Close Your Eyes! The Overrated Train is Coming Through!
What would you say if I told you that you were considering buying a product that has a laughably bad story, deep as a puddle characters, head shaking in despair dialogue, "gritty" detailed environments that only contain the colors brown, black and some type of gold shine, and it only lasts about 5 hours. Now, I know that seems like 5 hours is a good thing, but it's actually a negative when it comes to this product. What is the product I'm talking about? Gears of War for the Xbox 360.
This was Microsoft's defense against the release of Sony's rival Playstation 3 console in November of 2006. And while almost everyone praises this game, it is virtually a letdown in every major category.
You don't care about the characters or know anything about them, your goal is to simply destroy the enemy (The Locust Horde that arrived from the center of Sera) with a giant flash bomb that destroys / maps their caves. The plot is as bad as it sounds, and seems like it was pulled from a terrible Sci-fi channel made-for-TV movie.
What doesn't help Gears at all is the lack of interesting boss battles. I'm not even sure if this game has any boss battles to be honest. You have an enemy that can't see, can only hear (stolen from the terrific Resident Evil 4), a giant enemy spider (as dumb as it sounds), and a "general" as the "bosses". There is no climax, no resolution, no big surprises or anything to work with. You simply shuffle from linear area to linear area to shoot more Locust that suddenly pop up.
As if that isn't enough, the Lancer is the only weapon you'll ever use as it has a handy chainsaw equipt to it, but it makes every other weapon useless. Shotguns take 4-5 shots to drop an enemy, and when they never die and right right at you, it equals a quick death. The sniper rifle is ridiculously useless, as it takes another 4-5 shots to kill someone, and those are head shots folks!
The only redeeming quality of the game is the "duck and shoot" mechanic it made, so you have to duck and regain health, you can't just run around and shoot. You will get killed quickly with that mentality, and the enmy AI is relatively smart.... except when it says "reloading"... that doesn't make all the sense in the world, but neither does the game. And this hiding mechanic doesn't make much sense as to why dressers and couches are randomly placed in hallways and such, thus turning the game into a game of "peek-a-bo" with guns.
The grenade controls are hideous as well, and while lining up a shot, you'll get mowed down quickly trying to line up your shot. Which leads to my biggest question, but it doesn't ruin the game anymore than it already is downgraded, but why does no one have a helmet? The characters (who are all steroid pumped freaks of nature) are layered with body armor but no helmets or face shields? Why is that? You're fighting a war with a vicious enemy and you have no head coverage? That seems questionable...
All these little chunks in the "awesome" armor of Gears of War equals a bad experience, one that lacks depth, a story, a good ending or any thrills. Add in that you never truly feel like you're in a 'war' due to only a handful of enemies on the screen at a time, you just feel like a personal grudge. You never see any other environments other than caves and buildings, and the lack of creative enemy design is simply a major failure. A laughable point to make is that one of the coolest looking enemies you see at the start of the game you don't even get to fight! Oh wait, in the sequel you do! But that's not enough consolidation after playing this mess of a game.
If you like mindless shooters and watching body parts fall off your enemies, then you will truly enjoy Gears of War, but I personally like GOOD stories, CREATIVE environments and characters and LONG single player campaigns. And knowing this game sold over 5 million copies? Has me shaking in fear about how many mindless teenagers are playing this sad excuse for a great game.
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Kickass Game
Plain and simple, this game will give you one of the greatest gaming experiences of all time, and the sequel, available Nov. 9, 2008, is sure to mend any loose edges and built upon Gears 1. This game is at the top with the likes of Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4.
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Gears of War
Gears of War for the XBox 360 is a great game! The campaign levels are fun to play over and over again. If you have XBOX Live then you can play this game with your friends or perfect stangers, which add quite a bit of game life to the campaign levels. My only cmplaint is the multiplayer for online play. If you are familiar with the Halo series, and have play on XBOX Live... you will know what Im talking about. Gears of War multiplayer is ruled by host advantage. If you host or are on the hosted team... you win. If not, you lose... plain and simple. Not much fun and rather frustrating, especially if you are familiar with Bungie.net and the service they provide to halo. Epic games [Gears of War], unfortunetly do not support their games that well. Still, worth the purchace... but you better hurry cause Gears of War 2 is coming in November!! I've already ordered mine! =)
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