Trailer is up for the DLC
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/raams-shadow-gears-of-war/724935
Did Raam just flip a car with one hand?
The one thing I liked about the DLC is how they showed how Jace came to be a part of the COG. He at least has a little bit of personality now.
There are some serious spawning issues on Blood Drive. I just played a match where me and 3 others on my team were in our spawn and then the other team started spawning in it. Cleared us out and then I spawned in that same spawn with pretty much their entire team right after the killed me. Luckily it was Torque Bow Tag so the chaos that ensued was pretty entertaining.
i will say this:
playing with the elite maulers and their AEGIS REFLECTORS is hilarious. especially against snipers.
The drop off of the amount of people playing this game since launch is pretty outstanding. It is easily like a seventh or eighth of what it was in September. I knew it was going to go down with all the hot releases around this time… but shit I didnt realize how badly it was going to be. Everyone on my buddy list that was about this game are all now playing MW3 :shake::shake::shake:
sigh people have a thing for easymode inferior games I suppose. This game is still a shitload of fun online… I didnt realize I would enjoy character and weapon skin customization as much as I would lol. Im still trying out all different sorts of combinations.
So now that I got some decent time with the new maps this week I really enjoy them. Rustlung isnt superb but it isnt a terrible map… I was never a fan of the Bullet Marsh level but this time around it feels more fun for some reason. Azura is pretty Godlike IMO… very fun map to go with how beautiful it is. Blood Drive was my favorite from Gears 2 and it is still godlike… Clocktower is one of the consensus best Gears maps ever so I dont have to say much about that. If I were going to personally tier the maps now it would look like… (This is just personal opinion on how much I like these maps)
Top Tier
Hotel
Blood Drive
Old Town
High Tier
Azura
Clocktower
Trenches (Very underrated map besides that sand gimmick…)
Checkout
Mid-High
Gridlock (always found this map SOMEWHAT overrated… still very good though)
Drydock
Mercy
Mid Tier
Ruslung
Bullet Marsh****
Low Tier
Thrashball****
Bottom Tier
Sandbar
Overpass
S: Clocktower, Mercy
A: Azura, Gridlock, Drydock, Checkout
B: Blood Drive, Old Town, Trenches
C: Hotel, Trashball, Sandbar
D: Rustlung, Bullet Marsh
Fucking Shit: Overpass
I find those interesting choices. Sandbar to me is nothing more than a Horde map. Shit is way to big and has a clear advantage point in the shrine.
I dont know why I enjoy Hotel so much. I think that map is pretty godlike probably my favorite Gears map ever. So many different routes you can take at the beginning of the round.
i’d bet Sandbar and Overpass were designed first as horde maps. they’re just . . . unpleasant to play on
and i figured out my big problem with raam’s shadow:
no new version of TRAIN WRECK in the soundtrack
I am okay with Sandbar, the unnecessary water in the middle is pretty stupid though.
Hotel just doesn’t click with me as much as it does so many others apparently. I don’t do bad on it either, I just like the other maps a lot more.
At first I liked Overpass because I thought, “Hey it forces the player to change their mentality so I guess that’s good”. But now I just hate that shit. If you get in a match with that map, with and against players that are better than decent, the first team to gain control of the top SHOULD win the round. The odds are stacked for them. You don’t even have to plan out weapon selection either, everyone doesn’t need to have lancers and hammerbursts to succeed, Retro Lancers are perfect for mowing down the opponent’s offensive push to gain control from you. Once the enemy commits to the 2nd flight of stairs a good retro user has them downed before they can even realize they just fucked up. The flame grenades require a good amount of accuracy to actually work, even with their recent buff, so lobbying those up there don’t really help unless you get two people with them and they’re fucking hawkeye and robin hood incarnate. The only real time you could possibly take the area over is when two people have frags or your boomshot user is just that godlike and the people up top are that stupid to bunch up together near walls. I don’t remember if the map spawns Flames/Torque and Boom/Frag or flames/boom with frag/torque.
