Post by Captain Galaxy on Jan 22, 2007 0:03:58 GMT -8
I wanted to start a review column where I do just that, and it will be for every movie, book, and game I experience, or at least the ones I want to tell you about. Anyway I hope this is ok, and I hope you enjoy my first review on GEARS OF WAR!
My Review On Gears of War (Xbox 360)
I didn’t know how to start this review with a hook, but I sure as hell knew that I wanted to write it, because the truth of the matter is, Gears of War is a game that gets my adrenaline pumping every time I play it. To start off with information for those unfamiliar with the game, Gears of War takes place on a planet inhabited by humans known as Sera, where a world government known as the COG (Coalition of Ordered Governments) has been the dominant political party for quite a long time. That is, until Imulsion, a very abundant chemical that has since been used as fuel, was discovered. Then all hell broke loose. Nations unfortunate enough to have Imulsion reserves within their boundaries attacked those who were teeming with the new resource, for many years war between humanity waged on as it had for so many centuries before. Then things got worse. On an obscure date known as Emergence Day, a strange force known as the Locust launched a surprise attack on the warring humans, killing nearly a quarter of the world’s population on the first day. The game doesn’t do a good job of explaining their evolutionary, or otherwise, origin. But maybe because the developers will explain it in the ensuing sequels. Your part in this war involves taking on the role of Marcus Fenix, an inmate that has recently been recruited back into the army due to shortages of men. These soldiers are known as gears, and they all have a tough-as-nails attitude. This is where the story picks up, and you have to use Marcus Fenix’s skills as a soldier to get through to the end. No duh.
The game sets itself apart from other games in the genre by putting an emphasis cover and strategy, rather than brute force. Here is where you know the developers are really smart, because they put into a shooter a mechanic which FPS players have been trying to simulate all along. Play an FPS and try to tell me that you didn’t try to take cover, by either hiding behind a wall or box, more than once or twice. Well, you can do it in Gears of War, by easily running up to something that can be used as cover, virtually anything, and pressing a single button. Furthermore, you can peek out the side or over the top and pick off enemies that weren’t smart enough to take cover themselves, or you can “blindfire” and keep your whole body in cover. Sure this has been done in video games before, most notably the James Bond games such as Everything or Nothing, and From Russia With Love. But going back to play those games makes you realize how clever the GoW mechanic is. You can roll away from cover, transfer to more cover, and even jump over cover to dispose of the enemy once their weapons jam.
But enough of the mechanic, let’s move on to the single player story. It’s short, it’s entertaining, it’s a bit repetitive, but it’s a whole lot of fun to play with another person, in drop in/drop out co-op mode. Me and Shane played through the whole campaign in a matter of two days. This is probably the best way to play it, since you actually have someone who communicate with and help you in a way AI can’t. Countless times were our characters heavily wounded, pinned down, or getting flanked, and countless times we were able to revive each other and outflank the enemy. A lot of the repetitiveness comes from fighting the same monsters over and over again, but at least the game makes it fun by providing you with a lot of different ways to defeat them. And that’s all I’ll say, you have to play the single player for yourself to be awed like I was.
The multiplayer is even better. It’s always a team deathmatch, but the game varies in how you defeat the other team, either by killing their leader, executing each member or simply blowing them all to pieces. But here is where the mechanic falters a bit, because they decided to make the button for running and rolling the same as the button for taking cover. And so you can probably guess that I’ve been killed quite a few times for panicking and instead of rolling away, going up against a wall and getting torn apart. But also this is where having the Lancer, an assault rifle with a CHAINSAW attached to it, gives you the most pleasure. I once killed all the opposing team’s members with it, and I never felt so much joy killing people in a video game. You can also CURB STOMP people, but watching a certain movie doesn’t encourage me to do it that much, lest I want to feel like a Neo-Nazi.
Last, but not least, the graphics are the best I have ever seen in a video game, in fact they are so good that you forget they’re that good, basically because everything looks so real, from the environments, to the guns, to the blood, to the characters faces. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it does to me. Anyway, this review has been long enough, and I didn’t get to cover everything I wanted. Hope it was interesting to read, and hope you live to read my next one.
