However, since Traviss was allowed to incorporate the world she already created in her books into Gears of War 3, it’s very easy to feel an instant disconnect from where that game’s story begins when playing the game. The first two games pretty much followed one another within days after the first game ended, but it’s readily apparent from the outset of Gears 3 that lots of time has passed since Delta squad was forced to sink Jacinto. It’s fairly easy to infer what has happened to them and take it in stride, but if you’re like me and really want to know why they are in the predicament they are now, who certain characters are–who were never mentioned before in the first two games–and why certain characters are the way they are, then you must read Traviss’ novels, starting with Aspho Fields.

Aspho Fields takes place soon after Marcus dropped the lightmass bomb into the Locust tunnels at the end of the first game. When they run into Sergeant Bernadette “Bernie” Mataki while clearing out some Locust, the second plotline of the story unfolds, which takes place during the constantly mentioned Pendulum Wars. In case the name Bernie sounds familiar, it’s because she was in the third game, holed up at Anvil’s Gate with Hoffman. It’s obvious that everyone already knows who Bernie is, that she has some deep relationship with Hoffman, and that she and Baird are actually a little close. Aspho Fields starts to unravel exactly why.

Bernie fought with Marcus and Dom’s brother, Carlos, during the battle for Aspho Fields, the pivotal point of the Pendulum Wars. Bet you didn’t know Dom had a brother before this book, did you? Well that’s because he died in that battle, and Marcus and Bernie never told anyone how he really died. Now that she’s reappeared after being MIA for over 10 years, that horrific battle has come back to haunt Bernie, Marcus, and Dom’s curiosity.

The book flips back and forth between present day and the Pendulum Wars, which keeps both plotlines intriguing and opens up incredibly deep character development for Bernie, Hoffman, Dom, and Cole. Sorry if you thought you were going to get into Marcus’s head. Yet, if you think about it, it would take away from a lot of the appeal of Marcus’s character if you were allowed to understand his thoughts and feelings.

That said, you do learn how Dom and Marcus met, how Dom met Maria, a teensy slice of the relationship between Marcus and Anya, about Marcus’s home life, about Marcus’s relationship with his father, about Anya’s background, and pretty much everything about Hoffman, who is a surprisingly deep and likeable character.

Aspho Fields is a brilliant, true introduction to the world of Gears of War, and one that I wish I had had after I finished the first game, since I came away from that scratching my head with complete confusion. Most importantly, it’s a must-read for any Gears of War fan, no matter if you range from liking the games to being a hardcore fan.

The first add-on for Epic’s Gears of War 3, the Horde Command Pack, will be available at the beginning of November.

The Command Pack will include three new maps, three new characters, two new weapon skins and a new set of fortification upgrades for use during Horde mode (hence the name). This also ups the total Gamerscore for the title by 250. Here’s the full details on these additions:

New maps:

• Blood Drive – The Jacinto Medical Plaza was overwhelmed by evacuated citizens after the government-sanctioned Hammer Strikes, and the ensuing riots quickly turned this safe haven into a dangerous inferno. An abundance of high ground and funneled choke points make this map a returning favorite to Horde.
• Rustlung – Once the pride of the Royal Tyran Navy, the foredecks of this decommissioned battleship are now riddled with bullet holes. Any team with the fortitude to hold the exposed central torpedo bay will find that the ship’s Loader has been replaced with a battle-ready Silverback mech suit.
• Azura – This island resort was once the exclusive domain of Sera’s educated elite, but the tranquil water gardens and lush foliage have become a hotly contested combat zone. Dual snipers overlook a powerful explosive weapon, while the defensive central platform may be your last resort of retreat.

New fortification upgrades:

• Command Center – A brand new type of fortification that allows you to call in fire support from sniper teams, mortar strikes and even multiple Hammers of Dawn.
• Decoy Upgrade – A new fortification level that turns your decoy into an Onyx Guard bot that will fight in your defense.
• Sentry Upgrade – This upgrade adds a fire bolt sentry that deals much more damage and is very effective against Berserkers.
• Silverback Upgrade – This advancement allows you to upgrade your Silverback exo-suit with devastating rockets and extra levels of repair cost reduction.

New characters:

• Onyx Guard
• Big Rig Dizzy
• Bernie

New weapon skins:

• Team Plasma
• Jungle Camo

The Horde Command Pack is available for 800 Microsoft Points, or it’s also available as part of the Gears of War 3 “Season Pass,” in which you essentially pay for a promise. A promise that you won’t sell the game back gets you 33 percent off of a promise for DLC, but maybe it’ll at least be good DLC nonetheless? (The Season Pass is 2400 Microsoft Points.) Promises, promises.

