Gears of War (Xbox 360) Review

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Gears of War (Xbox 360)
★★★★★
4.8
100.0% of users recommend this
  • Addiction Level

  • Graphics

  • Value For Money

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Takahiro's review of Gears of War (Xbox 360)

“When I first heard about this game I didn't pay much...”

★★★★★

written by Takahiro on 03/01/2007

Good Points
Simply mind-blowing graphics
Tight and responsive controls
Brilliant survival horror twist
Excellent co-op mode, on and offline
A gun with a chainsaw bayonet!

Bad Points
Poor offline multiplayer modes (excluding the story co-op)
Fiddly close combat
Roadie-run is a little awkward

General Comments
When I first heard about this game I didn't pay much attention to it. It simply seemed to me like another tactical shooter that is stereotyping the XBox brand. But when it was actually released and I saw some trailers for it, the survival horror aspects got me interested, and by chance I saw it in a sale a mere week after it was released and snapped it up, and I have to say it's been the biggest surprise of the year as far as Xbox 360 games have gone.



Essentially, it's based in a future on another planet, where humans had lived in rule of the planet until 'Emergence Day', when the Locust creatures came from underground and attacked. Mankind suffered massive loses and eventually started to decimate their own cities just to deny the Locust control for a while longer. On their last legs the special forces of the army, the 'Gears' break out a fallen soldier from Jail, Marcus Fenix, to re-join their cause. You play as Fenix in the game. He was imprisoned for abandoning duties earlier in the war, but now they need all the help they can get, and you can play a small tutorial style section whilst escaping the prison if you wish. (You can choose to skip past it, which is a brilliant feature, and you occasionally get other choices of route to take later).



On starting, the graphics are utterly astonishing; even on my tiny 14 inch standard definition TV in my bedroom, and seeing it on our HDTV is utterly incredible. Sony may be crowing about the power of the PS3, and for some time I thought they had the upper hand, but after seeing this I'm not so sure any more. It's never swamped with dozens of on-screen characters, but all the characters look brilliant, and literally lose bits as you shoot them. Head-shots are especially gory, and sticking the chainsaw bayonet into an enemy results in a truly disturbing shower of blood, so this is not a game for the weak-hearted.



The colours are a little drab, but it suits the game, and the main highlight of the visuals are the simply stunning locations you find yourself in. The draw distance is brilliant. You can see for miles, and all the buildings are very well designed and impressive, and the sheer sense of scale in the underground is incredible. Also, if you've seen the film Pitch Black you'll likely remember the flying creatures that came out at night; Gears of War has some very similar creatures that attack in the dark, and seeing hundreds of them fill the sky is a frightening sight, and throughout the dark stages you have to constantly duck between light areas to stay alive. It's one of the most unnerving parts of the game and I love it.



The audio is also just as good as the visuals. Your squad-mates are constantly chatting with each other, and when they're elsewhere you'll still hear them on the radio. The gun-fights sound brilliant, especially when put through a surround sound speaker setup.



But the gameplay is a little unusual, and it takes some getting used to it at first, but for the most part it is very good. The game has a heavy focus on using any cover you can, and when you see the hail of bullets the locusts will be firing at you, you'll be glad the cover system works so well. You press 'A' whilst holding the direction of the object or wall you want to cover behind, and Marcus will crouch or back-up to it depending on how high it is, and from there you can simply blind-fire your weapon. It causes the enemy to seek cover and gives you a chance to move forward. You can also lean out and aim properly, but this leaves you exposed. You can also (by pressing a direction and 'A' again) leap over your cover if it is small enough, SWAT turn across a gap into different cover or suddenly run out forwards from cover. However, most of the locust can also use these techniques, so you have to be on your toes. If any come leaping over towards you, you can get busy with some close combat. As I've previously mentioned, your main rifle has a chainsaw bayonet, and it all gets incredibly messy. Other weapons are simply used to batter them, but if you equip grenades you can actually 'tag' them, just be sure to run away! Occasionally though, close combat can feel a little awkward, and I've been killed a number of times whilst I was fumbling with the controls. You need to be quick with the chainsaw, because if you're shot, you need to start revving it again, which takes a little time.

However, that problem is minor. The only other one I can think of is the 'Roadie Run'; if you hold 'A', Marcus will do a couching sprint, but you can barely turn whilst doing it, and you get too close to cover you will occasionally just suddenly stop and go into cover. But the Roadie Run isn't often very useful and I don't use it much, so it's again, only a minor problem.



The last thing about gameplay is reloading. Like in most games, you can simply press reload and wait, but when you start reloading there is a small bar that appears and a small line moves across it. If you can stop the line in the highlighted part of the bar you'll reload faster and gain a temporary damage boost. However, fail and your gun will jam and take even longer. It's a little tough, but after a while it becomes second nature, and so for once you actually have to do something while reloading; it's a great little feature.



The actual weaponry you get to play with is pretty good. The Locust mainly use a burst-fire rifle, that if nothing else proves useful when you need ammo. You can find ammo for it everywhere, and it's a useful back-up weapon. The main Gears weapon is a full-auto rifle with the chainsaw, and it is my main weapon of choice, as it's accurate and fairly powerful. You can find a number of handguns throughout, as well as a shotgun and a sniper-rifle. The shotgun is great for the smaller locust, and you can kill many of them in one-shot with the sniper rifle. Then you can also take a rocket-launcher from some of the bigger locust, and later in the game a Torque-Bow that fires explosive arrows - huge fun that one. But the biggest weapon you'll get isn't one you can use often, but it's a lethal weapon that you need to take out the biggest of the bunch -- the Hammer of Dawn. Essentially, you use it to mark where you want your satellite fire, and when it does, it literally vaporises most of the locust, and soon takes out the biggest. However, you must be outdoors to use it, have a clear sky and an aligned satellite, you will get radio calls to say when the Hammer is online and when it goes offline, but when you get to use it you'll have some great fun.



The actual game is quite lengthy. You may finish it soon enough on the easiest setting, but stick it onto the insane difficulty and it will last an awful lot longer. Then you also have a brilliant co-op mode, both on and offline, where you can play through the entire story together. It's one of the best co-op modes I've ever played, and when playing with a friend, you can give each other real covering fire and come up with your own tactics. Brilliant stuff. The only downer is the offline death matches. You can only play using 2 players, and you can't use any AI Bots, so multiplayer is a little lonely and quickly boring. However, it is 8 player over Live, and it is really good fun.



So overall, it's not perfect. There are a few parts that drag on and some awkwardness in the controls, and it doesn't really try to do anything new, but what it does do, it does incredibly well. The survival horror theme with the locusts is brilliant, and keeps it feeling fresh. The graphics are truly next-gen, and it's certainly the first real killer-app for the Xbox 360. Even if you just rent it, Gears of War is a brilliant title you must play, and it has set the benchmark for the next generation.

  • Value For Money

  • Graphics

  • Addiction Level

  • Yes

    Multi-player

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Taylor9991's Response to Takahiro's Review

Written on: 28/01/2007

Excellent review! Gears of War is an excellent Xbox 360 game!

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