Gears of War Review
At first I was somewhat disappointed by GoW, I’d watched too many trailers, so suddenly I wasn’t as impressed by the visuals. It felt like a very polished shooter, but seemed to have nothing else.
Well I spent some more time, and now I’m loving it. The visuals are amazing! But the cover-gun-run-chainsaw-curbstomp-dive-activereload-run-gun-duck gameplay is just too much fun.
Taking the biscuit was co-op last night with my brother. We used to have 10 hour Halo sessions when we met up at Xmas, co-cop is how games are meant to be played. With GoW though, it’s just like paintball. Walk along and suddenly the Locust are on you, jup for the nearest bit of cover, blind fire over the top to make the Locust retreat a little, wait for them to be engaging cover, leap up into a roadie-run for the next piece of cover that gives you a slightly better angle, or just a closer shot. Pre-aim the targeting reticle by adjusting the camera angle, aim and leave cover momentarily to pump a few bullets into your chosen victim, release aim and jump back into cover. Inch along the wall to the edge. Press A to leap across the gap to another piece of cover. Mean while a locust has been flanking you, he sneaks up and jumps over the wall you are hiding behind, chainsaw comes out, you luckily get the chance to rev it up and GRRRRRRRAAAA!!! down goes one locust.
Action in shooters has never been quite so intense. You take hardly any damage before you die so cover is essential and it makes the gameplay that much are anxious and exciting. The enemy on Hardcore difficulty (medium), is clever and makes good use of cover and strategy.
Visually it’s fantastic. The textures rarely pixelate, the unreal engine makes everything look stunning, and some parts photorealistic, although these are usually fleeting and let down by slightly off animation or physics. The animation of the main characters is really polished and a joy to behold. The voice acting is spot on. The story is tentative, but you can see it there under the surface and is fun to reveal, although it hasn’t grabbed my attention and I don’t care about it much.
But the game deserves it’s huge acclaim because it is fun, it is well-produced, it was made with love and it is extremely polished. The controls show so much love where most games ignore them, move the joysticks and the camera moves at exactly the right speed, the transition between walk and run happens at the right point. It is very rare that the magic A button doesn’t make you move to the piece of cover you intended.
If only Xbox 360 was slightly cheaper, I’d command you to go out and buy one. But still, if you want to treat yourself, buy one, get GoW, and write down your gamer-id below if you fancy playing online co-op with me 