GamingAngels and GameStop asked you to go Commando on September 19th and you all responded! We loved the comments and had so many great entries. Now that September 19th has passed, it’s time to announce the winner of a brand new Xbox 360 and a copy of Gears of War 3!!

Drum roll please…..

The winner of the Go Commando GameStop and GamingAngels sweepstakes is
Dustin Rankhorn

Huge Congrats to him! Thank you everyone that entered. The contest did so well, I’m sure we’ll have another one at GamingAngels soon! So come by often and watch out….the next console giveaway could be yours!!

<3
The Staff @GamingAngels!

Several downloadable add-ons are coming for the game (naturally), starting in November. We don’t know exactly what those will be, aside from the fact that they’ll contain both campaign and multiplayer content, but you can “preorder” the first four by purchasing a Season Pass for 2400 Microsoft Points.

Yeah, that’s $30. But apparently that’s a 33% savings compared to buying them all separately. It also includes a “Liquid Metal Weapon Set.”

Gears of War 3 launches Sept. 20 in three editions — Standard ($59.99), Limited ($79.99) and Epic ($149.99). One of those comes with a lancer or something. So at least there’s that, if you’re planning to drop a Benjamin and a half on the Epic edition.

The beta is only online multiplayer so there’s no story involved and for the most part, it plays just like Gears of War 2 multiplayer.  The shotgun is cheesy, meaning you can just walk up to anyone and one-shot them, just like it was in the beginning of the Gears 2 multiplayer before; I believe it was patched out of the game. There are a few new things that are nice. I enjoy the new maps a lot; the layouts of the maps are nice and the graphic design also look amazing. Plus being able to randomly shoot a chicken was fun. Yes I made a point of shooting chickens.

I also enjoyed some of the new weapons. There’s a classic lancer with a bayonet that you can use to charge at and impale enemies. The other weapon I liked (but cursed it when someone used it against me) was the grenade that burrows underground only to resurface and explode.

The other aspect I enjoyed, as I did with Gears 2, are the medals you can win in each match. They give you experience to level up your rank. It was impressive that by day two, when I started playing, I saw people with a rank of 12 or higher. I also like that by playing the game and reaching certain goals you can unlock things like Cole dressed in football shoulderpads and a helmet to represent the “Cole Train” (which is what we’ve seen in some commercials).

Though I played quite a bit of what’s available,all in all, I am not entirely impressed with the multiplayer experience in the beta. Yes it was fun, yes I was gleefully shooting and sawing people and Locust in half with my lancer, and yes I may have cheesed and used the shotgun some. However I can’t really say it’s mind-blowing. I will have to play though the campaign and a more finalized version of the multiplayer mode to fully judge the game.

Will I still pick it up? You can bet that I will.

Here’s the new stuff you can look forward to besides the continuing story:

• 5 on 5 multiplayer, as well as 4 player Campaign co-op
• Multiplayer “Beast Mode” – you get to play as the Locust hordes!
• New Maps including: Trenches (with a visibility limiting sand storm), Overpass, Mercy, Checkout and Thrashball
• New Weapons: The Bayonet Charge, The Retro Lancer, The Sawed-off Shotgun, The OneShot – a potential one-shot kill heavy sniper rifle that can shoot through shields or cover, The Incendiary Grenade, The Digger Launcher and a few small changes to old favorites: Hammerburst and The Classic Lancer. And now, each weapon has it’s own execution move

The Official Multiplayer Public Beta is coming soon, so make sure to keep your eyes open for more Gears news!

Mad Cats and Epic are entered into one such partnership, where Mad Catz through this agreement will have the right to market and produce officially branded controller, headsets, and other Xbox 360 peripheral with  Gears of War 3 images, and logos.

This partnership is nothing new, since Mad Catz and Epic had partnered together to produce products for Gears of War, and Gears of War 2. You may have seen these products before in the form of faceplates, and hard carrying cases.

Darren Richardson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz had this to say about the partnership:

“We are delighted to extend our relationship with Epic Games and look forward to creating a distinctive range of accessories for the next release of one of the most successful franchises in the industry’s history,” said Darren Richardson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz.  “Our Gears of War agreement is consistent with our strategies to align Mad Catz with the industry’s most popular and anticipated game titles and to develop and globally distribute high-value products that enhance the gaming experience.  Gears of War is a marquee relationship for Mad Catz and helps us further grow and diversify our industry-leading portfolio of branded videogame accessories.”

