Gears of War Reviews
Welcome to the real next generation. If you were looking for a critical reason to buy an Xbox 360, Gears of War is it.
By: Mike SmithPosted: 7 Nov 2006Xbox 360 owners, meet Microsoft's great hope for the holiday season: Marcus Fenix, grizzled ex-marine, jailbird, and chainsaw-packing bad-ass. No, he is not available for children's parties, but if you have gross, bulbous-headed Locust invaders to dismember, then he's your man. Gears of War carries a tactical combat payload that's a real blockbuster: consider this superbly designed shooter essential playing.
Like all good action storylines, Gears of War's plot doesn't waste too much time with its introduction. It's set on Sera, a generic-looking planet that's home to a mysterious underground power source and a sleeping alien menace, which the human population conveniently awakens some 14 years before the game takes place. Convenient to the game's plot, that is, not convenient to the human population, which was largely massacred before any kind of defense could be mounted. Yup, you guessed it: as the game opens, humanity is fighting back, and Marcus, newly sprung from his jail cell, is the arrow's point.
Although it's a third-person game, viewed from behind like Resident Evil 4, it uses the Halo-style dual stick control system that'll be familiar territory to just about any gamer. Gears of War doesn't hesitate to pile on its own twists, though, and the first of them concerns the game's focus on cover. Marcus can use almost anything in the game's post-apocalyptic world to hide behind, popping out to take pot shots at similarly concealed bad guys. For once, your opponents are mostly smart enough to do the same thing to you, only occasionally loitering in the open waiting to be shot.
Firing from cover like this makes firefights a fluid affair, as you and your enemies sprint, roll and leap from one piece of cover to the next. It's supported by a superb control system that puts all these actions - yes, all of them - on the same button. It really couldn't be easier, and with all those moves it looks fantastically cinematic.
_________________________________________________"The hallmark of Gears' weapon design is the balance of powerful tools with critical, exploitable weaknesses, and it's executed with real finesse."
_________________________________________________Meantime, your squadmates are doing exactly the same thing, guided by convincing AI that seldom requires a prod from the game's built-in order system. Genuinely fresh-feeling first-person shooters -- and for all its third-person pretensions, Gears is an FPS through and through -- are rare, but this cover-focused approach hits the mark. More importantly, it still feels exciting once the game's initial impact wears off.
Fans of Epic's games will know what to expect from the weapon selection. The traditionally PC-focused developer is renowned for coming up with creative ways for players to blow each other to pieces, and Gears of War is a fine addition to this proud tradition. Witness the game's Hammer of Dawn, a weapon that allows its wielder to call down the wrath of an orbital satellite, frying unfortunate enemies in seconds. Overpowered? Considering you have to hold still for some seconds to lock in your target, no. The hallmark of Gears' weapon design is the balance of powerful tools with critical, exploitable weaknesses, and it's executed with real finesse.
But the best toy of all is actually attached to the game's mainstay weapon, the assault rifle-like Lancer. It's a handy under-barrel chainsaw, perfect for dismembering enemies in gorgeously gory bouts of close-up violence. Opponents thus mutilated can't be revived by a teammate, and just holding the melee button in the general vicinity of an enemy is enough to trigger the attack. "I could do this all day," Marcus says, and we know what he means. Again, the chainsaw isn't the game-breaker it might seem - one stray shot from another enemy and you'll suddenly be left staggering, distracted and vulnerable.
The game has a very easy-going damage model. Take fire and a red Gears logo appears slowly, eventually getting stamped with a red skull -- that's when you keel over. Duck behind a wall, pillar, or burnt-out car, and it'll fade out as you recover. All your allies (including your teammates in multiplayer games) can be revived, after they "die", by reaching their corpse and tagging them.
Even reloading, usually a straightforward and functional process, comes in for a little extra love. Hitting the reload button triggers a little animation on the weapon's ammo gauge. Stop the bar in just the right point, and the shells you're inserting get a useful damage bonus. It's much quicker, too - but if you screw it up, you'll jam your gun and waste precious extra seconds clearing it. Who'd have thought you could take such a mundane FPS standard feature and turn it into a unique gameplay mechanic?
Get too distracted by these interface details, though, and you'll miss Gears of War's gorgeous visuals. From the bulging veins on Marcus's neck to the heat haze rising off his gun, superb isn't the word - it's easily the best looking 360 game to date, and doesn't seem to stress the hardware noticably. If, like us, you've been drooling over the screenshots for months, be reassured: it really does look that good. About the only other thing we could possibly want is more "live" terrain that can be blown up or moved -- perhaps Epic will slate that for Gears of War 2.
As if that wasn't enough, the sound is superb. Often your first warning of upcoming battle is the faint sound of chattering Locusts in some corner of your surround speaker system, or your sub dancing to the seismic rumble of something Really Big approaching. The orchestral score is first rate, and the voice cast, including the incomparable Lester Speight (Terry Tate, Office Linebacker), nails Gears' macho, one-dimensional characters without overt irony.
Co-operative play fans will be delighted with Gears' friendly approach to two-player Locust-fighting, where you can add and drop Xbox Live co-op buddies as the whim takes you. You're almost always working directly with at least one (usually computer-controlled) teammate, so this integration couldn't be more natural. Plus it gives you the phone-a friend option to make it past that tricky segment that's been giving you trouble for weeks.
_________________________________________________" If you've been wondering why you lined up all night for an Xbox 360 this time last year, agonize no longer."
_________________________________________________Those of a more competitive bent will be equally pleased with Gears of War's Live play. That cover system plays out just as well -- better, even -- against real opponents, and here the weapon balance really comes into its own. 10 diverse maps ship with the game, and hopefully more will turn up for download. Not so good is the selection of multiplayer modes, numbering just three variations on familiar one-life deathmatch themes -- given Epic's pioneering history in objective-based multiplayer combat, we're a touch let down.
Where the game really impresses is in the sheer slickness of its design. It's difficult to pick holes in any of its content -- certainly not a statement one could make about either of the Halo games. There's little reuse of material, the game never drags, the friendly interface is a masterpiece, and the game is absolutely crammed with memorable set pieces. Although it's nominally broken into five acts, they flow into each other so naturally you might not even notice the transition. There's nothing to get in between the player and the game; it's a recipe for long sessions and late nights.
Which, somewhat ironically, serves to underline Gears' one Achilles heel: the single-player game is shorter than you might wish. For us, we'll take Gears of War's intense, no-filler eight or so real-world hours over a lesser game's 20 - and it's a game you'll definitely want to replay on higher difficulty levels. Throw in the marvelously flexible co-op and versus multiplayer options and Gears of War has longevity enough for most, though if you really are stuck on your own you might burn out on it quicker than you'd like.
If you've been wondering why you lined up all night for an Xbox 360 this time last year, agonize no longer. This is the kind of game that sells systems, and if you have the merest action-loving bone in your body - and you can handle the gore, bad language, and short-ish play time -- it's pointless to resist. Gears of War is the best 360 game of 2006.
