Gears of War

(untitled review)

The winter of 2006 here in the UK was blitzed with 360 games off all which were shooters except Splinter Cell: Double Agent.
Anyway, Gears of War is one amazing game and if you have a 360 you should play it as it’s still one of the best games. Mainly as it raped Halo. It’s also the only game I’ve played which is amazingly easy to pick up. The “A” button is used for most interaction like sprinting and taking cover making the controls easy to remember. In my view it still holds my gold medal for “best cover system”.

You play as Marcus Phoenix and you are an immortal, tank wearing Alpha Dog who has been broken out of prison to save the Earth blah blah weh, we’ve heard this story one billion times. But the monsters this time actually live on Earth which adds a close to home feel because they could be under us right now but don’t go around digging holes or that’ll really piss them off.

The story is rather generic and Hollywood but the gameplay excuses it as it’s quite fast and hectic with some really epic battles and there’s never a dull moment. It’s a game where al you have to really do is kill everything but it can be fun and a challenge. Plus this game has two of the best weapons ever to embrace gaming history. We have an assault rifle with a chainsaw underneath (The Fuck You Gun) and the Torque Bow, a bow with explosive arrows which blow off limbs. Killing the Locusts just got made amusing.
You do have a squad but it’s far more fun to let a friend be Dom, short for Domingo….Doming Chavez in Rainbow Six…..It might be his offspring as they look alike but so do all generic American sounding heroes in games nowadays. There are times where you and your squad split into teams and if one team dies you have to restart so it’s much safer with two players and both players have the same abilities. There’s no punishment for being player two like in Vegas where you have to unlock all the weapons.

The game is short but there is the MP which beat Halo 2 (hooray). I didn’t find it amazing but everyone else did. I just saw Vegas as more challenging.
The graphics may show their age now but not that you’d really notice. The grittiness adds to the overall feel of the game.

Great buy if you want action and lots of blood. It’s out on the Classic range now and for PC. Go nuts. I will have my FFXI review up soon. I only just managed to order it.