On the unusual forum of an American late night talk show Cliffy B just released the first teaser trailer for Gears of War 3 and it looks pretty damn sweet. As usual the trailer's a carefully orchestrated cinematic using the game engine with a creepy alternative orchestral score over the top, the music this time is the hauntingly creepy Heron Blue by folk rock group Sun Kil Moon.

The trailer does hint at some new tasty treats in the, I guess it would be 'badassedest' sequel of 2011. But before we talk more you should really check it out below.

So what do we have here? Muscly men, some sporting new facial hair, battling muscly monsters made of teeth and pale elbow skin. Pretty much what we expect from Gears of War. But whats that? It's an oestrogen powered Gear! Seems Gears of War 3 will feature a few soldiers of the fairer sex joining Marcus and his boy band of buddies. This should be no surprise to serious Gears of War fans, readers of the novelisations and comics are all too aware that there are a few Gears lassies fighting against the Locust but they're pretty rare. The reason given in the non game content is that the decimation of the human population on Sapho has led to women being required by law to bear as many babies as possible to ensure the human race has a future beyond fighting the Locusts. Only women who are unable to have children are allowed to fight in the front lines. It's a prickly social issue for an otherwise straight forward sci fi shooting video game to tackle and I'm pretty excited that they explore the concept in the game itself. Maybe a brief section where Marcus and Dom reminisce about their mothers? Now that would set this game aside from other shooters, freudian mother issues.

There's also the matter of the creepy tentacle monsters that seem hostile to both the Locusts and Gears. Judging by they're colouring they also look Lambent, like the faction leading the civil war against the Locust Queen in Gears 2. What I'm really hoping for, more than anything else, is that we finally get some info on the origins and the culture of the Locusts in Gears of War 3, I want to know as much about them as I know about the Covenant.

Actually in addition to that I'd really like the multiplayer to get fixed. A good amount of time devoted to testing for glitches and maybe throwing in region searching for multiplayer games would go a long way as well.

Other rumours doing the rounds at the moment hint that Gears 3 will feature underwater gameplay and mech armour for the Gears to fight with.

The bad news? The game isn't due until April 2011, it's a whole bloody year away!