Gears of War: 93%

I can safely say that I didn’t fall into the hype for Gears of War. I was one of the people that didn’t watch a single video, didn’t read any interviews and may have seen only a couple of pictures. This was just one of those games that I just thought would be good and my instincts were right.

First off, graphics. I can sum this up by saying this is probably the best looking game out now. It’s done to perfection with no slowdown, no tearing, great collision detection. Everything is just the way it should be on a next gen game. Character models are a little bit cliché but the environments and models of the foes were great. Probably the only thing bad I would have to say is that the same furniture and wallpaper was used in pretty much the whole game. I was surprised to see that everyone in this new world owned Victorian styled couches. It’s no big deal but it was a little strange.

Controls were also done to a T. Every movement possible felt fluid and intuitive, begging me to ask why haven’t people thought of things like interactive reloading and context sensitive cover before? The game isn’t your typical run and gun shooter, but it is a stop and pop one. While that may sound stale, it remains fresh through the roughly 8 hour long story mode because of the terrific enemy AI and enough little bits of variation in the gameplay. Friendly AI is still as stupid as can be and I don’t see why developers make the enemy AI brilliant, then forget to give the friendlies even a walnut sized brain. The game could have also benefited with a little more co-op moments such as the spot light portion of the one level.

The music, voice over and sound effects were all spot on. Not a week voice in the cast, Not a sound that was misplaced and the music complimented the atmosphere. Even the dialogue was very fitting.

Like I mentioned before, the story mode is only about 8 hours long but the replay is multiplied by having a terrific co-op mode and online play… supposedly. I have gone through co-op and it’s one of the most intense games I’ve ever played with someone. The action is great and the teamwork needed to make it through makes this THE co-op game I’ve been waiting for since a title like Contra. I said supposedly for the online mode because as of yet, I’ve not been able to get into a match despite trying 3 times for about 10 minutes each time. I’m able to get into other games such as Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Saint’s Row just fine, but I can’t connect to play Gears or War online at all. This is a huge disappointment and just takes away from an overall polished to near perfection game. Hopefully a patch will be release soon to fix this problem before I move on to the next game.

Review by Smerlus