“Mad Catz has a history of successfully leveraging the Gears of War brand to bring high value accessories to market and elevate the game’s excitement and reality.  We are excited to work with them again on what we expect will be one of the biggest video game releases of all time,” said Jay Wilbur, Vice President, Epic Games.

PASS

In Quantum Theory The first thing that you’ll notice is that the environments resemble a throw up of pretty textures. They are all mashed together quite un-artfully. Hideous combinations of agate, opal and lava flows kaleidoscope around you. Rock caterpillars up – end the terrain and your lumbering male avatar can’t seem to get out of his own way. The tutorial prompts you to try the sprint button and it’s a joke.

The story line itself is put out there as a sci-fi, but I found that the out world theme wasn’t enough of an excuse for the treatment of the female icon in the game. You play as a male mutated ‘Gillskin’ called Syd. The female character named Filena is a ‘Nosferatu’. The names of these species aren’t very imaginative. She is used as a weapon. Syd takes a hold of her and tosses her at the enemies. She isn’t a playable character exactly. They don’t have much dialog together so the relationship is kind of a question mark. She is mainly an item.

Now I’m familiar with the woman – as – weapon concept from anime such as Claymore, Madlax, and Revolutionary Girl Utena to name a few. Quantum Theory lacks the mythology, or the reasoning for objectifying the only female character. In a single player experience of eight to ten hours, which is short for the price, there is plenty of time to get the player immersed in the alternate world. From what you do see, you would get the impression that they began well, with some interesting ideas. Then the execution of them fails in just about every area of the game.

Other reviews have contrasted this game with Gears of War, which not incidentally has finally added playable female avatars. Quantum Theory would have to do 100X better to be in that league. Shooters are not a new invention. What makes games like Gears and Call of Duty Modern Warfare so good, isn’t gimmicks or innovation, it is the meticulous attention they have paid to every crevasse of their games. Quantum Theory is more like a skinned over arcade game. That would track more with the developers history and style.

The guns in the game are confusing. They are big gloppy looking science fiction pieces. There isn’t much difference in power or type of blast from each one. They all glitter, with lots of angles that must have looked good on the drawing board, but in the game, just seem clumsy when compared to more elegant si-fi weapons like those in Unreal Tournament.

There are several areas of this game where it feels like a lumpy cake. Yeah, when a baker messes up a cake they use lots of frosting to try and cover it. The shiny textures, the female weapon that isn’t a character, and the even shiner guns that don’t do much and have weird sounding names – all of it frosting. Making the game a more glaring mess.

Syd our mutant “hero’s” character design is indistinct the armor lacks details. Filena’s body / armor looks better on the wallpaper than it does in the actual game. She is always writhing and groaning in pain. It isn’t clear in the game if she is wearing armor, or if she is growing a shell of some kind? Regardless it isn’t hot looking, or plausible. It seems like the creativity here went in the wrong directions.  There isn’t enough exposition or explanation given to make a connection with the characters or feel empathy towards them. Dare I invoke Final Fantasy? They really could have done a better job, no matter which direction they went in be it Shooter, Si – Fi Adventure, or Fantasy RPG. It would have been good if they picked and idea and stuck to it.

Quantum Theory does provide for online multiplayer. But it seems unpopulated. There are three very basic game modes which are Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and a body guard type thing and there are only five maps.

Quantum Theory is a game to avoid. Unfortunately all the divergent elements of this game just didn’t mesh well enough to make it worth playing. If I were you I would Pass on this one.

Tested on PS3 with a rented copy.

The sixth update for Gears of War 2 is available on Xbox LIVE today. This update introduces the “Social Matches” feature, which lets you jump in and out of games without disruption, even if it’s a Horde match. Your party can join a game already in progress if there’s one that suits your fancy. The update also contains other improvements. Visit http://gearsofwar.xbox.com/tu6.htm for a full list of the changes.

The Social Matches feature is available to anyone who owns all four map packs, now conveniently discounted in the “All Fronts Collection” for 800 Microsoft Points. Individual map packs have also been discounted.

With these new developments, Epic’s decided that it’s the perfect time for a Triple Experience Weekend on Xbox LIVE! Starting Thursday, May 27, and going until Tuesday, June 1, you’ll get three times the experience in any multiplayer mode.

If you’ve been waiting to get into Gears 2, it sounds like a good time to catch up. Besides, you’ve got about ten months between now and the release of Gears of War 3 in April of next year.