OK, so the story goes like this:
Several years ago on a planet inhabitted by humans, an invasion occured, but where humans always thought an invasion would come from space, it came from deep within the planet. The Locust Horde attacked on what would later be called E-day (or Emergence day). Attacking every major city on the planet, the horde decimated millions in their initial attack.
With the ability to come out of the ground in droves practically anywhere, the humans realized that they were going to made extinct and their beautiful planet left to these… creatures. So in an effort to try and fight back, the humans began using chemical and particle beam weapons on their own soil, so that even if they loct the war eventually, the spoils would be ruined. And that was what it became, a burnt-out hellhole of a planet where everything has either been blown to smithereens or left to decay. The smell of death is everywhere.
Into this war comes Marcus Fenix, a hard-as-nails, take no prisoners type of soldier who was bred to do one thing: fight. Marcus made a name for himself as an ass-kicking death machine when it came to fighting the Locust. The kind of guy you could bring with you to a biker bar in order to collect a debt, and then walk out with five minutes later with your money in hand. Marcus made one mistake though, he disobeyed orders in an effort to save his father who was being attacked by the Locust horde. Doing so landed him a 40-year sentence at Jacinto Maximum Security Penitentiary.
But now, the humans have come up with a plan to win the war and take back the planet, but they need everybody to help out, and since the Locust have already began attacking the prison, why not free Marcus and hope he feels the same way. And oh yeah, let’s give him a gun and hope a few years in a stinking, rotten, corpse-filled prison has turned his disposition sunny. Fat chance of that, but he’s no fool, our man Marcus is at his best when things are at their worst, and that’s when the game begins; with things at their worst.
GoW is a third person run-and-gun all-out action title. As the anti-hero Marcus, you begin things in a very bleak and war-torn environment. The game has you running like mad in order to survive and of course, kill as many things that you can.
The folks at Epic games and Microsoft Studios were not one to rest on their laurels, so they decided to do things a bit differently this time. First thing you will notice, the game has no targeting icon when you run around. Instead the game has you relying on the particles that fly off of objects you shoot in order to adjust your aim.
If you see blood globbing out of the Locust scum you are shooting, then great, you’re hitting what you need to hit. Not to say there isn’t any sort of aiming reticule, when you use the weapons that feature a zoom function, the reticule appears in order to make those critical shots just a bit easier.
The next thing you will notice are the graphics, and I don’t mean how the Locust themselves look, or the landscapes, no we’re into a whole other realm when it comes to visuals now…
The graphics aren’t just awesome, they are beyond awesome. As you watch cutscenes or even the in-game action, the little things are sooooo vivid. The tattoos on the arms of the soldiers in your unit, the damage on the armor from previous battles the gristle and goo from the damage an enemy takes. It’s all so clear and sharp looking. When you look at a soldier, I kid you not, you can see the tattoo on his arm, some soot and dirt, the glistening of sweat and then the striations of the muscles in his arms. It’s un-frickin believeable, this is a leap forward in graphics, people are calling it the first “true” next generation title out there.
The Locust Horde themselves, look so mean, their overly large mouths filled with these “real” looking vicious teeth. If ever there was an army of boogeymen who sprang out from under the beds of children, these are they, and they are mean and nasty. And don’t think for one minute that a race of underground-dwellers would have some sort of underdeveloped war machine. No, they are as advanced as the human race, they have modern weapons, brilliant strategies and now, the numbers.
These creatures as you can imagine, are incredibly resiliant both in mind and body. Locust shoot directly at you, forcing you to cover as three more try and run to your side in order to catch you in a crossfire. They throw grenades in order to force you out of a hiding place, they place gun turrets in critical places and then wait for you to over advance before they start in on the other gun turret that you never saw. It’s a bloody and deadly game that has you moving fast and thinking faster.
Fortunately, you do run around with other similarly intelligent (A.I.) soldiers who will engage in firefights allowing you to move off to the side to go for the easy kill. They both give orders, and take them depending on where you are in the game. If a fellow soldier goes down in the heat of battle, you have the ability to go and revive them, if you are fast enough. It’s a unique and interesting dynamic since it’s not like you go over and start administering CPR or anything, more like you run to your fallen comrade and then grab them, saying something inspiring like “Get your ass in gear!” Clearly the developers wanted Marcus to maintain his hard edged demeanor regardless of the situation.
