Gears of War 3: RAAM's Shadow Xbox 360 Game

RAAM's Shadow takes us back to Emergence Day, the day that the Locusts attacked the human colonies on Sera. The events of E-Day, and the preceding pendulum wars, have only been hinted at during the course of the trilogy. You take command of Zeta Squad, a group of four gears who have mainly been featured in the expanded lore or as supporting characters in previous games.. Returning from Gears 1 is Minh Kim, from Gears 2 Tai Kaliso, the main character is Michael Barrick from the Gears of War comics. Zeta Squad must help evacuate the city of llima from an oncoming Krill storm. Individually these characters don't stand out as much as Marcus or Dominic but as a group they work well.
The gameplay mechanics in RAAM's Shadow come in two flavors: 3 chapters as ZETA Squad and 2 played as General RAAM. The COG sections of Shadow play very similar to Gears of War 3's main campaign. You'll traverse a variety of environments ranging from a deserted high school to the city streets of llima and finally a child's orphanage. All the while taking cover behind various objects and dealing with enemy encounters. Large scale boss battles return, one of the most memorable takes place outside of a bank as a Brumack attacks, as do emergence holes. The return of emergence holes are a welcomed change of pace, I missed them during Gear 3's campaign.

The locust sections of the campaign are interesting and it is nice to see Epic change up the gameplay formula, even if some parts of the locust campaign fall a little short. As the title of the DLC suggests you play as the seemingly unstoppable General RAAM. You'll smash through walls and defeat cog soldiers. For the most part the objectives are where the Locust section's shortcomings become apparent. It is fun to smash through the scenery and send swarms of Krill at COG soldiers but the RAAM sections are notably shorter than the other 3 chapters. In the end you'll spend both Locust chapters defending Locust drones while they summon large bosses and eliminating waves of COG. In other words don't expect a lot of variety.

On a technical level RAAM's Shadow looks just as good as the original game. Each character emotes well and look their part. As mentioned previously, there are a number of environments that you will explore in RAAM's Shadow. There isn't much of a contrast between the environments when compared to Gears 3's campaign. The city of llima is very bright and clean during the day sections and the night sections, with the Krill swarms. Just don't expect the staggering difference we say between the jungle and city scenes of GOW3.