Once upon a time the words Halo and Xbox were synonymous. Master Chief made the Xbox, he moved more units than any other marketing strategy. But something funny happened in the early RROD plagued days of the Xbox 360, a challenger appeared, his do rag and soul patch blotting out the sun. If Gears of War 2 didn’t prove the franchise is the real reason to own a 360, Gears of War 3 kicks any doubt in the nuts and head stomps its skull.

Start your chainsaw bayonets ladies and gentlemen.

That big fella is a Lambent Berzerker, your new Horde nightmare

Where to begin? Across the board Gears of War 3 delivers a full and thrilling game experience for fans of violence and unspoken bromance. The campaign is riveting, the multiplayer is fierce and the rewards are plentiful. If you were concerned Epic couldn’t maintain the energy of their franchise, that the game would get too corny, silly, or just repetitive, well worry not! This is the greatest game they’ve made so far.

Prescott here, douche of the year award? Really? Well John Edward couldn't win every year I suppose

When we catch up to the team it's clear (to those of us who haven’t read the books and comics) that things have changed. As much as this is a return to over the top violence, fist bumps and cover shooting, Gears of War 3 is surprisingly sombre. As soon as you set eyes on hippy Dom, complete with denim dungarees and dirty beard as he tends to his radishes, it’s clear that things have gone bad. The braggadocio and swagger of the past has been replaced with weariness. As we follow Cole Train through the burnt wreckage of his home town we can actually feel the effort it takes to maintain his optimistically flippant character. Cole Train no longer woos for the future, he can only woo for the past. And no I’m not joking, most of Gears of War 3 could easily have an REM or Bright Eyes track playing in the background and not feel out of place.

So uh, what are you guys doing next? I'm going to be an extra in Halo 4, background Marine number five.

Not that the Gears have gone completely maudlin on us. The dialogue is still riddled with plenty of cheesy one liners and terrible B movie dialogue that’s become as much a hallmark of the series as the Lancer and over sized muscles. There’s also an amusing level of self awareness such as moments when Marcus dryly predicts a Locust ambush moments before it happens. Author Karen Travis has added some dramatic weight to the Gears of War story, but it’s still all about the action. The crazy thing is, as much as these elements are endlessly lampooned and ciriticised, the harder Epic pushes these same things, they've built an identity around them and made Gears an instantly recognisable title, even to people who haven't played it.  Ask ten people about that shooter game with the guys with the big muscles and the dumb one liners, how many of them are going to instantly say Gears of War? You have admire the recognition they've carved out for themselves.

I love fighting the Lambent. Boom. Anywhere shot.

The gameplay itself is by far the best of the three, the flow and activity is tweaked to an almost perfect degree keeping your fingers gripped tightly to the controller hours after you should have gone to bed. There’s the odd dull note, an uncharacteristic sneaky section tasks you with shooting guards before they can raise an alarm is irritating but short and a certain on rails vehicle section is a little weak after the excitement of the previous vehicle sections. But overall it's a campaign designed and tested by seasoned shooter developers who know what works and know what doesn't. It's the type of campaign you want to go straight back into once you've finished it. A major complaint for some may be the trading out of certain characters in coop with new players you're not familiar with, characters like Jace are given a poor introduction for uninitiated.

Man Barney is hilarious, but will we ever really know who the mother is?

Visually the game is as impressive as you’d expect. The unreal engine doing it’s best work so far. The grey and brown jokes must have worn thin on the designers as Gears 3 has a slightly more vaired palette of colours. Very noticeable is the environment the last third of the game takes place in, a different type of environment than the run down or alien environments we’re used to. There’s a few frame rate issues every once in a while, presumably as the hardware struggles to keep up with the larger environments and more characters than usual on screen (you almost always have your full squad of four with you), but they aren’t frequent enough to be noticeable. The graphical hick ups may also be down to the late addition of a stereoscopic 3D effect. The sound is as you’d expect, it’s good, but not surprising. Although the Lambent drones explode with a satisfying wet bursting sound.

Don't say it don't say it don't say it... we're going to need a bigger boat, goddamnit, I have no will power.

It’s apparent right from the first moment you press start on the game that Gears of War 3 wants you to adore its multiplayer. Rewards and awards are dolled out for previous accomplishments in Gears games and taking part in the Gears 3 beta. There are dozens of badges and medals to be earned far beyond the requisite set of achievements, and weapon and character skins to be unlocked. And adore you should, Gears of War 3 has one of, or maybe just the, best multiplayer experiences of any game this year.

On the cooperative front you can play through the whole game, start to finish in up to four player coop. The campaign also has an arcade mode for the competitive minded keen to bag out their mates. Horde mode has levelled up and could almost pass as a complete game on its own. Up to five friends can now attempt to outlast wave after wave of enemies, using money earned from kills to purchase weapons and defences between waves. Also, you now face the entire Locust Horde, every ten rounds you’ll need to tackle nightmarish enemies like a Brumak, or the hellishly difficult Lambent Berserker. Horde is very likely the game mode you’ll be playing the most. With all the new bells and whistles, new enemies, dynamic levels and medals galore it just never seems to get boring.

The Locusts have discovered zepellin technology, they suck at CIvilisation V

If you felt like switching sides you can try out Beast mode. A timed mode where players use cash to buy Locust units to attack the humans, initially a band of stranded but by level 11 a whole squad of ‘CoG heroes’. Players are only given a minute or so to kill all the humans but earn extra time for kills and destroying fortifications. Having a full team of five friends tearing around as Tickers, Boomers and Berzerkers is hordes of fun. Times for completion of levels are listed on a leaderboard against your friends and you can issue challenges via Live messages.

Observe the interesting dynamic here, if you're playing Horde mode, you're screwed, playing Beast mode though and you're about to kick ass, Gears 3, rich in dichotomy, that's your word of the day, 'dichotomy'... I'm rambling now

The competitive multiplayer has all the same modes as Gears of War 2, Deathmatch, Execution, Warzone, King of the Hill, Capture the Leader and Wingman. The five on five matches are just as frantic and brutal as they were in previous games, but with the added, blessed advantage of dedicated servers. My only gripe with Gears multiplayer is that at times it’s just damn hard to find games. Getting into a game that doesn’t involve friends can take a ridiculously long time. Localisation of game searches seems to be a double edged sword. While it's certainly easier to find games with good connections, it makes is damn hard just to find games. It's also pretty clear the search code doesn't work that great when it takes ten minutes to get results but you can see a friends list full of mates with joinable games going on. On the plus side the multiplayer seems to lack the exploits and cheats that made Gears 2 multi such a trying experience, so the Beta was worth the work.

The music just jumped in tempo, enemies must be incoming

If you don't like Gears of War, you're certainly not going to find much to like in Gear 3, but then again if you don't like Gears of War you're just plain crazy, for all the negative comments it generates, purely for cosmetic reasons, it's one of the best games of this generation and a title no self respecting gamer should miss out on. If you're still hanging out for an excuse to buy and Xbox 360, this is the game to do it for. It has it's faults, it's not completely flawless, but it's positively bursting with top shelf content. Gears of War 3 is the complete holiday package, non stop entertainment, plenty of challenge for the hardcore, plenty of the modes for the ruthless domination minded and plenty of coop for the gang of mates looking for a hoot on a Friday night. Gears of War has finally stepped up to become the rock and roll super star of the Xbox 360 and I can do little but applaud this blood splattered titan.

A hard