I beat the game yesterday on casual. Playing through on hardcore right now. I have 28 of the 30 cog tags as well.

My overall score of the game went down when I got to Raam. I took 60+ tries to beat him and that ruined the pacing of the game for me. I tried every strategy that people had mentioned on the gamespot, ign and gamefaq forums. It boils down to some luck in my opinion AND blind fire with the lancer.

Really?

Hanta and I beat him on our first try on Hardcore.

I didn't find him hard, he was pounding him with the troika and I kept him busy with the Lancer. Hanta got knocked out but I was able to revive him. Raam went down shortly afterwards.

Raam took luna and I like three or four tries on casual. When we finally beat him, she used a sniper rifle and I had a torque bow. We both used up most of our ammo, but he went down with us only having to switch sides of the train once. I didn't even realize that there was a troika available.

Also, what's a lancer? Is that the name of the assault rifle or something?

Yes, lancer is the main assault rifle. Blind firing with the lancer when Raam is staring at your from the other side of a barricade is very damaging.

It all boils down to having 2 people. 2 intelligent people can stay alive and really mess with the AI but when Dom goes down in solo play you have a heavy burden on you.

Agreed. The first berserker made me want to tear my hair out when I played it solo on casual because AI Dom kept getting liquidated. The same thing with souldaddy on insane was a blast.

...

Looks like end of Chapter 4 will seem like a walk in the park... compared to RAAM fight. Playing on Hardcore and hearing people having a hard time on Casual... looks like I'm in for a world of pain.

I agree. I got misleading information from the gamefaq forums saying 3 perfect power reload headshots from the sniper would do it, HAHA, no. After 10 headshots I learned it took plenty more.

Irongut asked about the Troika Gun in Act 1, the room were there is a spotter in a small elevated in the upper right corner. Moving forward in front of the gun is suicide, everyone tends to run into the rooms to the right, then forward to the large tank of some kind. The spotter should be directly above that tank.

I discovered this by accident, thanks to the crazy A button that does things you don't want it to. I ran forward to the wall underneath the room (there is a column on the left corner and a wall on the right one). There is a door there, and gee duh, as I ran up Marcus kicked it open! I could run upstairs and take that spotter out. At that point you have an excellent elevation to end this fight quickly and safely.

Act 2 Battle - This one is super easy. Use frag grenades to close the emergence holes. I let my AI buddies kill the lone locusts beyond the wall, they get 85% of enemy by themselves. For the snipers on the far center left, there is a loose rock above the snipers that you can force to fall on them with a half a clip of ammo. On the right side is a leaky gas pipe that you can also shoot out. The Boomer is the most difficult part, Locusts on the right can shoot at you. Have patience, if you make it to this point you will respawn at the same part of the battle when you die. The final part is the 4 or 5 Boomers who spawn behind you, they are super easy, just shoot at the large tank on the left, it will roll forward and start spilling gas on some propane tanks. Shoot the tanks and pat yourself on the back.

Thx Souldaddy for the info regarding RAAM.

I beat him on my first try with out breaking a sweat... actually, he was very easy even on Hardcore difficulty.

Although, I used only a Lancer and Sniper rifle. Sniper rifle for long range head shots... and Lancer, I used when he would get close to the barrier where I first started. I would unload 2 clips using blind fire with perfect reload and than as soon as he would try to move around the barrier, I would dash to stationary Machine gun. From there I would snipe while staying in the light... as soon he would get there I would dash all the way back to the starting point. From there do the same thing all over again. I found it shockingly easy... there for The End of Act 4 retains it's title for the worst moment in the game!

I have to say the final boss fight ruined the game for me.

When I play single player, I mean, I really play it single. I want full immersion into the story and a second player ruins it. Even if we were role-playing it, it would suck, 'cause, I mean, role-playing? Really? No.

Point being - if you're going to make the final boss hard, you need to make it consistent with the rest of the game. The entire game I was doing all right. A couple of snags, a couple of rough patches that required me to think for a moment and then try something different.

With RAAM, you're having to beat your head up against a wall. Until someone told me, I had no idea my sniper shots were doing anything. There was no gratification for a shot. You have no idea you even hurt him. Even after three sniper shots, I'm going, "okay, what the f*ck now?"

Legion finally told me a tactic to use, but it wasn't the way I'd been playing the whole game. I mean, if it worked the entire game, to have it suddenly change and have that option not just be difficult, but impossible, almost makes all your efforts worthless!

Again, I like evolving tactics to a fluid and unpredictable situation, but to me, it was like driving on the German autobahn and then at the final bend I'm suddenly in Beirut.

EDIT: By "ruined the game," I mean the single-player. Multi? Oh, you bet your ass I'm all over that. One of the best multiplayer games I've played in a long time.

EDIT II: If I sound a bit... oh, too opinionated, don't fault me too much. A certain Mr. Cole of Joystiq came onto Evil Avatar to defend himself. It's a tad heated.

The point of the grenades is that they make the kryll go away. It's a way to get a couple of extra shots at RAAM before he eventually trots his way to you.

This is important and should be taken literally. Wait until he actually begins to turn the corner on the cover spot you're up against. Don't bolt when he's still out in front of your cover spot - panic is bad, mmmkay? I didn't make use of the extra width of the train when you shoot the walls down. I just made a straight ahead bee-line.

Hey poly, can we change the thread title to Gears of War Strategy? I want to post a breakdown of the multiplayer maps and this is the best place for it. If you post too many threads on the same game, then Certis' malevolent alter-ego is invoked from the depths and it's not pretty.

Done, with more made-up wordage for all the strategeric goodlishness.

I'd really like to see those map breakdowns because I dont know much about any of the maps.

Thanks for the thought, WING.

In other words, get behind them don't them get behind you. You need to stop playing so much Splinter Cell

Lemme see, while I write that map breakdown, some Danjo tips that I can think off the top of my head.

- Cover is king. If you aren't shooting from cover, you're dead. So you think you're gonna take him down first, why risk it?

- Watch your flanks. Flanks are your rear. The Flankee is the catcher, get it? You want to be the flanker.

- Yet another reason why Gears of War is brilliant: control the high ground. Finally a game that gets it right! In GOW the high ground has a significant advantage, plus it's a completely accidental side-effect of the cover system, that's why I love it. The less exposed you are, the less damage you take. Low ground is completely vulnerable from above. Most maps give put the best weapons above (or exposed). Escalation, the stairs map, gives a huge advantage to the low ground and that map is actually balanced, as I'll talk about later.

- Stick together. Lone wolves die first. If you see a player by himself, attack him immediately.

- Learn the weapon locations. I'll mention this more in the map breakdown, but there is a good reason those weapons are where they are. Best weapons are exposed, or sometimes they exist in an important location, like a crazy sniper spot.

- Locate the enemy and react to him, don't get locked down in a plan. Sinitar can tell you, I am guilty of this sometimes. It's like this, if the map lets you see the enemy early on, why not see where he goes? If you see 1 go off by themselves you know where to attack.

- Think about where you look on the map, then imagine a smoke grenade at that spot. Think about when you'd use smoke and why. It's anti-military intelligence and an important part of any battle plan.

- When you see an opportunity to use the chainsaw, GO F'N CRAZY!!

That's not what I would call "an opportunity"