The shadow of Raam!
Xbox 360 tested version.
The DLC is finally available on Xbox Live Raam's Shadow, which expands the single-player experience of the game Gears of War 3, exclusive for Xbox 360 console developed by Epic Games.
Was it worth the wait so long?
Read on and you will find out.
Raam's shadow obscures our consoles
This "new" chapter arises chronologically before the events narrated in the first Gears of War, narrating the events of the Zeta team, which has the onerous task of evacuating the city of Ilima, a few days after the terrible E-Day, or when the locusts have decided to emerge and lay siege to Sera's humanity. Impersonating the COGs we will command Michael Barrick, a stony marine with a gruff appearance, who never leaves his trusty cigar; we will be joined by well-known faces, such as lieutenant Minh Young Kim (from Gears of War 1), Tai Kaliso (Gears of War 2) and the other female new entry, Alicia Valera.
Save what you can save
As soon as the DLC starts, we will be catapulted to Ilima City, four hours before the terrible "storm of Kryll" hits the city, ending all life. The task of the Zeta team is to work to evacuate the remaining civilians and bring them to safety before the terrible catastrophe announced. From the very first beats of the game, it is immediately clear that ours will not be an easy task, in fact as a start we will have to face a terrible Corpser who will devour an entire APC with some survivors and some coalition soldiers on board. Our attempts to bring it down with conventional weapons will be useless, and here the Hammer of Dawn will make its appearance, in an unprecedented version.
Unlike the usual use, where we framed the target from the ground, in this version we will connect to the command center and directly command the satellite with an overhead view, and we will have to select the targets to incinerate.
After this rescue mission, we will continue in the search for other survivors to take to safety with us, at the same time we will provide support to the allied teams that we will meet on our path. The game environments that we will encounter on our way range from splendid cities, not yet raped by the fury of the impending battle, to then turn inexorably towards the final catastrophe; collapsing palaces, destroyed buildings, corpses scattered in narrow corridors and the devastation caused by the Hammer of Dawn will leave their mark on the once flourishing and majestic city.
Good and bad
At some point in the story, we will take on the role of the terrible General Raam, intent on commanding a handful of elite locusts to advance the conquest of the city. As the villains, it will be our task to place Seeders who will darken the sky of Ilima and then unleash the Kryllstorm. Commanding Raam is something particularly exciting, a sense of omnipotence pervades the player.
Despite his slowness and the inability to exploit cover like human soldiers, Raam has a shield formed by the terrible Kryll, which can be aimed at the unfortunate COGs and torn to pieces in no time, but leaving us temporarily exposed. to attacks, or we can charge our opponents with our sword or use it in the most classic method, bringing fearsome deadly blows on the unfortunates; the personal execution of General Raam is something truly gruesome and spectacular, seeing is believing.
The alternation between Cog and Locust gives way to experience the same story from two different angles: on the one hand the human race struggling against an extinction that now seems inevitable, on the other the locusts, unstoppable and willing to do anything to annihilate the dominant life form.
A postcard from the past
As mentioned above, the level design offered to the player is able to astound, both for the architectural structures proposed, and for how they fall apart in the continuation of the adventure. A first-rate artistic and technical direction further enhances the usability of this additional content, offering environments that are always different from each other, including wide open spaces and narrow corridors. In addition, the landscape variety is remarkable, so you will hardly get bored due to attacks of "de ja vù".
The gameplay is the classic and proven one of the series, made up of breathtaking firefights, covers, circumvention tactics and careful use of the various weapons found on the playing field. Also in this chapter, as happened in the first Gears, we will find ourselves having to close the holes of the locusts, to prevent a greater escape of enemies, a well-placed grenade will suffice.
The characterization of the various controllable characters is excellent from an aesthetic point of view, a little less from a narrative point of view, as the background of the various characters will not be disclosed. Even with regard to the locusts, we are not given any additional information on why Queen Myrrah decided to invade Sera or on Raam's past, a real shame from this point of view.
Graphically we can only praise the work done by the developers, as everything we will see in this DLC is totally in line with the excellent technical sector shown in Gears of War 3. The sound is excellent from the point of view of effects and music, dramatic and in tune with the catastrophic events to which they are linked, on the other hand the dubbing of the COGs, except for Mihn, is subdued, but it is really too little. Longevity stands at 3 - 4 hours of gameplay on Normal level, so add something if you plan on finishing it on higher difficulties.
