Gears of War

THE BAD:
Very little.

Sometimes the characters refuse to take cover and all you do is Jump forward into cover. This can lead to horrible deaths, bouts of cussing and general anger. Though these are few and extremely far between.

Sometimes your Teammates make Brash decisions, like running into an Exploding arrow, or charging a turret.

lastly, if you are not an experienced gamer, the controls can feel, awkward for a time

SUMMARY:
Gears of War has to be one of the Best games in Existence. it gives you visuals never surpassed until three years later, by titles like Call of Duty 4 and Bioshock. It has one of the simplest and most useful cover systems in gaming. Using only one button, which simplifies things greatly.

The sound design is full, rich, and riveting. you will be hard pressed to find a aural experience so tantalizing as this. From grunts, groans and screams of Locust and Gears alike, it is all there. All full of detail, and tone and Definition. Nowhere is this more evident than in the enemies known as "wretches".


This small creature screams, but with the sound design in this game, it can give you a headache. The pitch is perfect, tones and Nuances give it an Ethereal level of sound that has your ears ringing instantly and keeps you hearing it for ten minutes.


This same rich detail carries over into the sounds of battle, and even the sounds in the environment. you can hear the floor boards creaking, unseen Cockroaches and rats skittering behind walls, and the creek of old, broken and blasted houses in the dead of night.

The guns sound full and real, at a distance they have a muffled quality which lends perfectly to the Incredible Aural tapestry that Epic has Woven. grenades have a big, sharp blast with a throaty after wave of sound and a rumble as it reverberates off walls and out of alley ways.

But, Sounds are nothing without the visuals to compliment them. Once again, Epic has delivered a feast of truly awesome Proportions. From the grimy posters from before E-day, to the dust ushering forth from Bullets striking the walls, ground, bushes, anything.

The texturing is amazing and animations are some of the most fluid and believable I have seen. The Camera placement adds to the experience. Never robbing you of a kill, never making it hard to see, not once will it become a hindrance.


In the end, this all comes together in a nearly Flawless package, leaving you wanting more, even after you have beaten it. And with a robust multiplayer mode that never gets old, you'll be coming back for months.

But, single player is an Important part of any game. In this very important category, Gears of War does not fail. While the story is simplistic and shallow. You are given enough information to make sense of it all. But story is never everything in a game. What about the game play? In Gears, it is godly. The truly easy to use Cover system makes fore fights survivable, but just barely. This is due to the games killer AI. The AI uses cover, blind fires, uses grenades and flank you. On the lower difficulties it takes more direct out in the open approaches, usually ending up in there demise. However, on Hardcore, and later Insane the AI becomes dangerous. Using cover and waiting until you are reloading to charge you. It uses grenades to astounding effect, flanking and rushing are both used to terrifying effect. The end result being intense firefights, with bodies dropping all around, grenades exploding in your face and in some truly unfortunate happenings, exploding on you.

But none of this chaos and wanton destruction can happen without weaponry, right? Gears of War once again delivers. Keeping things simple with the Standard Machine guns, turrets, grenades and Shotguns and Sniper rifles. But things have been changed up a bit. For one, the Chainsaw Bayonet has to be the most fun to use Melee tactic in a game. It also produces a gory experience that is both thrilling, and at times, can make you sick with Adrenalin. Another non-standard weapon is the Hammer of dawn, basically a giant laser pointer with a twist. It calls down a orange beam of doom from the heavens, level Locust ground troops in pieces and larger locust reeling in pain. Finally the Torque Bow. This weapon has to be the most evil in the game, firing an Explosive arrow, that can embed itself within an enemy, it has a truly satisfying after effect.

So in the end, Gears Of War is a truly satisfying game. Combining Superb visual and Aural components with weapons that may not break the mold, but are just damn fun to use and AI that makes fire fights feel fresh each time, never doing the same thing twice. Epic has created a Master piece. I just wish I had gotten it earlier.

THE BAD:
All that good, how can there be any bad? Well there are two things that ruin this game, or just make it boring if you get involved with either. Hackers/Glitchers... really gets old trying to shoot someone who glitches and does the "back flip/hover" glitch to get to a really high spot. Then a sniper is all you need to finish a round. And of course both of those things are found in almost every online/XBL game, and even though it gets annoying the game is still amazing.

SUMMARY:
Overall GOW gets a solid 4.5 on Neo and in my opinion. It's a great game that you should really check out, unless you are a bit squeamish when there are mass loads of gore and body chunks flying around. I have never really been bothered by glitchers since most are extremely hard to pull off when there is a shot gun breathing down your throat. I guess it all depends on how you plan on playing.

Some things that are really annoying though -

Laggers - Whether it be on purpose or just a bad connection they are extremely annoying. I boot them out of my matches because it isn't fair to miss getting sniped all the time because your "connection" is bad, or you are doing it on purpose to win unfairly.

