Gears of War 3 Beast Mode
A new addition to Gears Of War 3 was announced by Cliff Bleszinski at Microsoft’s E3 conference, entitled ‘Beast Mode’. Basically, you’ll play as a locust and fight your way through oncoming computer controlled human fighters. Attached are their Lancers, auto-turrets as well as the Hammer of Dawn. Unsurprisingly, each new line of humans becomes harder to defeat, due to their tactical set-ups and improved assault weapons; as well as the clock forcing it’s way done to zero backdrop. It’s been described as a brilliant add-on to the title.
Beast mode runs on a virtual currency method, you earn points for helping out teammates and the obvious – destroying the enemy. In return, you’re giving more choices in terms of which Locust type you play as. Starting out you can only choose between Tickers and Wretches, as more more points are accumulated your options broaden and you are presented with characters such as Grenadiers and Berserkers.
One map you are allowed to play on during the game is ‘Mercy’, it displays a lot of narrow aisles and jagged wire, which just so happen to slow down your onslaught. A middle sized map, which allowed a few advantage points to the CPU’s human players such as the staircase which led to an overview battlefield grounds and allowed direct fire. Strategy and tactics play a part in this mode, an example is this map.
A fellow player is able to spawn into another creature and distract a group of humans leaving you enough time to take advantage and finish them unknowingly. Team work may not be all that new to the Gears Of War chain, however the deviation of different maps desires some creativity on your part. It’s great knowing you can have one player distract the soldiers and sneak up from behind unseen, in order to end a group of enemies.
The demo included four levels of human onslaught, we still aren’t sure how long the actual mode will last; as well as any other secret additions are to be included as you battle with your Locust Horde.