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Gears of War is a high energy, well detailed sci fi shooter set in a dismal future. You are a muscular, well trained soldier wearing pounds of gear, armor and weapons and it'll barely be enough to keep you alive.
This game is compared frequently to Halo, but if Halo is the lighthearted ease of Star Wars, Gears of War is the non-stop assault and clinging to life of Alien. You're not jumping around like a kangaroo here, blasting at foes. You are heavily laden, crouching behind anything you can find to shield you, trying your best to stay alive for five more minutes. You have to work strategically with your fellow soldiers to climb forward every inch.
The graphics in Gears of War are very impressive. The game is done in a palatte of browns, greys and reds. The dismal skies above, the swarms of black birds, the dented and dingy equipment this is a world on the verge of despair. Enemies don't stand out with brightly colored costumes. You have to really pay attention to know where they are and to take them out.
The sounds really help drive home the urgency of your mission. Voices cry out on all sides for help. The hammering of the machine guns and rapid fire weapons ring in your ears. The soundtrack is pounding and epic. If anything this is all TOO pounding after playing this for weeks, I really can get a headache :) I'd turn it down, but then I wouldn't be able to tell where the enemies were sniping me from sometimes.
The storyline really helps involve you in what is going on. It's like being at the center of a high power action movie. There are decisions you can make along the way to help guide the story. I really enjoy the "fight for every inch of soil" way it has you feel like you are involved in a real challenge. It might seem TOO challenging for some new gamers. Stick with it it's well worth it.
I do wish, with all of their emphasis on taking cover and being cautious that you could CROUCH. I understand not being able to jump you're wearing hundreds of pounds of gear! However, you can crouch behind cover. Why can't you crouch when you're not near cover, to lower your profile a bit? I think that would help out in some situations.
Still, that's a minor complaint for a fantastic game. If you're a mature gamer (there's a fair amount of blood here) that enjoys shooters, definitely pick this one up!
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Aside from a few really great games, I HATE first person shooters. The reason for this is that I grew up cutting my teeth on "real world" combat games like BB gun fights (way way back) and have about 12 years of Paintball under my belt.One simply cannot run around in the open, circle strafing around your opponent while hopping like a jackrabbit on crank and hope to accomplish anything other than experiencing pain and a quick ticket to the dead zone.
That's why I was glad to hear that Cliffy B and the team at Epic were working on a more "real world" combat style for Gears of War.
There is nothing more annoying than logging into an online FPS game and witnessing players pressing and holding the jump button (bunny hopping) and searching for targets that they can circle around like a shark. It kills the experience and it makes for gimicky gameplay that eliminates the tactics needed in combat, and thus for me, most of the fun.
Gears of War is not that kind of game.
Gears is build around a "stop and pop" play mechanic and anyone who plays this game looking to "Run and gun" or "bunny hop" is going to be in for a world of hurt.
Gears forces you to take cover, think out plans of attack, and fight it out with your enemies in a much more realistic manner. There isn't even a jump button to press. There is a contextual button (very similar to the way Nintendo's latest Zelda games really only use one button to accomplish many feats. The context sensitive button will allow you to dive into cover, leap over barriers, get low and run for cover, get tight to the wall, roll out of the way, or jump from cover to cover. So no bunny hopping at all...
To compliment the realistic maneuvering there is realistic gun play. The developers have really emphasized real world combat in this game. It's all about your cover and knowing when to pop out and fire. They've thrown in shooting from the hip (firing in the direction your are facing and not very accurate), aimed fire (get a bead on your enemies and come out from behind cover to get accurate shots) and blind firing (sicking your gun over the top of your cover point and blindly firing rounds in the opponent's general direction). To make matters even more realistic, you have active reload which means that you can basically wait until the clip is empty and reload at a ordinary pace or you can wit until the clip is almost empty and actively reload your gun. Do it right and you reload faster and get a brief damage bonus to your rounds. Do it wrong and the gun jams and you have to clear the jam. AWESOME! It's about as close to real world combat as you can get in a computer game.
Gears of War is a masterpiece of graphics, game play and fun. While it seems that the concept of using cover and popping up to fire off a few rounds before taking cover again as your opponent opens up on you sounds like it could get repetitive, Gears keeps it all so fresh with different kinds of environments, places to sneak into that give you a tactical advantage, and fights where you will really have to fight to make it through alive.
Luckily the Developers didn't stop with realistic play mechanics and gorgeous high-definition graphics. They also saw fit to include AI opponents and team mates that are actually intelligent. Your squad mates will slug it out and move intelligently in battles. Sure, they aren't as smart as having a buddy play along side you, but the developers even threw in a Co-op mode for that. The enemies are very intelligent as well, constantly trying to move in on you or your team mates or flanking to your side and opening up angles on you. You can't just find cover and get comfortable. You have to know where your enemy is and move to cut them off or they'll end up right on top of you ready to take you down.
That's where the Chainsaw comes in handy... Or a frag grenade... :)
For all the realism of the actual combat in Gears of War, there are also the "over the top" moves... The Chainsaw, smacking an opponent with a frag grenade and having it stick in 'em, coming up on downed opponents and givin' 'em a curb stomp, and etc.
