Console Sweetness in PC Form
Every console generation has a handful of games that will be remembered for years to come as the standard bearers of their era. Gears of War will very likely go down in history as one of those games from this current console generation. Epic designed the title from the ground up with the XBOX 360 in mind and the game plays phenomenally on the system. Of course it was only a matter of time before Microsoft decided to bring their new franchise to the PC.
At the time the game came out on PC I was unable to play it because my computer just wasn’t equipped to do so. But after getting a shiny new gaming laptop and finding the title for cheap online I set out to experience Gears of War for the first time again. To be honest my play through of Gears of War on the PC marks the seventh time I have played through the single player campaign of this game and if the game featured no additional content (it does) I would probably not have given it a shot, except for the points.
The game features mouse and keyboard support but after attempting to use it and fumbling miserably I decided to just play the game with an XBOX 360 controller. If you have played Gears of War on the console, Gears on the PC with the controller handles exactly the same. The game looks slightly better on the PC and providing you have a nice audio set-up, sounds fantastic as well. So, it probably seems like playing Gears of War on the PC is a giant waste of time (outside of the points of course) but that would be a slight bit unfair because Gears on the PC does offer a more fleshed out story due to the inclusion of a few additional chapters of play.
My biggest complaint with the original Gears was the paper-thin story. The world was so rich with possibility, the setting and characters, particularly Marcus, felt like they had a back-story but sadly the game never delved into any of these in any real detail. Anyway, I am getting off track. The game despite having very little plot at least felt like a day in the life of Delta Squad, that is until the start of the fifth chapter. Somehow after escaping from the Fenix Estate by the skin of their teeth they just magically arrive at the train station. It is probably extremely nit-picky but I was really bothered by the lack of reasoning behind their arrival at the train station and fortunately the PC version fixes this adding a few additional chapters that help flesh out the story somewhat.
From a gameplay standpoint the additional chapters add nothing new to the experience. It is just more of the standard Gears gameplay and that is a good thing. Outside of those chapters though the game doesn't add anything to the experience of Gears of War except for the fact that, unlike its console sibling, finding a multiplayer game is near impossible.
Fans of the game's universe may want to check out the additional chapters but for the most part if you have played the game on the 360 this is pretty much the same thing. However if you are a points addict, you can get a separate set of Gears achievements for playing this version. On the other hand if you have yet to play Gears of War, don't have a 360 and have a PC that will run it then Gears on the PC is well worth the bargain price you can probably find the game for now even without the multiplayer experience.