The removal of the Mortar heavily favored the “run first, shoot second” mentality that map incentives to begin with. Get that shit out of the line up Epic, it’s the biggest stain this multiplayer has.
Overall this game is the shit, I can play it for extended periods of time like I could with Gears 1.
I have been running the Retro + Sawed Off today in Quick TDM (I need to get 2000 kills with both of them) and I have to say that this loadout if pretty ass except for a few maps. I Find myself using the snub more often than not. Loadout is really easy to use but against good players they wont let you get close and the Gnash beats the Retro in a lot of scenarios… I really want to get to 2000 kills so I can just stop using the Sawed off forever lol I hate this gun in so many different ways…
Imo the new weapons are terrible in comparison to the other options, why are both new weapons just so bad what is their purpose?
So noobs dont get frustrated. As bad as they are they are the easiest to get kills with. I think they just wanted a couple weapons to get new people comfortable with the game then once they get a little better move on to the bigger and better weapons.
Sawed-off was the MvC2 Iceman in this game. Godlike and “overpowered” for the first 2 months but has since died down since the Gnasher is still the Gnasher and the 3 nerfs on the SOS hurt a lot. I PROPHESIED it’s demise and got to onxy just before it’s 3rd nerf. Yay me.
Retro is almost like an SMG type weapon, at least that’s how I use it. On a map like Azura I like the retro over the other rifles because of the corridor hotspots, any map where the major killboxes are in small areas I pick the retro.
Also new DLC is coming out on January 17th, this time it’ll have shit I want like prestiges and MP maps.
http://epicgames.com/community/2011/12/gears-of-war-3-kicks-off-the-new-year-with-“fenix-rising”/
Just to ruin the biggest surprise, Escalation is coming back!
http://epicgames.com/community/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Escalation-1024x576.jpg
Lol at the suckers who payed 1600 MSP to get a Savage Kantus or bought one for 20 to 30 bucks on ebay (no joke people were BUYING them for those outrageous prices… just for ONE skin). Savage Marauder looks filthy too… glad they are busting out some locust that are pretty dope now… but still no sign of Skorge :(.
Depths and the Academy look GORGEOUS. Never got into Gears 1 but so far all the maps they have brought back have been BOSS so I assume Escalation will be the same. Academy kind of looks like Azura + Mercy combined.
Im going to add you De Bloo I have been playing a lot lately and need more people to play with.
Awww man you missed out. The lag sucked ass, host advantage was retarded, and one hit down active sniper was stupid but damn that game is still my favorite of the 3.
I’d kill for Canals, Fuel Depot, War Machine, and Tyro Station to be brought back.
Gears 1 came out when I was a freshman in college soooo…
Party, Beer, Girls >>>>> XBox
Canals is definitely up there with Gridlock and Clocktower. I can’t believe Bullet Marsh was put in 3 tbh, maybe because the whole RAAM with kryll stuff, but that map is far from the top maps in 1. Mausoleum had so many memorable moments for me like when the Kung-fu flip was still in the game so me and a buddy would flip up to a pillar and pretend we were statues. A lot of people I talked to didn’t like Old Bones all that much but I loved it.
I still own 1 so when I get the itch to play on those maps from time to time I’ll get back in there. All the people left are pretty damn good.
lol. Completely understandable man.
My only problem with Mausoleum is when you ended up having one guy left on each team and they just run circles around the map looking for each other and ran the timer out. The glitches were fun as hell in that game too. I never could kung fu flip so I never did get to have fun with that one. The stupid ass flip on Canals to get up on the bridges pissed me off. Especially when you’re hot on some guys ass and he gets the flip first shot and makes the great escape. I forgot to list a map in my last post. Mansion! That map needs to come back too.
Soooo what should the main strategy on Clocktower on Execution be? I always go negative on that level for some reason. Dont know if I should rush Boom, Nades, or Snipe. How many should go to each? I keep getting slaughtered lol.