Gears of War

Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? What we have here in Epic’s Gears of War is nothing shy of an overly hyped brain dead gore fest. In Gears of War you play as Marcus Fenix, a big overly buffed badass, with an even more badass attitude and peanut sized brain. Fenix is all about brawn and no brains, which seems to be something all the characters in Gears of War share in common. The Game opens with Fenix being busted out of a military prison where some not so great things have been taking place. Fenix is in prison because he was labeled a traitor, but what he did to earn that title players never learn. In fact, Gears of War is great at throwing things such as this at you through out the course of the game, but never provides players with any answers. With your friends you escape the prison and are immediately placed in active service. You will move as part of a squad composed of equally buffed and brainless buffoons and help take action against the Locust, which are a race of subterranean alien bug species that came to the surface and are actively destroying humanity, for what reason no one knows. Of course, no great action game would be complete if you weren’t mankind’s only hope of survival. This happens later in the game. You are given a mission. Get from point A to point B. At point B detonate the bomb, which should kill the Locust and save humanity. Can we say clichéd? The story never drifts away from this and is practically nonexistent in the game. What little story there is suffers from a laughably poor script and can be easily beaten within twelve hours. Mostly, the story is just used as an excuse to have you shoot things in one location, move to another location and shoot more things while you are on the move, only to shoot even more things when you get there. It’s like Killzone, only without the technical problems and much more machismo. Aside from the single player campaign, Gears of War also supports a couple multiplayer modes. You can co-op the single player story with a friend, which forces each of you to sign into your Xbox LIVE accounts to do. This annoying, because it makes it so you can’t just jump into the game. Also, if you are playing with someone who isn’t familiar with Xbox LIVE and/or doesn’t have a LIVE account it is a real hindrance and can be very frustrating. The other thing that is not so great here is that only the account of the 1st player receives the achievement points and achievements you unlock as you play. So player two, if you are looking to acquire those points as well you’re out of luck. Aside from the co-op mode there are several multiplayer death match modes you can play with your friends across several arenas. These can be played off line or online, provided you have a gold Xbox LIVE account. The arenas tend to be small in comparison to the number of people that are in them, which makes things feel rather cramped. On the other hand though, it makes things very fast paced, which means you never leave the action.

Control wise Gears of War is pretty straight forward. You move about and adjust the camera with the two control sticks. Shooting is done with the trigger buttons, and the A, B, X and Y buttons are used for other standard functions, such as opening doors and melee attacks. It should be noted here that while the controls are good, they feel unresponsive at times and some things, such as movement, just generally feel clunky all around and could have been better. Gears of War brings some interesting new features to the table. For instance, one of your guns has a chainsaw bayonet on the end of it, so when you get close to an enemy with this thing, rather than just bash them to death with it, you can chainsaw them in half. They scream while blood and gore fly everywhere and spatter across the screen, and it’s really satisfying, because most of the time it’s not the easiest thing to do. Another cool new feature is that when a teammate goes down, rather than have them simply be dead and gone you can go over to them and bring them back in the fight with the press of a button. Obviously, this isn’t the most realistic feature, since a pat on the back can’t repair the damage those bullets have done to your body, but it’s a nice feature and keeps things interesting, especially in multiplayer.

Graphically Gears of War is an absolute masterpiece to behold. Currently, you won’t find a game on the market with more detailed environments, characters, actions, and effects. The game runs smooth too, with very little decrease in frame rate. If you are looking for eye candy in a game, look no further than Gears of War, as it is really an amazing show piece for what the Xbox 360 can do.

The Audio in Gears of War is excellent as well. The shrieks of Locust and harsh rattle of gunfire will keep you on the edge of your seat. The game also supports a fully voiced cast, and all the actors who lended their talent to it did a superb job.

Technically speaking, Gears of War is an absolute masterpiece. The game’s visuals are amazing, the sound is solid, and the controls work. However, as a whole Gears of War is all flash and no substance. Gears of War is very good at what it does, and that is letting you kill things in gorgeous environments and earn achievement points for it. Yet, the lack luster story and lack of depth ultimately leaves Gears of War a shallow experience, which will leave those looking for more than just shooting things unsatisfied.