Gears of War Review

9.0

Format Xbox 360

Developer Epic Games

Publisher Microsoft

Genre Action

20 Comments

Let's get straight to business then. Gears of War is - unless you have particularly wild expectations - everything we expected it to be. It's without a doubt the biggest and most important Xbox 360 release so far and, as it turns out, while not quite perfect it's arguably the most quality title you'll find on Microsoft's box as well.

In case you've been living in a (emergence) hole, events find you in the futuristic boots of Marcus Fenix, a disgraced war hero seeking redemption as he leads a fire team in the raging war against the Locust Horde - a race of pasty subterranean nasties who literally crawled out of the ground to destroy mankind.

The game follows Marcus's various objectives to hit back at the Locust army, who as you'll see have battered the once-gorgeous Gears world quite severely (cue Tears for Fears).

But as Epic has spent a year hammering home, Gears isn't just your basic tactical shooter. The company calls it a 'cover shooter' - a new genre, and really it's not far off the mark. Never before have we spent literally minutes popping up and down from behind a concrete slab, firing off pot-shots at an enemy who, essentially, can be dispatched in two pulls of a trigger.

Especially in higher difficulty levels, it's a case of 'run out of cover and die'. Although your health recovers over time you can be killed in only a few shots, and the enemy AI - unlike in your typical shooter - knows how to take cover properly, which can wind you up in a lengthy 'pop-up and shoot' gunfight waiting for someone to slip up and expose their melon.

And it's arguably the most intuitive cover system in a shooter. A simple tap of the A button slams Marcus against the nearest wall, wardrobe or slab of stone, and the same button also acts as your sprint action, so dashing from cover to cover is a simple task indeed.

When in cover, on-screen diagrams help display possible commands for diving between objects - holding UP along with the A button for example will send Marcus over the top of a small barricade, or dashing towards whatever alternate objects may be ahead.

Similarly, SWAT turns can be executed between short gaps with simple use of the analogue stick and A button, and you can of course peak around corners Solid Snake-style to get a look at the bad guys. Overall, it's easy to get to grips with, yet an incredibly effective system that's simply a joy to use.

Shooting controls are again relatively simple. The right trigger fires your weapon and the left peaks over Marcus's shoulder for an aiming view. When in cover, the left trigger again pops you out of cover for some over-shoulder aiming, while the right trigger by itself sticks just your weapon out of cover, for some less accurate 'blind firing' that's useful for scaring off brave Locust - or when you simply cant risk exposing yourself to fire.

This kind of high-risk gunplay makes the employment of covering fire and flanking tactics essential, especially in the latter stages of the game when having enemies' full attention means you could have an explosive arrow winging towards your face the second you pop out of cover.

An early stage of the game introduces this nicely, when a stationary turret and handful of Locust block your path. You could simply try your luck with a bit of sharp-shooting at the gunner's head, but it's far easier to have your squadies distract the gun from the front, whilst you flank it around the side and treat the unfortunate gunman to a bit of chainsaw tango - which, by the way, is disgustingly violent and never gets old.

For single-player, the pacing is spot-on. You're never doing one thing for too long and there's plenty of variety in the gameplay. One moment you could be attacking a room full of Locust, the next you're defending it from a counter-attack through the front door, navigating around a gun turret or holding a town square as the appearance of emergence hole after emergence hole drops the white blokes all around you.

A perfect example of this is the second chapter Nightfall, which shakes things up a bit with the appearance of the Pitch Black-like Kryll, flying creatures that could easily rip you limb from limb - only they're a bit scared of bright lights.

So off you go navigating the dark streets, getting into the occasional Locust standoff and shooting propane canisters to help light a path free of the blood-thirsty Kryll. This also causes the occasional hilarious Locust blunder, when you lure them unexpectedly into the dark where they die in a swift, claret explosion.

The idea is played around with throughout the chapter, when at its pivotal moment you're pushing a flaming car through the streets, both using it as protection from the ricocheting Locust gunfire and swarming Kryll above. The tension is high and we almost ruined our trousers when in a cinematic moment the fiery vessel started descending down a hill fast, leaving us to desperately sprint after it to keep the airborne beasties at bay.

Another great example is your various encounters with Bezerkers, which despite us unashamedly ruining for you, you will not expect and will make you ruin your pants when they come smashing through a wall. Essentially, they're big scary trolls that are completely invulnerable to gun fire.

We won't ruin exactly how to dispatch these trouser-filling nasties, but it does involve luring them outside by legging it as fast as your light-clad COG armour will let you - all while they scream loudly and smash through entire columns behind you.

And it goes without saying that Gears is cinematic. Cut-scenes are tastefully executed, used mainly to reward players with nuggets of story after a particularly long slug through the Horde. Dialogue is fantastic, straight out of the Aliens school of badass marine writing and your wise-cracking buddies are rarely quiet.

One particular scene made us chuckle, when our two main protagonists Marcus and Dom were forced to take a different route from the other two team members, a hulking ex-sports-star-gone-soldier and wise-cracking bottle blonde.

"You're not going to believe where we are" "Control, can you give us Delta Two's location?" "Looks like... the sewer system?" "There's sh*t everywhere!" "Sucks to be them" "Screw you man! There's room for one more, it's a f****** part down here." Predator fans will be pleased.

And it goes without saying that it's gorgeous as well - there's no better showcase of Epic's Unreal Engine 3 than this. Admittedly the fantastic art direction helps tremendously, but the brick-crunching bullets and shaky camera also do their part in creating an intense and visceral experience.

But unfortunately it's not the perfect holy grail of a shooter some might have expected. With our nit-picking comb firmly in hand, we sometimes have problems with the enemy AI, which on the rare occasion can do something bemusing like sit happily behind cover whilst we run at them with chainsaw in full swing.

And while Gears is certainly not a short game, we were left craving for more than the 10 hours offered.

1000 words in and we're yet to mention one of Gear's most important features - it's completely seemless drop-in, drop-out co-op gameplay. The entire single-player game is designed with two-player battling in mind, sometimes very obviously over solo battling.

For example, at one point you're tasked with turning a valve to manoeuvre a platform across a section of water, with your AI buddie Don providing covering fire. Obviously this make a lot more sense with a real-life friend in Don's shoes, not to mention far less difficulty on the erm, insane Insane difficulty setting.

This is played out even further as in several sections you're prompted to split off into separate paths. One situation for example, has your group progressing through a Locust-occupied courtyard in groups of two, one player taking the streets while the other provides covering fire by working through the houses. Not only does this add variety - and replayability if you're progressing through the game solo - but it's also a blast to play with a mate as well.

The fact that you can revive your partner also adds a lot of depth and strategy to the game. Do you risk reviving your downed teammate in the line of fire, or do you stick it out and take out the bad guys first?

The multiplayer modes only strengthen the strategic elements and really show off the intuitiveness of Gears' cover system. Unlike an AI character, in head-to-head play if a real gamer can see your foot poking out from behind a wall he will take the shot. Gaining ground and swooping between cover also becomes essential in winning the battle, and chainsaw meleeing becomes a much more favoured tactic of your opponents than in the solo campaign.

And if it weren't for the mortal nature of our sore and battered fingers, we could probably carry on typing for many more words. There's plenty more to discuss - the COG tags littered around for your collecting pleasure, the vehicle sections that have you smashing through the streets and the most gorgeous rain we've seen in a game. But we'll leave that for you to discover.

Andy Robinson