bigtruckseries's Full Review: Gears of War for Xbox 360
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There isn't much I can say about this game to dissuade you from buying it (once you've seen it in action) or to persuade you to buy it (if your not sure whether or not you should drop $60 on it). What I will say about GoW is that it is an intense action game – which is gorier and bloodier than most 3rd person shooters on the market – and will never cease to impress those who doubt the power of the Xbox 360’s hardware.
The story is simple: Humanity is at war with a race of subterranean aliens who are intent on destroying mankind on a far away planet called SERA. The prize to be won is a liquid resource known as “immulsion” which is the cheapest energy source known to man. (Imagine an Oil Field the size of the Pacific Ocean).
You play- in third person form – Marcus, a hardened combat veteran employed by COG which is the Central Order of Government controlling what is left of Sera’s human population. Along with other COG soldiers, “Gears”, you must infiltrate the subterranean hive of the aliens and plant a bomb to destroy their base.
The story is old stuff but, it is held afloat by the most incredible graphics ever seen on a console. There isn’t much interactivity with the environment with a few exceptions, but the graphics are high definition and extraordinarily detailed. Playing on a standard 32 inch Television looks fantastic, but to really get the most out of GoW you’ll need a LCD monitor/TV. You’ll also want to spring a couple hundred for a decent 5.1 surround sound system because the sound is fantastic too. The theme of the game is survival horror, but, it is focused on fast paced shooting with a secondary focus on “cover” – where you must take cover behind any and every wall or surface to keep from being hit by stray rounds fired at you.
The “cover” feature of the game is what gives it a style of its own and sets it apart from games like SOCOM and most first/third person shooters – as the {A}button by its lonesome is all that’s required to allow you to jump&roll in a certain direction or take cover: in a contextual situation. The only problem I encountered is that sometimes the controls are too tight and your character may end up backing out of cover – getting shot – when you really intended to move him in another way. The characters can slide left/right against walls, but oddly, cannot strafe around them without leaving cover. This feature needs a lot of work.
Ducking for cover will also require the help of your squadmates who will provide suppression fire for you to keep you from being outflanked. And the enemy is pretty damned good at outflanking you. Though the A.I. could use some work, both the aliens and your teammates will rush, over and attempt to outflank the opponent usually hoping to catch them off guard for a melee attack or a well placed grenade. Unfortunately, outsmarting the computer isn’t very hard if you know how to work around its limited fields of fire. It isn’t very hard to shoot an enemy in the back – even when it has ducked for cover. Most of your kills are of this type in fact.
Another small feature is the "ROADIE RUN", which basically lowers the camera near to the ground behind you as you scuttle for cover. It basically resembles a cameraman for CNN when the Iraq action gets too intense As your soldier can only walk from place to place, the Roadie Run is the only way to move faster. Once again the controls here need work because, it can be very difficult to direct your player with the camera so close to their backside, obscuring the rest of your vision.
No shooter would be complete without devastating weapons, and GoW has its fair share of them. There is a small selection of weapons including the typical pistols and assault rifles. Besides the innovative “cover” feature, there is also a feature called “active reload” which allows you to reload quicker if you hit the reload button at an interval depicted by a sliding scale on your h.u.d. If you screw up the active reload, the gun will jam – taking even longer to load then if you had never tried the active reload.
There is a single shotgun model and a single sniper rifle model. To break the monotony, there is a crossbow (torque bow) which fires explosive bolts and a cool weapon called the HAMMER OF DAWN which allows you to paint a target with a laser target designator so a satellite in space can fire a laser down at their heads -disintegrating them. The HAMMERofDAWN comes in handy specifically because some enemies can not be harmed by anything but the satellite’s laser. Even more important, you must be under open sky to use the satellite’s laser – which means sometimes you’ll have to trick enemies out from under cover.
There are also grenades to consider – a single type of grenade which is spun around on a wire until it picks up centripetal force (to allow further throws).
But perhaps the most fantastic weapon in the game is the Assault rifles bayonet which just happens to be a gas-powered CHAINSAW. Why oh why is there a CHAINSAW on the end of an assault rifle? Regardless the logic – sneaking up on an enemy, revving the chainsaw and sawing them in half is probably the most vicious depiction of violence I’ve seen since Sub Zero was ripping off skulls in the original Mortal Kombat.
Strangely, the enemies in the game, The LOCUST HORDE, has the ability to wield the exact same weapons you do – meaning that you’ll need to kill them for more ammo.
I feel that this was a developmental coherency mistake since it makes the alien more familiar than they should be. Even HALO had Covenant soldiers wielding directed energy weapons rather than old-style guns and bullets. Why not make the aliens have alien weapons that we don’t fully understand?
Gears of War only contains 5 ACTS which are subdivided into smaller chapters. Some of which may be completed in 5 minutes or less depending how quickly you kill your enemy. The singleplayer, may be considered by some to be a little short, but I feel that the game ends before the monotony of the duck&cover system gets old.
In the singleplayer Campaign, GoW is not too difficult mostly because if you are patient and play carefully, you can kill your enemy without taking constant damage. However, during most conflicts, you may need to die a couple times due to trial-and-error, before you figure out the easiest way to proceed a specific part of the map.
The only downside about the Singleplayer A.I. is that sometimes, your partner can get killed too easily, causing your game to end. This is especially annoying in close quarters battles with the Beserker - who charges you like a freight train hoping to smash you with its bulky rock hard body. Its also annoying when you must walk around in the light due to the fact their are a dangerous vampire-bat like enemy (Krill) who can tear you apart if you happen to walk in darkness. Your A.I. teamates seem to love getting killed this way.
Multiplayer in Gears of War is strictly for hardcore gamers. Players are divided into two teams: Locusts and Gears, and must annihilate each other, or complete a certain task to win. I have never played a game where it was easier to die than GoW. You can be sniped from long range, or ganged up on by two players or more which will quickly kill you.
If you are wounded and not killed, you can be revived by another player but typically, people will get near you just so they can whip out their chainsaw or curb-stomp your head to ensure the kill. As Microsoft has decided not to allow groups to join the games together, it is extremely difficult to set up a good match for you and a group of related players.
OVERALL, Gears of War is a fantastic game, but I’m disappointed with the price. $60 is too much for it. I suggest you wait till the price drops before you buy cause otherwise, you may be disappointed. The singleplayer campaign is awesome but can be completed in 3 or 4 (2 hour) sittings – leaving you to try your luck on Xbox Live.
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