Halo 3 vs. Gears of War: Comparison
02. Oct, 2007 
29 Comments
Emergence Day has come and gone, and now the Halo 3 release is over. The question remains though, which of the next generation HD multiplayer games is superior. This is my take, I have spent may hours with both games so I will be blunt and making sure not favoring any title. Before I begin, those of you who say that I cannot compare gears with halo 3 because one is a 3rd person shooter while the other is a 1st… well, I have something to say to those people: shut up! I am comparing them now, Ha! Anyway, I am going to compare the multi-player side and not really the campaign or single-player side, because these games are what they are becuase of thier great multi-player characteristics.
Comparison Format:
I am going to compare the major elements of video games and also some characteristics and nuances that each game has that the others lack.
Graphics:
Gears of War: The graphics in GoW are freakin amazing! Even though it came out in November of 06, the graphics are bar none! Everything has a real feel from the look of the humans to the look of the aliens (I’ve seen them in real life) to the look of the weapons. The particle effects of grenades exploding to bullet holes piercing the surrounding structures. On the downside, to get that realism, the GoW team felt that some of the motions had to be animated, thus there is some serious glitchyness. When trying to chainsaw someone on the ground, they automatically stand-up while being chansawed. So, there are a bunch of cookie cutter animations that are really akward looking when you put them in a different context. If only there was more light in all of the levels to see the great level detail!
Halo 3: The graphics in Halo 3 are also amazing! The textures of the levels are very revealing. Every plant and blade of grass has a realistic feel. The lighting is wonderful from the shadows to the sunlight to the manufactured light, all very real and add a huge amount of realism. Although master chief loooks great, the other characters models are frankly pretty cheap. They look blocky and not quite human. They still look good, but they feel also very cartoony, and not realistic.
Conclusion: The graphics in Gears of War are simply better. There are less bugs in the graphics in Halo 3, like the camera jumping behind walls and other wierd places they should not be, but overall, although a lot of the animations are static in gears of war, they just look better.
Playability and Controls:
Playability here is multiplayer playability. Playability encompasses the objectives of games and how well they accomplish thier task. Generally, playability can be summed up into, how fun the game is.
Gears of War: First the controls for gow are great. It reacts as it should and the 3rd person view is great to combat in. But frankly, there are times that the controls get frustrating! I really do not like that the “duck and cover button” is the same as run. The walls endup somehow reaching out and grabbing you. You have to be a skilled driver in order to navigate your character around objects. But over all, the controls are good. Now the playability is just ok. Don’t get me wrong, I really like shooting people in the game, but I wish there were more objectives. I really think some sort of capture the flag or other type of skirmish style of gameplay would have been awesome!
Halo 3: This is where Halo 3 just takes the vote! The controls are awesome! 90% perfect. From shooting to jumping and throwing grenades, all of it is perfect. But there is one HUGE flaw. Why in the heck did they change the “talk” button? It used to be “LB” but now it is up on the direction pad. So unless you have 11 finger or three hands, you cannot run and talk at the same time. I think that is horrible design. I cannot believe the game got released in this fashion. Oh well. The playability of Halo 3 is truly perfect. There is a type of game for everyone. For those who just wish to kill, slayer, for purpose oriented or goal oriented, you have land grab, CTF, and others.
Conclusion: Halo 3 is just a little bit better. Less weirdness and it just feels a little better. Although I think gears pulled it off awesome as well, this is just comparing gold and platinum.
Audio and Xbox Live Communication:
Gears of War: Great! Communication is easy and the Audio sounds online are great! Nothing to complain about here.
Halo 3: Honestly, they were so close to perfect. It’s just that they made theat dumb direction pad the freakin talk button. That is strait up dumb. I hate it!
Conclusion: Gears takes the vote because Halo 3 is stupid with its dumb talk button.
Online Weirdness: Bugs, Lag, Host, etc.:
Gears of War: GOW is first of all horrible at matchmaking. It takes forever and it is tough to get a full room. Especially a full room of committed players. That is because it does no matchmaking. It bugs me that a game this awesome could have this big of a flaw. Either way… the online weirdness is barely tolerable.It takes weeks of playing to finally figure outwhy when your host you are so much better. So when you are not host, you have to play with a different frame of mind. In other words, the host has a big advantage. BIG! And when you are not the host, you have to predict where the player is going to be in the next 10th of a second. And if your the last one on your team vs. the host, do not expect to win a sniper of shotgun battle.
