Gears of War 3

Beast mode (aka "Reverse Horde mode") puts you in the slimy boots of the Locust horde as they try to exterminate all A.I.-controlled human resistance. At the beginning of each round, you can pick a Locust enemy type out of a list of about a dozen. Each has an associated cost -- the more powerful the character, the more points you'll need to earn and spend to get him -- but they all have their pros and cons.

The lowly Ticker, for example, is a fast, scurrying giant-flea-like creature that can rush up and blow into bloody chunks anyone in a small radius. This kamikaze attack can also help remove barriers like barbed-wire fences, letting your teammates inch closer to the entrenched targets. Mis-time the short fuse, though, and you'll only end up exploding yourself and having to respawn and start over.

The standard Kantus doesn't have the firepower, but he can heal nearby soldiers. The Berserker can rush targets and withstand a lot of damage, but she has very limited vision. You can even play  massive, hulking Locusts such as the chaingun-wielding Grinder or the mace-slamming Mauler...but these lumbering beasts will always be bringing up the rear. And if you're not one for new play styles, you can always fall back on the Locust Drone, the standard gunner you've played in past multiplayer matches.

Beast mode is a little bit Team Fortress 2, a little bit Left 4 Dead (in terms of playing as the different zombie types in multiplayer), but it's more ambitious than either with many more characters/classes to choose from. Unfortunately, you cannot go up against other human players here...only A.I.-controlled human characters. Regardless, this is one of my favorite gametypes from everything I've seen at this year's E3. The only time I wasn't having a good time was when they were kicking me off the system because they were shutting down for the night....

Call of Duty: Black Ops

By now, you're probably as sick of us complaining about the modern-combat genre as you may be of the games themselves. I'm not sure Black Ops will suck me back in as much as the two aforementioned titles have, but it's not a totally fair comparison since I haven't seen the next Call of Duty's multiplayer yet.

On the single-player front, yes...Black Ops looks and plays exactly as you'd expect. For me, I'm at least somewhat happy to see two things: the emphasis on the smaller scale, more stealthy-style missions (as opposed to the overdone epic, all-out warzones we've seen recently) and the switching between different eras (modern day and Vietnam), just for a change of pace. Although with Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam coming out this winter, might the South Asian jungles be the new new World War 2? Ugh...I don't even want to think about it....