How have you made things incalculably worse this time? Never addressed. Hell, Adam Fenix' connection to the Locust, built up over the last two games, was weak as fuck and barely addressed in this game now press the magic solve all your problems button. (protip: at the end of gears 1 and 2 a magic solve all your problems button made everything worse, third time lucky I guess?)

[Stark]

What will we find beneath Mount Kadar?

WHO CARES LOL GO TO THE BIOSHOCK CITY

[Darksider]

Has Epic said amything whatsoever about resolving the Sire/New Hope plot line? Because i've read synopses of the books (jesus christ they're terrible, even for licensed fiction) and there's nothing in there.

The "RAAM's Shadow" DLC, while entertaining, doesn't really add to the plot either. It's just a stand-alone adventure.

I mean, are they really going to leave the whole thing as a huge WTF?

[Stark]

Yes.

Making the new game a prequel (which man run into the hilarity of a 17 year war with characters who are 30) is an admission they know the Gears 3 finale destroyed the universe and most of the characters.