Halo 3: Overall, online, Halo is superb. It is tough to tell who is host, and even if you are, the advantage is only slight, albeit there is still an advantage. The whole matchmaking is SUPERIOR to gears of war in every way. In fact, Halo 2 was superior in multi player matchmaking than gears of war.
Overall Pro’s and Con’s of each Game:
Gears or War: Pro’s
- Graphics: The graphics are freakin’ amazing
- Realism – If you like realism, this is the place! It reminds me of the movie fargo when you use that chainsaw.
- Balance – Very balanced. It comes down to skill and knowing when to use the right weapon. Teamwork also helps.
- Originality – No game ever like it. Brilliant Cliff, simply brilliant.
- Communication – Easy to communicate online, simple. That is what is needed here.
Gears of War: Con’s
- Host Advantage – The host advantage is just too great!
- Animation – the chainsaw animation and “downed” animations make it too cookie cutter. There are a lot of bugs that happen in those two states, and that makes it not realistic and very frustrating.
- Multiplayer Matchmaking – Frankly, unless you have 10+ friends online playing GOW, then you will not have a full room for at least 30min, and the chances of finding one are even slimmer. They need to fix that in “Gears of War 2″.
Halo 3: Pro’s
- Online Matchmaking – Whether you go online, it will always find a match that you want to play, and people stay on even if they are losing by a lot. They way the system was built is just genious! How you can veto a map, or take your party to join another, or create matches on the fly. All if it is simply the best!
- Balance – This game is extremely balanced. And considering the plethora of vehicles and weapons you can use, it is very balanced. It all comes down to the relative skill on each team, and even then it balances it for you. But, Halo 3 depends moreon teamwork than GOW.
- Matchmaking options – ctf, territories, land grab, slayer, doubles, all of it just makes sense! What ever you want to play, you can find it.
- The Forge – It is a blast! Edit maps on the fly and play with them with others edit. Great idea!
- Co-op – 2-4 players, that is just fun!
- Stats and more Stats – I love the stats, they are everywhere, including on the bungie website. It is amazing!
Halo 3: Con’s
- The freakin talk button! I hate it…
- Load times – it seems like everyonce in a while it takes WAY longer than it should to find a match or load a map.
- Teamwork – Also a plus, if the team you are on is not working together, but if they are not… it just sucks and you can get very frustrated, becuase you keep losing.
Conclusion:
After lookin at all of the pros and cons, it is difficult to declare a winner. But at this point I would have to say Halo 3. It is tough for me to say that because I am a huge Gears fan! But becuase of the team game style and how unbalanced gears can be at times, I’ll have to give it to Halo 3. But just barely.
Great comparison! I do not agree with everything, but a good read nevertheless.
How can you list Teamworking has a con for halo 3? Is that Bungie’s fault? No. It is the lousy people people on Live’s fault. The same con can apply to ANY game.
Also, what is this push talk button you speak of? I don’t have to push any buttons to speak on live.
Waffles: Sometimes, that which is a virtue can also be a flaw. Which is why, in teamwork is an awesome feature in Halo 3, but if a team does not work together, it can also be the flaw. And that is the way bungie meant for it to be.
The push button? It’s not just me…
http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=10652262&postRepeater1-p=1#10652387
It is all over the forums, but it is only in some team games.
Thanks for reading!
Well, my beautiful wife just got me my own copy of Halo 3 last week–because I’ve been pestering her about it when the game came out a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, my expectations from it just went down the drain real fast—I was not amazed at all…damn right! So I managed to play it until I finally got through the first stage, and after that—I took it out from my 360 and put in Gears of War, instead! In my opinion, Halo 3 blows BIG TIME and just full of pathetic hype—because it was not something I expected to be, but rather a disappointing game to me…period! Gear of War still rules in my book!
dude_of_guam
Sorry to hear that man…
Do you play multiplayer on Halo 3? If not then it really defeats the purpose. But gears is a great game, so I understand where you are coming from.
Gears OWNZ
30 mins to find a game where the hell you live australia?
First I need to get this out there:
GOW is better.
