Gears of War

Gears of War was released in 2006 for the Xbox 360 and became an instant hit with gamers and critics and can be considered the Xbox equivalent to resident Evil 4 for GameCube, and PS2. Gears starts out with Marcus Fenix in his prison cell, imprisoned for disobeying orders and attempting to save his dad's life. He failed and was sentenced to forty years, but the sentence was cut short as the prison was emptied and the inmates were all recruited to join the C.O.G. army to fight against the Locust Horde, a large army of mole like creatures without the fur and with sharp pointy teeth. The Locust have one goal in mind: the complete anhilation of human life on the planet Sera. The game goes from the prison scenery to several other areas including and underground mining facility, a refugee campsite flooded with Kryll, a bat like ravenous bird that will kill you, fast.

The gameplay in Gears isn't anything special or groundbreaking but it uses a duck and cover system used by going against any flat surface and tapping the space bar. Melee attacks are preformed by either the B of F keys (and if you're smart you'll change it to the left Shift key of some other more comfortable position.) Most weapons have a basic whack your opponent with the side of your gun melee attack, but the lancer assault rifle has a chainsaw bayonet which provides an instant kill. Grenades also have a special melee ability in that they stick to the enemy that is in your sights. The final special attack is the blade on the torque bow but it's the least interesting of the trio.

The game consists of five acts with numerous chapters in each. Roughly 80% of these chapters are the same as the 360 version but the beginning of act five starts off the new chapters which more than doubles the length of the final act which normally could of been completed within an hour. The new chapters are well made and provide closure to the Brumak scene at the end of act four but are by no mean a reason to trade your 360 version in and pick up the PC version. The Brumak boss battle is disappointingly easy for a game with such a high difficulty level, but it is fun to play and shows promise for a large scale conflict with two or three Brumaks in the sequel.

In addition to the new chapters there is also two new multiplayer maps and a new game mode, if you can find anyone to play it with. Seriously, the multiplayer is a whole lot of fun in this game, it's just there aren't enough people playing at once to really get a good game going. And as for the online co-op, forget about it. Very rarely will you find one, thats ONE, co-op game that you can join to try and get the Dom themed achievements.

Dell recently scrapped the dimension line of PCs and have replaced them with the Inspiron series which are the bare basics for Windows Vista PCs. Running on one you can get near Xbox 360 quality gameplay with minor lag (mostly minor) and some jaggies here and there if you just play with it for a while. Be forewarned though, integrated graphics are not your friend. For those who mock those like me with fairly weak PCs, Gears will look beautiful. There are more details in this version than the 360 version although there is still some very minor lag even with the greatest of PCs.

The soundtrack is very atmospheric and moody which works well in its favor. The sound effects are usually dead on with some stuttering during the cut scenes, something Half Life 2 player may know a little bit about.

To do anything in this game requires a Games for Windows LIVE account which is the same service as Xbox LIVE. In fact the only difference between the Windows LIVE service and the Xbox LIVE service is that PC gamers get the benefit of typing on a keyboard in full complete sentences while our console inferiors are stuck with an on screen keyboard. The LIVE multiplayer components require a Gold account, a month of which is free after registering your code online, and achievements for multiplayer (save for the co-op ones) cannot be earned without Gold.

Achievements in this game are not hard to get for the single player experience but the multiplayer achievements require a tedious amount of hours to unlock all of them. The most notable is a required 10,000 kill on a ranked match which requires LIVE Gold. The achievements are separate from the 360 version so buying both will earn you 2 sets of achievements.

All of the controls of the 360 version are available with the use of a 360 controller. All in all the keyboard and mouse add very little to the experience but at the same time take nothing away. This is a very solid port with several glitches, very few of which are game ruining, but can be overcome on nearly all occasions. One moment in my history stands out as I went to walk forward to hug a wall when I was lifted three feet above the ground unable to be moved from my position. On a humorous occasion I was hurled 15 feet directly to the right which worked out as I was headed that way anyways.

Basically it comes down to this: While the LIVE service is a drag for PC gamers it is a good way to keep in touch with friends. If you have any intention of buying a 360 later on this game will make you feel better about buying a years worth of the LIVE service for your console with only one or two games on it. There is also a map editor with all the tool Epic used to create the game, but you have to search the installation process to install it and even then it might not install. Despite the glitches and the occasional lag this is a solid purchase that any PC gamer should be glad to have in their collection.