Gears of War: A Review

Let's face it - Gears of War needs no introduction amongst the new gamers out there (I say "new" as in "you joined 4 years ago? You've got a lot to learn...."), but even some of the Veterans of gaming haven't a clue about this. Gears of War was the game to play on the XBOX 360 in it's earliest days, as it was the most violent thing you would ever have gotten your head around. Sure, the Playstation had Resistance and the PC had Half-Life and Quake, but nothing could compare to what Epic Games and Unreal had to offer.

So if you need a reason to play this game, I'm sure Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade would tell you, "You need a reason?! REALLY? You can CHAINSAW a dude in HALF! LENGTH-WAYS!" And in all honesty, doing that is a reward in itself. That is where your £40 lies, and seeing your first chainsaw kill is worth that money. But alas, I wander - let's have a look at why Gears of War survived the Video Game Crash of 2010.

As far as a third-person shooter goes, this game really blows the balls off the word "awesome". Gears of War takes place on Jacinto - a planet (or a city on Earth) where people lived in harmony until humanoid-like aliens rose from the ground and stormed the human settlements. That day was known as Emergance Day, and I have to give Epic Games credit for a term that you barely hear but will always remember. The game is set at a time where the Locust are winning and there's no obvious sign on how to stop their dreadful invasions. The main character, Marcus Fenix, is a prisoner of war but is freed due to his prison being raided by Locust. He is freed by best friend Dom Santiego and together they must escape and regroup with a struggling squad outside.

The story is well told and barely leaves any questions unanswered. One of the greatest mysteries was, "How did Marcus end up in jail?" The answer is that Marcus disobeyed a direct order to save his father, Adam Fenix. Further puzzles occurred in the sequel, where the Locust Queen briefly mentions Adam Fenix, but exits with haste as her city is coming down around her. I haven't played the prequel but I'm hoping to soon, and maybe uncover more truth about Marcus' past.

Another sub-plot involves Dom and his search for his wife, Maria. He gets incredibly enraged throughout the first game due to her disappearence, and becomes miserable in the second when he encounters her. In this plot-line, players will notice that while Marcus is a hardened veteran of war who appears to have no heart, he still cares for Dom even though he doesn't have the look in his eye.

Control

In terms of control, there's barely any problem. Players have full mobility and will have few problems with the camera. The triggers are used to aim and fire (also throw grenades when equipped), and the settings have a helpful auto-aim setting to help new players. One thing that makes Gears of War wholly unique is that it offers a system called "active reload", where it shows you how long a reload will take in the top right corner of the screen. By hitting the reload button again at a certain time, players can get a faster reload and even a temporary damage boost from time to time. OK, so the sprint is extremely stiff and the roll can be a bit tedious at times, I still think they were much improved in GoW2 and saw a lot more use then.

Difficulty

In terms of difficulty, I can safely say that this game is rock hard. Now imagine that rock was made of steel, blaring Judas Priest songs from its surface and had the Unreal Engine - yes, that is a very hard rock. That rock, is this game's difficulty. I cannot emphasize how hard this game is on the first-of-two difficulty modes. This is the average scenario for any level:

>Loaded checkpoint. Gonna run until I encounter some Locust.

>Uh-oh, they've appeared. Gotta take cover or I die!

>Damn, I'm locked down tight! I've gotta take him out at some point!

>*Peeks over wall*

>*Dies*

Now imagine that for several hours. Yes, you can only take around three bullets before you become incapacitated (either another player or AI has to let you back up, or you bleed to death). I'm not ungrateful for this game, as I support a challenge, but if you're not expecting this game to be extreme, then this game will hit you hard. Harder than a Judas Priest-blaring steel ball.

The AI

Imagine if Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (GRAW) had bad AI. Imagine if your teammates in that were as bad as they are here. I'm talking about being downed the moment they stand up. I'm talking about how they try to follow you but take the worst possible routes ever, and get downed; I'm talking about how they disobey your orders through the command system, and get downed. I'm not nitpicking here - I've seen bad bots, but that was long before Gears of War. It's a major issue when you yourself are constantly under fire, and so much as thinking of looking over cover gets you killed. You need friends if you plan to get anywhere through this game, because your teammates aren't going to help. But the enemy? Oh, they're just perfect; they could shoot the hairs off a gnat! Their aim is so accurate, showing the tip if your fingernail gets all their aggro towards you and taking your entire hand off! Indeed, the AI is greatly flawed but Epic Games managed to get it right in the sequel.

Gears of War offers nothing new in Multiplayer but instead revisits the good ol' days when it was Player VS Player, and not Player VS Gear. In this game, it's not sod's law if you haven't got the biggest gun, as everything is balanced except for smoke grenades (which have major knockback, but give a nice display of physics). Gears of War makes sure that Deathmatch isn't the only mode you'll play, as there's classics such as King of the Hill and Capture the Flag. Players will also be able to choose their in-game character for Multiplayer only, such as the named characters and even some of the ranks of the Locust army. So in terms of multiplayer, it was a pretty big thing - the only major flaw was that matche couldn't hold too many players, and there was no resistance for "chainsaw noobs" (people who ran at others with their chainsaws revved, not even bothering to shoot).

Gears of War truly revolutionized the grittiness and despair of war in gaming, as no other game had done it like Epic Games. Sure, we had examples like Stalker: Shadow over Chernobyl and the Fallout games before Bethesda took over, but Gears of War brings out the war. War as in grown men screaming for their mothers, being blown to smithereens, fighting 'til their dying breath - it goes by every single cliché imaginable, but it does it so well. The soundtrack has dawned a new day in video game music, and is the inspiration for many worldwide. While it's not commonly spoken of, GoW gave birth to an excellent theme which was later recognized in all three games and hailed one of the greatest songs ever.

Gears of War is a game that will give you all that you paid for: a good campaign with excellent co-op abilities, award-winning soundtrack and least importantly - online multiplayer and graphics. While I find the difficulty to be a flaw and the level design linear, this was later looked into and was worked on for GoW2. I'm not a big fan of the Gears of War frachise, but I'm sure anyone who loves it wholly would give a much better and more extensive review - it's merely my job to tell you if it's worth paying for or not. So is it? Certainly. It may not be worth the full blown £40-50 now, but it definitely was at the time, as it was out of this world.

I give this game 7/9 - why nine? Because 10 is overrated and 11 was coined by the Nostalgia Critic. I'd give this game a full blown 9 but in my honest opinion, it's just not my game. I love the strong language, gore effects and (for once) the sort-of intergalactic "All American Hero" feel, but it's still not perfect. The game certainly deserves the "More bang for your buck" award, and a new one I'd like to call "Chainsaw Hero" for bloody effects! Excellent work, Epic Games - I hope to play the prequel soon!

And feel free to leave your opinion on the game here too! I'm open for constructive criticism!