Ok…now my honest assesment. I agree with pretty much everything you said in your comparison and conclusion. You were honest and unbiased. However, isn’t it important to remember that Halo 3 is the third and final version of its series? This is the most polished version of the Halo series yet. This should be comparing GOW to Halo 1. Then when GOW 2 comes out, why not compare it to Halo 2 or 3. That is much more fair to GOW. Yes there are endless bugs and loopholes for cheaters and the suckiest ranked system–mainly because of the loopholes, but Halo 1 had no multiplayer at all!
To sum it up, I think the real value that GOW has is its potential. Let them fix the storyline, graphics, glitches, multiplayer rankings, etc, and let’s see how well Halo 3 holds up then.
lol, halo sucks afghan balls got the 1000 achievement points then went straight back to gears..
Halo3 has no teamwork because once u die your back in the game to kill another few, its just how good the main people on your team is at pulling 3/1 kd ratio or even 2/1 doesnt matter.
Gears is xbox now, halo is past its prime and its now gears time (wow that rhymes
I agree I think GOW is better than halo 3, I just wish halo 3 had third person shooter as to me that is the best.
FUK GOW IT SUCKS BIG BLACK BALLS HALO3 IS THE BEST SHOOTING GAME EVER FUK ALL OF U THAT DONT THINK SO
FUCK ALL OF YUU DISSIN ON HALO 3 THAT GAME IS THE SIKIS AND GOW WHAT I DUU IN THE MORNIN. AYY BIG PIECE OF SHYT BYTCHES:. FUCK GOW:.
First off I really don’t participate in blogging type crap on the internet. It aint my thang. But for some reason I wanted to say something.
Yes, there is a HOST advantage but if you were actually good, that would not matter. If you loose because of the host factor, give me a break and stop using excuses that is plain BS. You suck that’s the factor and get a better connection. And when you say you hate waiting forever in the rooms to get committed players. Here is an idea, make friends, socialize, converse, that is what GOW is about. Then, you wouldn’t wait for a room to fill up. When I got my 360 I had Halo 2 and GOW. I had a unbiased view on both games, never played either of them. I played H2 first and liked it but when I played GOW it blew Halo out of the water. Halo 3 is Halo 2 in HD. The game play is horrible and horribly SLOW. HEY, let me jump around and avoid getting shot because that is what we do in real life, jump straight into the air like kangaroos. The only thing that is good about H3 is the ranking and customization, I give props on that. The game looks good but could be even better. For the last Halo game I was disappointed. Here is another thing that bothers me about all 1st person shooters, planting your face into a wall just to look around the corner. Man you look like an idiot and WOW, that is realistic. You know you can pop into 3rd person to jump into cover, have you ever thought of that Bungie? It would definitely add to the game play and you would actually see your guy. Tu daddy and LIL SAINT can even look at his cock, getting a hard on Tu and LIL? Gears goes into first person for the zoom on shots, it can be done, it’s not hard to add it in. WAIT! even better lets have a radar that tells me where the enemy is or how about having 3 bullets for the sniper. Granted GOW has it’s problems also but Please! give me a break Halo fags. GOW is a team game, if you don’t at least run in pairs you will die. Unless you are good, especially with the sniper, then it does not matter if you are 4 on 1. Trust me I have been 4 on 1 a lot. There is something about the POP! when my sniper bullets connect. It’s like music to my ears. The best thing about GOW in which Halo will never have is 4 on 1 and when you do survive and go back to the room. It is awesome to hear your teammates congratulating you and everyone is talking trash. When do you do that in Halo? In the beginning and end, NO one talks. But what about in game trash talking, Oh yeah I forgot the annoying talk button. Cutting all communication to your teammates when you are in the dead room, was a great Idea and talk trash to the other team while dead is the best. For you idiots that LOVE Halo stop playing in your Mater Chief panties. I do agree with “boltzwagon”, GOW can’t be compared to H3. This is the FIRST GOW retards. Just think for a second how better GOW2 will be when they add in matchmaking and get rid of all the problems and make the game better. There is no comparison to the stages each game has and will go through. Compare Halo to GOW, GOW wins. When GOW2 comes out compare it to H2, GOW wins. When GOW3 comes out compare it to H3, EVERYONE!!! GOW wins. By then you Bitches will have forgotten about H3. So please give me a break, learn how to play tactfully instead of re-spawning 50 times in one match. I bet those who hate GOW are the ones who SHIT their panties when the got snipped in the head or while getting CHAINSAWED. And probably use the words like, Owened! and Noob! and for “tu daddy” and “LIL SAINT” change your panties fags and get off Master Chiefs dick.
