“Pardon the drool, it’s just that a game hasn’t dropped my jaw before”
It’s been a while since a game has given me that feeling. That feeling of, well, awe. Gears of War definitely brings something to the table that other games simply haven’t brought. Does Gears live up to it’s expectations? The answer is no, it doesn’t. It surpasses them. No one expected Gears of War to be like this.
The story places you on the post-apocalyptic planet of Sera, where the Locust Horde have invaded from the inside out. One day, known as Emergence Day, holes appeared all over the planet and the Locust poured out, killing billions. You are Marcus Fenix, a Gear of the COG. You have been imprisoned for disobeying orders 14 years earlier in a failed attempt at saving your father. Now the war has taken a turn for, if possible, the worse. Your best friend, Dominic Santiago, busts you out of jail in hopes that a last ditch effort to turn the tide of the war can be achieved.
Fortunately, saving the planet never sounded so good. The music sets amazing moods throughout the game. It really adds to the experience, making Gears even more intense in some situations. Guns and explosions sound realistic, as do the voices. The voice acting in Gears of War is phenomenal, adding even more to the atmosphere. And since I’ve never heard a head explode before, I’ll assume the guys at Epic have, because it sounds disgustingly pleasing to the ear.
And as far as looks go, Gears of War has no competition. These are the best graphics to date. Period. They are amazing. A game has never dropped my jaw before, but once I booted it up, got out of the prison and entered the first large room, it hit the floor. Literally. I was stunned at the detail. It looks just like a movie, in fact the entire game has a very cinematic feel to it. It feels like Gears of War is one big cutscene that you control. The pictures included in this review do NO justice to the game. The environments are breath-taking, the character models, though bulky, still look awesome. The large amounts of various weapons look great also. The numerous Locust models appear evil and bent on destruction, and the lighting is phenomenal. It’s hard to believe how far graphics have been able to progress through the years. The unreal engine and the developers at Epic have truly given the world some serious eye candy. All this coming from a guy who owns an SDTV.
And not just looking sexy, the game plays out sexy too. The gameplay in Gears is nothing short of genius. The cover system is very well implemented, and the A button controls it all. Get near an object and hit the A button to get sucked into cover. When against the object, you can do various actions. Press up on the left stick and push the A button to mantle over objects. Move left or right, push A, and do a Swat Turn to move to parallel objects. Move diagonally upwards and hit A to just move forward straight from cover. Of course, you can simply hit the A button again to leave cover, or move away from the object you’re hiding behind.
When moving and not being near cover, hit A to roll. Lastly, hold down A to ‘roadie run’. During the ‘roadie run’, you duck down and take off, while the camera drops down behind you and bobs back and forth. It looks like a documentary cameraman is bolting after you to keep up.
Shooting isn’t difficult to do either. Pull the right trigger to shoot from the hip while standing or moving. No aiming reticles appear and it is very inaccurate, but it helps when being overwhelmed by Wretches, one of the many types of Locusts trying to kill you. Hit the left trigger to aim over the shoulder, where a reticle appears. When the reticle turns red, you can successfully hit an enemy with fire. If you are in cover, you can fire blindly just by hitting the right trigger. Though quite inaccurate, it suppresses enemies well. Pull the left trigger to use your reticle when still hidden in cover. And though shooting is the basis of the game, using melee attacks is a blast. Simply hit the B button to hit an enemy with the butt of your gun. If you have a grenade equipped, you will jam the grenade inside the enemy. Take off quickly because the poor Locust will be blowing up momentarily and you don't want to get caught in the blast radius with him. And the best one yet, your Lancer Rifle is equipped with a chainsaw bayonet! Hold the B button to rev up the engine and then simply walk into an enemy to tear into him. The brutality is delicious.
The health system is Gears of War is similar to Call of Duty, with regenerating health. If you’re taking a lot of damage, a gear appears in the middle of the screen. Quickly get to cover and rest a little bit to restore your health. If the gear gets full, you’re dead. This isn’t so bad though, as there are tons of checkpoints along the way through each level. In fact, that’s how you save. There are no save points, only auto saves from checkpoints. But Gears does have one exclusive feature called Active Reload, which is a great feature indeed. When reloading your weapon with RB, a small bar appears beneath your weapon that travels from left to right quickly. On this bar is a minuscule white point, a slightly larger faded white space, and the rest is black. If you so desire, hit the RB again within the smaller white point to reload your weapon in the blink of an eye and to give a small damage boost to your ammo for a limited time. Hit in the larger white part to reload faster, but not gain any damage boost. Hit it in the black and you fail. Your gun jams and it takes even longer to reload your weapon. This mini-game is optional, and you can simply reload and let the gun take as long as it naturally would to reload.
Speaking of loading, Gears of War doesn’t have a lot of it. It takes no time at all to bring up the levels. Although level design is great, it’s very linear. With 5 Acts and tons of seemless chapters within, Gears of War is actually a pretty short game, at least as far as the campaign goes. The single player game is integrated very well with Co-Op, which can be played online or offline via splitscreen. If you play co-op, your buddy will assume the role of Dom.
And some good news for those with itchy trigger fingers, ammo is abundant, and just maybe over placed. It is a rare occasion to actually run out of ammunition. At least, you don’t run out on the Casual difficulty. However, Hardcore and Insane difficulties might turn the Locust Horde into walking bullet sponges. If you’re a gamer looking for a challenge, both difficulties live up to their names.
But what about the online multiplayer? The main selling point for any shooter. Hooray for Epic, as they delivered the best multiplayer shooter since Halo 2. It may sound bad that there are only 3 game types, 10 maps, and only 4 vs. 4 squad based games, but it all works out perfectly. What's evenbetter is that online is completely balanced. No weapons are overpowered and nearly all the levels are symmetric; unfortunately, the game types are limited.
The most popular game type is called Warzone, where it is a 4 vs. 4 death match. You only have one life, and it’s normally a best of 5 game, however, it can be set as low as 1 and as high as 19! Once a team has been eradicated, the round is over. Once you die, you can watch the game from a teammates camera with no lag whatsoever and freely change between teammates’ cameras. When a team reaches the round victories required, they win the match. The other game types are Execution and Assassination. In Execution, bullets don’t kill your enemy, they only down him. To take him out of the round, you must stomp his head in, blow him up, chainsaw his body into pieces, or do an execution move. Be quick though, because a teammate can revive a downed member unlimited times by getting near him and hitting the X button, which is available in all three game types. Lastly, we have Assassination. In this, one member is the team leader and the object is to kill that leader. The assassin becomes the leader in the next round, and the highest scoring player on the losing team becomes his team's leader. Unlike many developers, Epic has also added in 1 vs. 1 deathmatch for offline splitscreen fun.
What is so mesmerizing about Gears of War online, is that it plays identical to the single player mode. The graphics and gameplay stay exactly the same. I still can’t get over how good the multi looks and plays. So perfect and addicting. In fact, some matches can last a long, long time.
The replay value in Gears of War is pretty high. There are 49 achievements to obtain, 30 COG tags to find, 3 levels of difficulty in the campaign, and one amazing multiplayer experience. Gears shouldn't be leaving your disc tray for some time.
To finish this off, I only have one bit of advice for you. Buy this game. This game is THE reason to own an Xbox 360. Gears of War is the killer app the 360 was waiting on, and will no doubt sell tons of consoles. The next generation is finally here. Embrace it with open arms, gunfire, and chainsaws.
By demosquared
View Comments (1) :: Post Comment