Score: 9/10
P.S I would like feedback on whether this interested you, helped you etc, and if my next reviews should be shorter or whatever you think.
My Review On Gears of War (Xbox 360)
I didn’t know how to start this review with a hook, but I sure as hell knew that I wanted to write it, because the truth of the matter is, Gears of War is a game that gets my adrenaline pumping every time I play it. To start off with information for those unfamiliar with the game, Gears of War takes place on a planet inhabited by humans known as Sera, where a world government known as the COG (Coalition of Ordered Governments) has been the dominant political party for quite a long time. That is, until Imulsion, a very abundant chemical that has since been used as fuel, was discovered. Then all hell broke loose. Nations unfortunate enough to have Imulsion reserves within their boundaries attacked those who were teeming with the new resource, for many years war between humanity waged on as it had for so many centuries before. Then things got worse. On an obscure date known as Emergence Day, a strange force known as the Locust launched a surprise attack on the warring humans, killing nearly a quarter of the world’s population on the first day. The game doesn’t do a good job of explaining their evolutionary, or otherwise, origin. But maybe because the developers will explain it in the ensuing sequels. Your part in this war involves taking on the role of Marcus Fenix, an inmate that has recently been recruited back into the army due to shortages of men. These soldiers are known as gears, and they all have a tough-as-nails attitude. This is where the story picks up, and you have to use Marcus Fenix’s skills as a soldier to get through to the end. No duh.
The game sets itself apart from other games in the genre by putting an emphasis cover and strategy, rather than brute force. Here is where you know the developers are really smart, because they put into a shooter a mechanic which FPS players have been trying to simulate all along. Play an FPS and try to tell me that you didn’t try to take cover, by either hiding behind a wall or box, more than once or twice. Well, you can do it in Gears of War, by easily running up to something that can be used as cover, virtually anything, and pressing a single button. Furthermore, you can peek out the side or over the top and pick off enemies that weren’t smart enough to take cover themselves, or you can “blindfire” and keep your whole body in cover. Sure this has been done in video games before, most notably the James Bond games such as Everything or Nothing, and From Russia With Love. But going back to play those games makes you realize how clever the GoW mechanic is. You can roll away from cover, transfer to more cover, and even jump over cover to dispose of the enemy once their weapons jam.
But enough of the mechanic, let’s move on to the single player story. It’s short, it’s entertaining, it’s a bit repetitive, but it’s a whole lot of fun to play with another person, in drop in/drop out co-op mode. Me and Shane played through the whole campaign in a matter of two days. This is probably the best way to play it, since you actually have someone who communicate with and help you in a way AI can’t. Countless times were our characters heavily wounded, pinned down, or getting flanked, and countless times we were able to revive each other and outflank the enemy. A lot of the repetitiveness comes from fighting the same monsters over and over again, but at least the game makes it fun by providing you with a lot of different ways to defeat them. And that’s all I’ll say, you have to play the single player for yourself to be awed like I was.
The multiplayer is even better. It’s always a team deathmatch, but the game varies in how you defeat the other team, either by killing their leader, executing each member or simply blowing them all to pieces. But here is where the mechanic falters a bit, because they decided to make the button for running and rolling the same as the button for taking cover. And so you can probably guess that I’ve been killed quite a few times for panicking and instead of rolling away, going up against a wall and getting torn apart. But also this is where having the Lancer, an assault rifle with a CHAINSAW attached to it, gives you the most pleasure. I once killed all the opposing team’s members with it, and I never felt so much joy killing people in a video game. You can also CURB STOMP people, but watching a certain movie doesn’t encourage me to do it that much, lest I want to feel like a Neo-Nazi.
Last, but not least, the graphics are the best I have ever seen in a video game, in fact they are so good that you forget they’re that good, basically because everything looks so real, from the environments, to the guns, to the blood, to the characters faces. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it does to me. Anyway, this review has been long enough, and I didn’t get to cover everything I wanted. Hope it was interesting to read, and hope you live to read my next one.
Score: 9/10
P.S I would like feedback on whether this interested you, helped you etc, and if my next reviews should be shorter or whatever you think.