This is not your typical video game. This is truly meant to be enjoyed by adult gamers. The language is "real" and adult, the story line is complex enough, but not over the top, and gore can get excessive (what do you expect when you jam a frag grenade into your opponent's chest or drive a chainsaw through their torso?) but it never stops being a fun experience even for grizzled old gamers like me.
The control scheme takes a little getting used to, but it's not so complex that it intimidates you and the multi-player and co-op modes are worth the $60 price tag alone. If you own a 360, Gears of War should be on your game shelf right next to Dead Rising as the two great examples of Next Generation gaming at it's best. I cannot recommend this game enough.
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I'm a Halo FREAK. I love Bungie's masterpiece and will count the days until Halo3 comes outbut Gears of War destroyed my expectations of what a FPS could be like. Gears does things on a level I thought this generation of hardware was incapable of doing! I never would have thought that graphics like this were possible you simply MUST SEE IT to BELIEVE IT! The high resolution screenshots on the web do NOT do this game justice. And the music is AMAZING to hear in the heat of combat.And the combatnothing touches this. Your teeth will be clinched TIGHT the entire timeevery bullet is a potential killer and you feel TERRIFIED as the cover you're behind begins to fall apart while Horde forces are flanking your position!! I can not give this game any higher praise than to say it sets the bar so high, I'm only hoping that Halo3 will be able to touch it!
Game of the Year -no DOUBT in my mind
Honest reviews on Gears Of War - Xbox 360
I just went out a few weeks ago and bought a Xbox 360 console along with Call of Duty 3 and Gears of War. I've always been a PC computer gamer myself for years because I always thought that PC computer games had much better graphics than any console game out there.Personally, I love World War II games and when Call of Duty 3 first came out I noticed it didn't come out for the PC. I just had to have Call of Duty 3 so I decided I had to go out and buy a Xbox 360 console so I could play Call of Duty 3. I ended up playing Call of Duty 3 first before I played Gears of War. I played the single player part of Call of Duty 3 all the way through and I really like the game. I love playing first person shooters.
Well I heard alot about Gears of War and I thought to myself even though this game is a third person shooter, I would still go out and buy Gears of War to see what all the fuss was all about. To be honest with you, I wasn't too sure if I like the game since Gears of War is a third person shooter. But I wanted to be fair and give this game a chance, because lets be honest, most games aren't cheap anymore. So I wanted to out and try to buy the best game for my money out there.
I really like Call of Duty 3 but when I played the single player part of Gears of War, I was blown away by how smart the AI is for the both the enemy and allied soldiers and the amazing graphics. You don't have to tell fellow soldiers what to do, they're smart enough on their own just to go out and try to find some cover. Same goes with the enemy. They will try to use cover whenever they can and they will try to outflank you and try to overcome you with sheer numbers. I thought the battles in this game were better than the battles in Call of Duty 3 and that's saying alot right there.
Gears of War is by far one of the best games out there, period. It doesn't matter which gaming platform it is. No PC computer game, PlayStation 2 or 3 game, GameCube, Nintendo Wii, Xbox, or other Xbox 360 game comes close to this game. I have a top of the line Dell PC computer and the graphics in this game are much better than the computer games on my Dell computer. I honestly thought I would never find a console game which would have better graphics than a PC computer game.
My hat is off to the developers of this game. You definitely have a moneymaker here. I can already picture endless expansion games to Gears of War in the future. If you can't decide which game to go and buy, go get a Xbox 360 and give this game a shot. You won't regret it.
I noticed Gears of War is getting extremely high ratings on all the gaming websites on the internet. It wouldn't surprise me if the developers of this game have already been approach by a movie director out of Hollywood to do a movie on this game. It's that good. If someone does decide to do a movie on this game, believe me I'll be one of the first ones in line to go see it.
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The other day, while I was sitting in a computer class, a friend of mine asked me if I was going to buy any of the new consoles. I said probably not, because I've drifted away from console gaming, and gotten into computer gaming. Then he mentioned Gears of War, a game I remembered seeing a video of from E3 or something like that. After watching a couple new videos, I realized that I hadn't been this hyped about a game since Halo 2.All day today, I've been anticipating my friend buying this game...after a long day of school, and a band rehersal that was obligatory, I rushed over to his house and barged in the door. They said to me, "This is the best game I have ever played." I quickly saw why.
The visuals are amazing. The techniques are amazing. The weapons are amazing. The action is perfect. The controls felt natural after 5 minutes of playing. The A.I is amazing. The whole thing is the definition of a good game. But let's get on to the multiplayer. That's where the game gets good.
After logging on to XBox Live and playing for about 10 minutes while switching off with my friends (We didn't take the time to see if more than one person could play off of one xbox), it hit me that I had never gotten so excited after being killed. I wasn't angry at all. That's because even though you die, there's something enjoyable about getting your head smashed in, American History X style.
This game is the best shooter I think that I've ever played. It's the perfect blend of Halo, Counterstrike, and Splinter Cell. I only hope that it gets the recognition it deserves, so we can get a sequel.
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