Gears of War

On the eve of the PS3's release, Epic delivers the best Xbox 360 game yet. Finally, Emergence Day is here.
Version
 Xbox 360		Developer
Epic Games		Publisher
Microsoft		Genre
Third-person shooter



By Alex Wollenschlaeger

I thought Gears of War would end up being what it looked like - a fairly bland Angry Space Marines game with a gimmicky stop-and-pop add-on to familiar gameplay. In some ways, that's not far off the mark. But Gears of War is much more than that, and it has pushed the bar higher for not only Xbox 360 developers, but PlayStation 3 ones too. Let me explain.

"Once you're sweeping between cover points, you can't imagine it being any other way."

Gears of War is unashamedly a game about cover and the many ways it can affect the flow of gun battles. This isn't new, but the way Epic has approached it is. Moving in and out of cover is a fluid process that has been wrenched out of your full control. Instead of you having to duck and dive and twist around corners, there are context sensitive controls that let you hug walls, crouch behind cars, or run between pillars. It's not the easiest system to get comfortable with, but once you do and you're sweeping between cover points, you can't imagine it being any other way.

Cover is also the best example of why this game could not have been done as anything but a third-person shooter. That you can see your exquisitely detailed, hulking character is a big plus, but going third-person has allowed Epic to introduce blind firing - staying in cover and shooting without looking. You lose the accuracy but make up for it by keeping out of harms way. Here, too, there is a learning curve, since you have to figure out how to aim this way, but once you start bumping up the difficulty levels and the onslaught becomes more vicious, you'll be glad you schooled yourself.

Another gameplay quirk that I came to love was the active reload. Essentially, this gives you not only a faster reload but also a boost in firepower if you time it just right. A minor point perhaps, but you'll be thankful for that extra burst when one of the games massive enemies is just yards away, and it injects a rhythmic to-and-fro to gunplay, adding grace to the angry spurts of bullets from the well-balanced array of weapons.

"It injects a rhythmic to-and-fro to gunplay, adding grace to the angry spurts of bullets."

It's not technically perfect though, and AI in particular can be bothersome at times. Enemies are smart enough that they'll come after you, going in and out of cover as they near, but they have a habit of getting stuck in corners when they're right on top of you - something you can exploit. Your own team AI, too, falls short sometimes. I had to make it through a few areas at one stage because my teammate was stuck behind a door in a mansion. Good thing, then, that you can bring in another person for co-operative play.

My assumptions about the game were largely based on the stuff Epic showed off in the months before release. You may have the impression that there's not much variety in the locations, but the reality is a lot more pleasing - and frightening.

"As you move through the game an ominous tone builds and keeps you on edge."

As you shift between gorgeously rendered and sumptuously lit crumbling cityscapes, rainy forests, frightening night scenes and underground caverns, an ominous tone builds in the game, keeping you on edge, waiting either for the vile Locust to attack, their battle cries a warning of the looming fire-fight, or for some other bugaboo to pounce from the shadows. This rising sense of dread is reflected by the score, which flows from subtle to grandiose and back again. The entire package is one of the most atmospheric experiences I've had.

P L E A S E   V I S I T   O U R   S P O N S O R :

This tension is carried over to the multiplayer components, which while limited to just four-on-four, feels anything but small. The cover system has the side effect of adding a hide-and-seek element to multiplayer, where a thinking human opponent bypasses the few AI flaws that hamper the singleplayer experience. And really, is there anything more satisfying than flanking somebody and grinding through them with your weapon's chainsaw?

For Gears of War, then, it turns out that the sum is bigger than the parts. Forget everything you've heard about it. This is a game that you will only start to truly appreciate once you play it yourself. Though the action is short-lived, there's more than enough reason to continue playing, alone or with friends. Emergence Day is here, and Epic has given us the most important reason yet to own an Xbox 360.











Graphics Sound Gameplay Depth Presentation OVERALL
9.0 9.0 9.0 7.0 8.0 9.0


THE VERDICT: Gears of War didn't grab me right away but the more I played it and the better I got at using the cover system the more I wanted to play it, and by the time I finished I was sad to see it end. More games should be like this. This is an atmospheric, tense and beautiful dance in space marine armour that knows just how much to give you to leave you wanting more.













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