Gears of War

Let's face it, most video games are a dime a dozen. Every genre has its standard bag of tricks. The simple premise of shooters makes them an easy target. Run. Shoot. Kill. Gears of War changes it up slightly. Here, running around in the open will quickly get you killed, making your only alternative to take cover behind anything you can find. Walls, columns, doorways, rubble, sandbags, couches. Like in real combat, if the enemy can see you, you're already dead.

The campaign plays out over a series of Acts each with about 5 chapters where you take on the role of Marcus Fenix; an imprisoned soldier of the Coalition of Organized Governments (COG), commonly known as, Gears. An apparently, tough as dirt team of huge soldiers wearing bigger armor - that, despite lots of wear and tear, has a tendency to be exceptionally shiny on the edges. The story never really explains, or even hints at why you were imprisoned, though it becomes quickly obvious that you're not entirely welcome back on the force.

Your first mission will be to escape the abandoned prison where you've been held - with the aid of the man that's busting you out in the first place. First time players will have the option of completing a brief game play tutorial before jumping into the battle, while experienced players can get right to the action. From here on out you can expect a lot of non-stop peek-and-shoot combat as you battle against the Locust. An alien invasion that's managed to embed itself underground in a series of complex tunnels in its ongoing effort to eliminate the human race. Your objective will be to place a type of 'bomb' called the Resonator, that will map these tunnels. Once the tunnels are mapped, a massive bomb will be used to eradicate the Locust.

Personally, I felt the difficulty of Gears stays pretty constant throughout the campaign. Although some characters are tougher than others, really, no stage of the game is more difficult than others. The challenge will come mostly from the number of enemies you have to face. On the easiest setting (Casual), this is never overwhelming and you can usually depend on your teammates to do a fair job of assisting. As you up the difficulty, however, you're faced with greater numbers and your teammates seem to get dumber. You can generally count on someone dying in just about every fight and in the bigger fights, you'll more often be the last one standing. There is an ability to revive your teammates in the midst of a fight, but this usually means running into whatever clearing they were dumb enough to get into in the first place, in which there's little chance for survival. Alternatively, killing all the enemies will revive everyone automatically and this is most often the way to go. Most of the battles can be pretty intense, especially as you up the difficulty, but many enemies have a simple weakness that, once exploited, make certain scenes a bit too easy and anti-climatic. Part of the fun, I think, is discovering these weaknesses by simply observing how different characters behave. But once you find them, they become somewhat routine.

Overall though, the difficulty could have used a bit more tweaking. From "Casual," the next setting is "Hardcore" and from there you go to "Insane." By name alone it sounds like a big jump and it certainly translates to gameplay. Enemies don't necessarily become harder to kill, there are mearly more of them and they have better accuracy. If you were able to cruise through the story on the Casual setting, you'll find yourself replaying many fights over and over as you up the difficulty. These are almost random fights though and not the "boss" fights that you'd expect to be tougher. Personally, I found the upping the difficulty had the most impact on fights when normally weak enemies swarm over you is giant numbers. As your AI teammates become more and more ineffective, this can get frustrating. Yet, the areas that feel like they were meant to be the most challenging were still relatively easy.

Though most of the game employs the same tactics of taking cover, then popping out momentarily to shoot, there are a few instances where the pacing is changed up such as driving the "Junker" through a rubble covered highway while fending off the flying Kryll or trying to defeat enemies that can't be killed through conventional weapons.

Really what defines Gears of War is your ability to take cover with the tap of a button. Obviously, hiding behind objects is nothing new and more and more games are using a cover mechanism. But Gears does it so seamlessly, with such fluidity, that the action become effortless and natural. In reality, there are few times when you won't be behind cover and once there, you'll have a number of options to poke your head out and shoot or quickly move to another position all while staying as hidden as possible.

Gears' simple, yet effective, means of taking cover is just one of the many aspects that set it apart from other shooters. To state the obvious, Gears of War is visually remarkable. The fact that is just won at the Video Game Awards for Best Graphics is a testament to this. But as with anything, it's the attention to detail that allows something to rise above the rest. With Gears of War, it's hard to feel as though any detail was left out. Textures are tremendously rich and never looked aliased or stretched. Smoke rises in clouds and wisps from burning buildings and cars. Rain comes down in heavy sheets against a black sky as it falls on drenched mud, concrete and steel.

Above all, the lighting sets an intense and brooding mood; adapting well to whatever location you're in - whether it's being filtered through paned glass, burning red from a sky of fire, or barely there at all as you struggle to avoid being decimated by what lies in the darkness. Gears also manages to find a good balance of visibility in light and dark while still maintaining excellent contrast and definition.

Gears offers a simple, attractive interface that matches the gritty, destroyed feel of the game. Though the only time you'll notice it is in the game selection menu. While fighting, everything disappears leaving no part of your view obscured. While you're shooting you'll get a small display showing your current weapon and ammunition level - which disappears when not being used. If you get a hit, a red gear will appear in the middle of the screen and grow in intensity as you take more damage. Stay out of the line of fire long enough and it, too, will disappear as your health recovers. Your health also recovers fairly quickly which helps keep the game moving quickly. A nice balance since you don't have much health to begin with. One of my favorite features of the interface - though one you hope to never see - is when you've taken heavy damage - or are in the midst of grinding up a Locust with your mounted chainsaw, is the thick blood that's splattered across the screen. At times it can be so thick that it's hard to see a thing, giving a great sense of panic to already intense situations.

For such a high quality game, it's a shame that the voice acting isn't held to the same standard. That's not to say that it's bad, the pacing is just very choppy and the voices don't really match the size and toughness of the characters. The dialog itself is pretty decent however, and characters will make remarks throughout the campaign, whether scripted or situational, that really adds flavor and suits their personalities well. In other aspects, the audio is exceptional and everything sounds just as good as it looks. You'll really feel explosions or the sudden presence of an Emergence Hole just by the way they sound. Gameplay is complemented by a variety of musical scores that adapt to the situation and accentuate the feel of the environment yet are never distracting or overpowering.

It's a shame that this game only clocks in at around 10 hours. Even a more polished and thought out storyline could have made up for the short campaign. If you enjoy playing through the same story over and over, you'll get some good replay value by completing the game on the different difficulty levels - though completing it on Hardcore will automatically unlock the points for Casual. (You'll have to beat it once to unlock Insane.) The bulk of replay here is going to come from the co-op and online multiplayer modes. Both of which are well implemented and easy to get into. While playing through the campaign alone, you can even have a friend jump in at any point and take control of one of your AI teammates. For those that count Achievement Points, there's a hefty dose to be had in the multi-player mode for everything from hosting a certain number of sessions to getting kills in different ways. And although none of the Achievements come easily (with the exception of completing the Training Mission), none of them seem impossibly out of reach.

In the end, Gears of War is a worthy addition to the Shooter genre. It offers a nice change of pace by bridging the gap between typical Run-N-Gun shooters and slower, tactical, squad based action. There'll be no surviving if you simply run out hoping to take everyone down before they can kill you, but there's a sense of urgency and a fluid rhythm that keeps the game play moving at a steady clip.