Gears of War

The following is a recipe for a multi-award-winning game; the best game engine, a new innovative gameplay mechanism, the most popular console in the market, and enough hype to put the latest Hollywood blockbuster to shame.

Sounds difficult, but the geniuses at Epic games and Microsoft studios think differently. They have created, what can be possibly called the best action on the Xbox 360, best on most platforms if you ask me. This is truly an amazing game, a game that takes you so deep in the action that life itself feels secondary. My words may have a very strong dramatic and exaggerated undertone, but trust me; this game is a visual spectacle that delivers on each of its promises.

The game as always starts years into the future on a fictional planet called Sera. The planet is inhabited by humans for years and was a glorious land before the war started. The War between humans and the Locusts, a horde of ugly, powerful creatures, who want to eliminate all humans, is brilliantly presented. The humans fight a losing battle as solider after soldier is eliminated and the humans get weaker. Enter Marcus Phoenix, a war veteran combined felon, who was imprisoned because he disobeyed a direct order to save his father. Marcus is a blend of the Terminator's fire power and Maverick's (Top Gun) arrogance; he is a one man army, ready to battle it out. Although Marcus no longer cares for humanity, he is self-centered enough to battle more than a few locust.
Let me start by talking about the Graphics, that's what everyone wants to know about. What ever you have heard about the game is true; this is the best looking game in Console history. The Unreal 3 engine shines even in this mostly dark scenario, proving that U3 engine is the developer's new best friend.

With characters so detailed you can actually see the fear of death on their face. The special effects like blood and gore are a nice touch; my favorite is the chainsaw slicing through the enemy releasing a fountain of blood. The game physics are true and very impressive, as there is a lot of moving around to do, you will realize how the interactive environment reacts to your every move. But this isn t just another pretty looking gory game, it s leagues ahead of any other game in terms of action.
From the first mission till the last, Gears is always inventing new ways to cause you some trouble. The action is never ending, every minute, every second you are either chasing or running away. How the developers managed to keep such intensity and tension present, at the same time keeping it appealing, is a mystery to me.

Rocks, pillars, boulders, devastated walls are all your new found friends. They are more like your parents protecting you from danger; ok, I know that was a tad dramatic. But on a more serious note, you can t roam around exploring the beautiful visuals as there is hardly any time. The Locusts are constantly emerging and making sure you don t walk a step without a bullet hole on the path. The only way to survive is to take cover whenever possible, as in the open you will be grilled to death with locust bullets. Taking cover is easy, just pressing the action key will make your character jump to the nearest cover, while displaying an impressive scripted move.
Moving from cover to cover is necessary as sticking to one place for long can be fatal. The locusts are smart enough to chuck grenades at you, if you stick around too long at a place, like uninvited guests. You can jump or charge around to take cover, charging for cover is presented better than any game ever made. The camera moves to a lower angle following you as you run past dead locust, this adds more realism to the effort of finding a corner to hide. The whole game will see you fighting along with a squad, so you have to look after them as well. If your comrade s health goes to zero you can go to him and revive him from his downed state, simply by clicking the action button.
GOW will not only throw loads of enemies at you but also options to take them out. Like turrets and grenades you will find at random locations. When you take cover behind a wall, there are many ways to shoot back at the enemy. You can shoot blindly from behind the cover without exposing yourself or quickly take position and fire back. There is no health bar, but the health system is similar to Call of Duty 2, wherein you die after taking repeated damage in a small interval. You can always regain health by staying out of the action for a few seconds. But I would suggest staying away and behind cover. The following sections include more about the AI and guns, as well as Co-op mode.
he AI in GOW is as impressive as its other aspects, truly a step ahead. The locusts react to your every move, including incoming grenades, flanking, and blind fire. They will find cover, shoot from blind spots, cover each other, and even flank you. It s like playing hours of deathmatch with an equally challenging enemy. The AI is a major reason why the game is so enjoyable. I personally would have liked more enemy types, as you tend to see more and more of the same type of locust. I guess the locust parents weren t too creative or were too lazy.

The fire power in GOW is awesome, with some of the best guns ever to grace the action genre. Machine guns called Lancers with a secondary chainsaw is slaughter paradise, add to that shotguns, grenades, and more. There is also the Hammer of Dawn, a gun similar to the ion painter from UT. With HoD, you can pinpoint a target on the outside and a satellite driven laser will slice away any enemy type. You can carry only two primary rifles, sidearm, and up to 4 grenades. This may seem limited, but it again adds to the realism factor of the game.

Multiplayer and Co-op

Gears of War supports both split-screen and regular multiplayer over Xbox Live. There are two multiplayer modes in Gears of War, Cooperative and Versus mode. Multiplayer also adds the "downed" state, which works similar to down comrades the player must help in the single-player missions. When a player has taken too much damage from enemy, their character becomes incapacitated instead of dying instantly.
The player remains in this state until they bleed out and die, are killed by the enemy, or are revived by another player. There are the regular team death matches and team based combats as well. My favorite is Execution, where you have to finish an enemy in the downed state, by either blowing his head off or ripping him with a chainsaw.
The whole game can be completed in Co-op as well. Dominic Santiago, he is your closest friend and co-op partner as well. The whole game has been designed in such a way that Dominic is present in all the scenarios with you. The Co-op is unbelievable and highly addictive. GOW has already gained more popularity than Halo 2, a game that has been on the top for the past two years.




Final Verdict

This is the best game that money can buy now; this is the next big thing on the Xbox. The only drawback is the 8-10 hours to the single player, which is injustice to such a great game.
I can see sequels, movie adaptations, spin offs, books, even a cult dedicated to GOW. No doubt about it, you ain't a movie fan if you haven't seen The Godfather, you ain't a music lover if you haven't heard Elvis, I say you ain't a gamer if you haven't experienced Gears of War.