Gears of War
By Kenneth Glenn
Tuesday. Feb 20, 2:16 PM
Gorgeous, bad ass, and over-the-top exciting.

Gears of War is one of the reasons I got an Xbox 360. As with many other people who saw the footage from the game back at E3 2005, I was dazzled by the graphics and giddy with excitement for the next generation of gaming. Of course it ultimately got delayed until this fall, which forced us all to patiently wait for its release, but the wait is now over… and, for the most part, the wait was well worth it.

Bottom line, Gears of War is gorgeous. I was in awe from the moment my character walked out of his prison cell at the very beginning of the game. The character models are superb and the details on them are amazing. The environments are just as dirty and gritty as your characters look, with rubble strewn about and the primarily European architecture in ruins. The textures on everything look great and hold up even after close inspection. The blood and gore also look very good (those queasy need not apply). Say what you will, but I love it. It reminds me of the days of super violent action movies, and this is the video game equivalent so why not live it up. Obviously, it should be mentioned that Gears of War is not for kids or pacifists.

While having beautiful graphics is all well and good, the real question is “does the gameplay live up to everything it was hyped to be?” Well, yes and no, but mostly yes. At its core, this is pretty much a third person action game with first person controls. The controls are very smooth and seem very natural to anyone familiar with this type of game. The one big separating factor of the gameplay, however, is the mechanics of taking cover. While it is possible to take some chances on casual mode and survive, without using cover effectively on the hardcore or insane settings you don't stand a chance. So you might think that being forced to use cover would slow down the action, but somehow it doesn't. Things still seem very frantic when bullets are whizzing over your head and you’re trying to peek out to see the enemy advancing. Taking cover changes the pacing of a battle, but doesn't slow it down. There is some light strategy involved sometimes, but it is typically a suggestion made by a teammate along the lines that you should flank some position. Also, in some rooms, you can use armoires and couches for cover, but they break into pieces if they take too many shots, so you have to think about what you're hiding behind. There are also creatures much like the ones in the movie Pitch Black that can't hurt you if you're in the light, but will tear you up if you're caught in the dark. This also adds some depth to the gameplay.

The storyline is pretty basic: you're a military squad fighting a swarm of aliens trying to take over your planet. It works to keep you interested enough to get to more killing, albeit on subsequent playthroughs I skipped all of the cut scenes after having seen them once. The voice acting is good for what it is. The characters are pretty gruff and some of the dialogue is pretty cheesy, but once again just think action movie. The sound effects are stellar: the gunfire and explosions have a lot of bass to them. Hitting guys with your gun has a nice thunk to it too, but what you really want is to saw them in half with the chainsaw attachment on one of your guns or shoot out their knees and curbstomp their head (did I mention this game isn't for the faint of heart?). These actions will give you some very visceral sound effects. The music fits well when you hear or notice it, which isn't very often. It usually gets lost under the sound of gunfire, explosions, and screaming. And actually, the lack of music during a lot of the down times between the battles give it a great atmosphere. Being able to hear the wind blow and the sound of your guys jogging along make the world seem very desolate.

My only hesitations about Gears of War are just minor quips. While playing through in the co-op campaign mode, I ran into several bugs. Some of this may have been because of lag, and most were solved either by ignoring them for a second or restarting at the last checkpoint, but for a couple I had to restart the Xbox. These few little bugs I found didn't present enough of a problem for me to not recommend this game, though. In fact, the only reason I ran into as many bugs as I did was because I couldn't stop playing this game. It’s that good. Another problem was with the driving sequence. It's pretty short, but what it lacks in length it makes up for in difficulty, making it a real pain. My final gripe is with the multiplayer. I don't tend to like the type of multiplayer where, after you get killed, you have to wait until next round to play again. I guess this is just a personal preference, but I wish they had incorporated modes that went both ways.

All in all, this is an excellent game with cutting edge graphics. I love how online co-op is becoming prevalent in many games, and I'm glad it was included in Gears of War. I highly recommend this game for anyone who doesn't mind a little violence and profanity.

Kenneth Glenn

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