Taking a tip from both Halo 2 and Call of Duty 3, the game has no sort of health system. No “I’m low on health, let’s find a health pack” scenario. Nope, not here, when you begin taking damage a red gear begins appearing in the center of the screen, the more damage you take, the redder the gear gets. If you take cover and avoid further damage, your character recovers fully and then you can continue to fight.
If the gear gets so red that the skull appears, well, then you’ve taken too much damage and you are dead. This is something that will happen quite frequently in GoW. Luckily, the game has a gamer-friendly save system that makes checkpoints occur regularly and levels not too terribly long. You should know that the game (single player campaign) can be beaten in about 8 or so hours. Not a super long game, but one that is worth playing through at least twice.
What gives the game it’s real legs are the very entertaining online play that the game offers. An excellent online experience has you teaming up with others to do battle against the Locust horde, one team of humans, one of Locust. This is a straight-up firefight with the winner being the last man/monster standing. There is a mode that runs side by side with this one, called Execution.
In Execution mode, players (once they go down from wounds) can revive themselves by repeatedly hitting the “A” button. The only way you can permanently stop an opponent is to run up to their body and deliver a close range kill, you know, like curb-stomping their head.
Other multiplayer modes involve playing a game of assasination where you go hunting for the other team’s leader in a point, multi round style game. This seems to be a popular game amongst online players as the person who kills the leader of the team, becomes the leader of their own team in the next round. Sort of a hunter becoming the hunted type of thing.
What’s more, you can log on with a friend and play through the single player campaign, only this time it’s Marcus Fenix and his buddy, Dominic Santiago. Playing this way means really working together, flanking enemies and utilizing the voice feature to really engage the enemy. This is really an awful lot of fun to do especially if you have a competent partner and you can play the game on the hardest setting. It totally opens up new gameplay as you can revive one another and take different paths to get to the same point. This is cool gaming here folks.
As big an AV guy as I am, I can’t help but tell you how well this game sounds. The game is broadcast in Dolby Digital and if you have the means to play this on a surround sound system then I would highly recommend it. The speakers come alive with gunfire and the screaming of both monsters dying and other troops barking out orders.
The voice work by John Di Maggio and Carlos Ferro is spot-on. Marcus sounds every bit the hard-ass, life-taking death-dealer that he is. The sound effects, gunfire, monsters raging, explosions, helicopters: they all sound so good, it’s hard to believe that this is not a Hollywood big budget action title. And here’s hoping they DO NOT turn this into a movie. Especially if it is directed by Uwe Boll… God help us all.
Lastly, the game has all these little nuances that I feel are worth mentioning.
There is an innovative and new cover mode that allows you to duck behind objects fluidly and then move from cover point to cover point as eeasily as any SWAT team veteran would. Firing your weapon and shifting from a crouch to a back against wall stance is smooth and intuitive.
The game also has this really cool looking and working roadie run that makes you feel like you are watching an episode of COPS as Marcus ducks down and begins hauling butt towards his destination. Doing this make it difficult for the Locust to get a bead on him.
An active reload ability that forces the player to engae in a timing sequence that has you reloading waaaayyy faster then if you just let the game do it for you. This is incredibly crucial since the game is so intense, reloading a tad faster could mean the difference between life and death.
And tons more, grenades, hip shots, kicking doors open, shooting doors open, and a weapon that when properly activated shoots a beam of energy from a satelite in geosynchonous orbit, holy crap! There’s more, but I refuse to ruin it for you.
And last but not least, a quality sci-fi storyline that moves the game forward and never lets you feel like you missed out on something.
I am pleased to announce that this is officially the greatest Xbox 360 and next gen console game to date. Seriously, we’re not going out on a limb here; you will see Gears of War as the game of the year on pretty much any gaming site out there. Oh sure, there will be exceptions to the rule, but the overwhelming majority will select (or already have) this as the game of the year. Given how popular our Gears of War walkthrough has been I’m supposing this is coming to no surprise to most of you. But for those of you who have not yet done battle with the Locust Horde, then get out there, get a copy of the game and get in the fight!
| Title | Gears of War (Xbox 360) |
| Genre | Action |
| Release Date | November 7, 2006 |
| Multiplayer | 1-4 |
| Xbox Live Multiplayer | 1-8 |
| Rating | Mature (Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language) |
| HDTV Support | 1080i |
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