wtf gow beats halo 3 straight up the blood the fighting its brill but halo is ok but it suck after 1 week and 30 min to load it takes 1-3 mins
i will hunt u down and chainsaw u
wtf gow beats halo 3 straight up the blood the fighting its brill but halo is ok but it suck after 1 week and 30 min to load it takes 1-3 mins
i will hunt u down and chainsaw u
my gun is jammed
i have played both games and i think gow is the better game i have it on my pc with max graphics and its just brilliant compared to the xbox 360 version
i much prefer the 3rd person shooter than the 1st i find halo rather eclosed and doesnt give the graphics which are very good justice.
the downsider with gow though is that the campaign isnt far to short i completed it within about 9 hours on easy. and the storyline isnt that clear so sometimes you think what is the point of this game!!! but the overall composition and camera work of the gow really does it for me
halo 3 is still a kickass game though i hope it comes onto pc where it will really do the graphics justice!!
halo sucks and is dead. time to move on the bigger and better things. GOW is by far the best shooting game out. GOW 2 is going to be even better. lol i rather play goldeneye for the N64 then halo.
O yea Affex is speaking the truth. nice comment !
Dude_of_Guam’s comment from last year was very understandable to me. My situation is almost the same thing when I bought my own copy of Halo 3 last September. I must admit, I fell victim on Halo 3′s hype, and the end result was a huge disappointment to me. I played it just for one day then after that, I just lost interest of playing it and went back on playing Gears of War since then. True. Gears of War is not a ‘perfect’ game after all, but then again, what is a “perfect game” anyway? Perfection does not exist. In my opinion, Metal Gears Solid 4: The Guns of Patriot, is not a ‘perfect game’, but to some, it is. The situation is like this: There are gamers out there(like me) who loves Gears of War, and are already waiting for Gears 2. But there are also gamers out there who does not like the game at all! It’s like, I like pepsi, and you like coke, right? But to sums it up, many die-hard Halo fans were upset about Halo 3 after all, because it did not turned out the way they expected it to be. This year, it is no longer Halo 3 vs. Gears of War, it is now Gears of War 2 vs. MGS4: Guns of the Patroit —does it ever gonna stop? Though, my money is on Gears of War 2, because I never liked the Metal Gears series as a kid growing up, even if I had played the first game before on the original NES. Gears of War 2 for me is the real and most anticipated game for this year…bar none!
wtf bioshmuck dont be polite about how halo is shit be mean to halo rape it and stab it
i will hunt u down and chainsaw u
my gun is jammed
carmine roks
OMG did this even need to be compared? Gears is way better than stupid fukin gaylo. come on now. if I shoot someone square in the chest with a shotgun they aren’t gonna moan and fall over, the shyt is getting fukd up. if I shoot someone in the face he’s not gonna just fall over, his face is getting fukd up. if I stick a grenade to someone they aren’t gonna just go flying. they asz is getting fukd up. come on now halo was a big let down. the only reason it sold well was because of the hype and every pre-ordered it… oh and no returns after a certain amount of days. anyone who thinks halo is better must have failed kindergarten period..!
slickrick557 is right halo blows and also once u get 1000 gamerscore there is nothing 2 halo nomore but gear wen u get all its gamer score u still want to play it becuz u can own ppl
i will hunt u down and chainsaw u
carmine roks
ps: mc is gay wit sg. jonhson
add me my gamertag is jonjo I PIE I
ok seriousley, fuck all this bla blah blah whiney shit. how about we go play “gears of halo theft auto 5″
THERE! a fucking comprimise, get over it
i think the controls of halo sucks man and gow ruless
both games such mannn what is ur problem man i mean this games succks suckss suckss suckss
do u mean suck?
yea and fuk u man
Themelis Cuiper’s SocialGarden Biz case studies of smo & internet business alerted me with a hyper link to this site, you must be doing an awesome job as he provides a hyper link to you?
Hello there, just was aware of your weblog via Google, and found that it is truly informative. I’m gonna watch out for brussels. I’ll be grateful for those who continue this in future. Lots of people will likely be benefited from your writing. Cheers!
I take pleasure in, result in I discovered exactly what I was taking a look for. You have ended my 4 day lengthy hunt! God Bless you man. Have a great day. Bye