And the most annoying thing ever - Lancer squads. One on one against a Lancer you can easily win. Since they aren't the best guns in the game they are fairly underused. However, when there are two or more [ideally three] in a squad of Lancers it gets rather annoying because they can down you really fast and continue to do that until you just die. Or even worse is when a snotty player downs you a couple times with his Lancer and his buddies, then leaves and waits for some random player to come along and kill you off.

Now less about the gameplay itself and more about the game and it's story. You start off as a guy named Markus [with a kick ass attitude] inside of a Locust Prison. You gather up some members of your "squad" like Dom, and begin actually fighting to destroy the Locust army. You play through chapters of the main story that'll have you on the edge of your seats. The game itself is more diverse than just a 3rd person shooter, there will be times when you'll need to use commands to group your squad and give them orders for battle. You also have opportunities to use turrets and other large weaponry throughout the game. And of course you can't forget the part where you must drive the vehicle with the spot light on the roof, through the ravaged city while trying to keep the Krill from devouring you and your partners.

Like I mentioned before somewhere in this long review, this game has great graphics. Some of the best I have ever seen on any console. What really amazes me is the fact that there is no lag or glitching when you complete rapid 360 degree spins. The game kind of blurs the environment out so it gives you a more realistic feel of spinning in circles.

Last but not least is the impressive audio of GOW. The sound isn't something I pay much attention too as long as the game is good, but now I might start to think about that again. GOW has absolutely no fuzzy sounds or laggin voices even under heavy stress in the game [facing hordes of Locust and spinning in those famous circles]. It really helps when trying to actually listen to the story not to hear that kshhhhhhh sound in the background [because let's face it, the 360 makes enough noise as it is while running].

In conclusion, this game takes Microsoft's Favorite console to a whole new level of gameplay and expectation. Shooters will never really be the same on the 360 if Microsoft and their affiliates can continue to produce spectacular games like Gears of War in the future. Looking forward to a GOW2... PAYCE ~

Graphics - 5/5 Amazing and not glitchy, PS3 ain't got anything on this.

Sound - 4.5/5 Clear, crisp and perfect for poppin' some heads.

gameplay - 4.5/5 Good story and multiplayer is phenomenal.

Overall - 4.5/5 great game and really worth that 50 or so dollars to pick up.

THE BAD:
Storyline is a bit chopped up. How come you can't be a woman? That should be included! A.I. sometimes screws up a little too bad, especially making obvious mistakes that make no sense at all. Otherwise the game is extensively great.

SUMMARY:
Ahhh... Gears of War. The first game I ever bought along with a brand new premium X360. I blame my cousin for getting me hooked, especially when he invited me to play as a guest on GOW [sorry to anyone who lost their match because I sucked].

The graphics on GOW are absolutely stunningly gorgeous, no questions asked. Sometimes the mesh layer pops up when the system doesn't load things fast enough, but other than that, everything looks real.

The gameplay is simplified and addresses one problem with a lot of first-person shooters: cover. On GOW, you only have to press one button and you're protected. Then if you stay in cover, just by moving the left control stick, there's a variety of ways to move around, staying in cover or rolling out.

GOW also has a nice array of various weapons you can use to grind your way through the game. The best part I would say, is using the Lancer with a chainsaw attached to slice your enemies in to pieces. Or you could use the torquebow to blow an enemy apart. It's your choice, and you can carry two main weapons, a pistol, and grenades.

The problems of GOW? The storyline is a bit choppy and not so full, but any player could instantly catch up with it.

Even though the A.I. is very well done, sometimes, you just want to punch dumbass-Dom for running in front of troikas, or other friendlies walking right up to the enemy and getting beat down.

But overall, Gears of War is definitely a keeper and something you should buy. I'd say that anyone who is interested into shooters or alien-like games would probably love playing this because I know I sure do and many, many other folks do too.

THE BAD:
- Short campaign
- Some people spoil online mode
- Needs some balancing
- only eight people online modes

SUMMARY:
Gears of war, the biggest game to hit 360 last year, the hype has been tremendous, so does it live up to it?
In short, yes.

As expected the graphics are absolutley gorgeous, arguably better than any other game on any system currently on sale. So the graphics rock, but waht about the gameplay? multiplayer? story?


GOW is a third person Sci-fi shooter, with an element of sqaud based action. It is set not too far in the future, the evil locust are trying to take over earth and the human race is on the brink of destruction. You control Marcus, a battle hardened soldier who has been taken from jail to rejoin the desperate fight. The main objective is to wipe out the locust threat with your sqaud faced against massive odds. The game sees you in many different situations, and the levels have an excellent variety to them, with amazing detail and quality. In each level you usually need to travel to a certain point, gunning locusts as you go, which isn't as simple as it sounds. Locust are intelligent, tough and mean creatures. They come in a variety of types, the drone is the average soldier, usualy armed with a semi automatic gun, they are rather tough but their aim is a bit off. But you will encounter much bigger stronger enemies than drones, such as theron guard, extremely skilled enemies that take even more shots than you! As you would expect each enemy has its weaknesses, drones are easily taken from a distance, while theron guard can be shotgunned easily enough etc. The weapons are very nice to, although there are not many of them as one might like. However, each one takes many hours to master.

