Gears of War 3 Beta Preview

Now that you've already marked your calendar for the September 20 release of Gears of War 3, you can join in on the multiplayer beta in April on dedicated servers. No date has been set just yet, but if you've already purchased your Epic Edition copy of Bulletstorm, you're guaranteed in, and you also get an exclusive flaming lancer. At the Gears of War 3 preview event in San Francisco, executive producer Rod Fergusson announced that an exclusive gold lancer would be available via the beta and that it would be yours to keep if you meet the requirement of 90 matches played and 100 kills. For those looking to run around in Cole's thrashball outfit, it can also be yours to own when the retail game comes out if you play 83 matches (70 to unlock, 13 more for yours to keep).

If you haven't read the latest hands-on update on the game, where we got to play through all the new modes and maps, as well as toy around with the weapons, you can do so right here. But for the beta, there will be three of the six multiplayer modes to play across four maps, which haven't been determined yet. The supermarket level Checkout and the Thrashball stadium map are definitely included, but Epic Games is leaving it up to you to vote for the other two maps that will be included in the beta. These include Mercy, Old Town, and Overpass and Trenches. You can check out the official Gears of War 3 Facebook page to vote. Below is a rundown of what to expect.
Modes included in the beta:
King of the Hill - Now, it should be obvious how this one is played, but this time around, the mode has been combined with Annex and given a clearer rule set. The UI has also been simplified, so determining where and who your targets are will be easier. The ring moves around the map as well, to keep you on your toes.
Capture the Leader - This mode is a combination of Guardian and Submission, with some tweaks. Depending on whose side you're on, you will either aim to capture Chairman Prescott or Queen Myrrah and then hold on to him or her as long as you can. Everyone here is armed with one smoke grenade, which forces your opponent to drop the meat shield that he or she is holding, so use it wisely. The leader isn't useless either; he or she can see through walls to help coordinate his or her teammates. You can now use the left stick to spot enemies, which helps tremendously.

Watch your back!

Team Deathmatch - While all the modes are fairly intense, Team Deathmatch can get really hairy once you start to run out of respawns. Each team is assigned 15 respawns, and if your team is the one eating those up, the next time you spawn, you'll likely appear next to a teammate so that hopefully you won't die as quickly.
Fergusson also mentioned some gameplay changes that might help you avoid picking up a weapon when you're really trying to raise your teammate. By tapping the X button, you will be able to help your buddy, but now, you have to hold X a little longer for a circle to appear to grab a weapon. The same mechanic has been applied to the Y button where a tap is a good old-fashioned curb-stomp, and if you hold it, you'll get to pull off a long execution (assuming you've unlocked it for that particular weapon).
New/modified weapons:
One-Shot - If you can get someone in your line of sight, all that's going to be left of him is a red mist. It's not very discreet, so once you hear the sound, you better find something to hide behind.
Sawed-off Shotgun - The shotgun tends to be a favorite among players, and the new double-barreled gun can not only take out a single opponent in one shot, but it can also take out up to three if they are clustered together. You have to get close--like up close and personal close--for this to work. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fair, right?
Incendiary Grenade - Aah, grenades are always good in a pinch. Especially the ones that explode on impact.
Digger Launcher - The "nom nom nom" weapon fires a digger that burrows underground and eventually jumps out at its target, like a really fast and vicious mole.

Yeah, baby! Gold lancer bling can be yours if you play the beta.

Retro Lancer - While you can't use a chainsaw to halve your enemies with this, you can definitely surprise enemies by skewering them in the back. You have to charge first though, so it's easy enough to dodge in close-quartered combat. But if someone's not paying attention…
Hammerburst - Iron sights have been added to the hammerburst, so you can use the right stick to get a better view.
If you've been itching to play some Gears of War 3, you will get a chance to once the beta begins in mid-April. The game will ship on September 20, exclusively on the Xbox 360.

GTA Episodes from Liberty City

If you've already played through 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV, you have a pretty good idea of what to expect in the formerly Xbox-360-exclusive Episodes from Liberty City. The included episodes--The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony--take place concurrently with the original game's storyline, and while each introduces a handful of new features, the core gameplay remains largely unchanged. Also unchanged on the PC, sadly, are the frame rate issues that--like those in the PC release of GTAIV--are apparent even on rigs that exceed the recommended system specifications. Regardless, if you enjoyed GTAIV you're sure to enjoy these additional episodes as well, and even if you passed on original protagonist Niko Bellic's adventure completely, there's no reason you can't have a great time with new boys Johnny Klebitz and Luis Lopez. You definitely get more from these episodes if you play GTAIV beforehand though, because nods and winks to that game are scattered liberally throughout.

Unlike Niko, Johnny can shoot from the saddle.

For the same reason, you'd do well to hold off on playing The Ballad of Gay Tony until after you've beaten or at least spent a good amount of time with The Lost and Damned. The two episodes have been released simultaneously on the PC, but on the Xbox 360, The Lost and Damned was available as a download some eight months earlier. In that episode, you assume the role of Johnny Klebitz--a high-ranking member of the Lost biker gang who regularly disagrees with its trigger-happy leader, Billy Grey. Klebitz, who isn't a particularly likable protagonist, sees no need for the gang to go to war with rivals The Angels of Death, but anytime the two gangs clash, you end up doing most of the killing anyway. New weapons added to the existing GTAIV arsenal in The Lost and Damned include a grenade launcher, pipe bombs, and shotguns, which come in both sawed-off and assault flavors. These weapons are very much in keeping with both the episode's subject matter and its gameplay. And because Klebitz spends so much time riding motorcycles, you can use some of them while in the saddle--which wasn't possible in GTAIV.

Another neat feature introduced in The Lost and Damned, which also made it into The Ballad of Gay Tony, is a mission checkpoint system. Some of the missions take a long time to beat, and a good number of them involve riding or driving to locations that might be a good distance away before the action really gets under way. In GTAIV it could be frustrating to fail these missions, because doing so meant restarting them from the beginning, but the checkpoint system addresses that problem by giving you the option to restart from the last checkpoint that you made it through successfully. Unlike the more inventive and varied missions in The Ballad of Gay Tony, the missions in The Lost and Damned rarely deviate from the original GTAIV formula. You get to ride alongside your gang brothers occasionally, and you can call for backup from them during certain missions, but playing as Klebitz feels a lot like playing as Bellic for the most part.

Roman and Brucie from GTAIV make an early cameo in The Ballad of Gay Tony.

If you've played through a good portion of GTAIV, it should come as no surprise that Klebitz's and Bellic's paths cross occasionally. Sometimes it's as subtle as the pair simply having a mutual acquaintance, but in one mission the two characters briefly work alongside each other, and if you remember said mission from the original game, it's great to see the events unfold from a second perspective. The Ballad of Gay Tony does an even better job of referencing characters and content from previous Liberty City outings and actually kicks off with a cutscene set during one of Bellic's most memorable missions. Lopez has a very different group of friends and acquaintances than the other two protagonists, but he's a killer-for-hire and he dabbles in drug-dealing, so he inevitably ends up moving in some of the same circles--or at least looking at them down the barrel of a gun. Again, you get to see a handful of missions play out from a second or even third perspective, and given Lopez's penchant for parachutes and the prominence of helicopters in his episode, his view is often very different.