Gears of war doesn't have an entirely original form of gameplay, but theres some interesting ideas in there. The basic strategy is cover and shoot. Taking cover is absolutely essential since characters die fairly fast on this game, but if you quickly hide or take cover while your health is low you will rergenerate. Takinfg cover is context sensetive, meaning that it uses a button (A) to do things other than taking cover. I would say taking cover is more useful in single player than multiplayer, although you will still use it online it can be a hindrance at times, especially if someone tries to flank you with shotgun, as you will not have time to leave the cover and survive the attack. You can blind fire when behind cover, this is fairly inaccurate with the machinegun, but if used on close-up-enemies with the shotgun it can be devastating. The reload system is pretty cool, its based on timing, you press the RB button to begin the reload animation, and a bar appears with a grey line going across it, when you press RB it stops the grey line, if it stops on the dark part of the bar then you get a bad reload, if stopped on the white part of the bar (Harder to get on than the grey) then you get a fast reload, if stopped on the glowing part you get a damage bonus as well as fast reload.


My complaint with campaign is how short it is, I went on hardcore first time and finished it in under five hours. So you definitely don't get your moneys worth from the campaign, so hows the multi player? Its brilliant at times, and absolutely frustrating on other occasions. The weapons are in need of balance, as some people can forget about having fun and just try and win, there are three easy ways to do this that involve little skill, firstly grenade tagging, this is when a player melee attacks while holding a grenade, this sticks the grenade to the enemy and kills them in seconds when the grenade detonates. Surprisingly this is possible over about an eight feet distance, making it very hard to counter. Secondly the primary machine gun (the lancer) has a chainsaw attached, this can be revved up and used as a melee weapon, but again it has a longer range than it should, and if you touch an opponent with it then instantly a mini cut scene initiates showing you getting sawed in half, while doing this the chain sawer is invulnerable to all fire. Lastly the hammer of dawn is another cheap weapon, when used it calls down a massive beam of death from satellites in the sky, killing any opponents in one second, if it touches them. The hammer can be directed around the players view for about 5 seconds, making it an easy way of racking up kills. Apart from this the multi player is excellent, although it could do with some more options.

Overall Gears is an absolute must have for any gamer with Xbox live, for anyone else they should consider their purchase carefully.

THE BAD:
- story is uneventful and seems like if the creators didn't put effort into it.
- diologue is pure stupid at times.
- they try to make something different but fail with the horrendous UV turrent part.
- The 2 bosses are way to easy.
- Gets lame after the storied fall down.

SUMMARY:
Positive: Concept- pretty much you're a tough guy called Marcus Fenix(or Santiago in co-op.) Locust Horde have almost taken over the world, now you're suppose to kill them..shoot them, shoot until they're all dead, it's really enjoyable.

Gameplay- cover/ shoot mechanics of these game are one of a kind. It's even more fun in co-op, as you and your buddy are helping each other out, and going to different paths to complete the mission. You could reload in a completely different way than on other games, you have to press the bumper of the control twice, once so that the dash line starts moving, and second to stop it, if you stop it right in the white line, you have a perfect reload.
It allows you to reload faster and get back to the action. You should really give the chainsaw a try as well, get near your enemy and hold B and cut off heads!

Graphics- the textures and effects in this game are also very attracting. The smoke and explosion visuals are somethings to behold. The raining effects are so realistic, this game's graphics are the best.
Sound- the music in the background while fighting is pretty good, other than that..ererr...

Entertainment- the first times through you won't even want to put the controller down! It's addicting for a while and you'll spend HOURS playing it through.
Enemies/ health system- This Health System is much better than other games, if you get hit, A skull outline will start forming, if you get hit too much, the skull will complete and you'll die. The good thing is that you could actually recover very fast form a bad health condition. You just have to cover and let the outline of the skull go away!
Drones and Locust are a blast to play with, they also use guns and are smart.

Now, this is NOT the best game ever(as you could tell by my 4.0 score) Here's the negatives-

Concept- Now, the story of this game is kinda wierd as well. The Loust Horde coming and not stopping with killing might be a bit dumb for all I'm saying. It never really goes anywhere.

Gameplay- The cover Mechanics thrills don't last forever, after a while you won't be as in to it as you were when you first started playing this campaign. Also there's times when you have to stop and walk SO slow because you're speaking to your adviser(whcih is annoying)

Graphics- No flaws really.
Sound- A lot of the lines of this game are very bad, especially the ones that the characters say to each other. One character called Cole says a lot of useless things that also make you walk slow when you're talking by your walky talky.

Entertainment- Like I've said, the thrills in this game don't last for too long. The game is short but too long for its own good, after the resonator bummer, the game effortlessly creates another event that makes you play more..It sadly effects the gameplay near the end, the game gets somewhat-lame.
But, I have to say that not all of the cons effect it too much- It's a good game but I'm afraid to say it's widely overated.