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It has been over a week now since Emergence Day. I have beaten the game twice now: first on Casual, then on Insane. I’ve collected every CoG tag. I’m working on beating the game again on Hardcore. Why? Because it’s that damn good. GoW, short for Gears of War, is currently the top of the list of fun games. It’s like Resident Evil 4, Ghost Recon: Advanced War fighter, and Halo put into one, yet on a whole new level. This is the first installment of the trilogy, yes trilogy. With such a powerful beginning I’m eager to see what Epic does for the next two games.
Gameplay:

There is zero puzzle solving in the game, except for finding new ways to inflict pain; always fun. One shot will not kill you, but you better find cover quickly. The game has a wonderful Co-op system which is similar to Brothers in Arms: one person takes cover and fires randomly at the air, while their teammate takes flank and opens up the Can of Pain. Of course, in these other games, I don’t remember using a chainsaw to decapitate an alien in half, thus spilling internal organs all over the ground. Nope I just don’t remember that happening, ever.

The cover system is beautiful. With just a quick tap of the A button the player will run, dash, or slide to the nearest cover. If held down the player will make a mad dash to cover that is further away.

With such simplicity, the systems does have its glitches. Many times I would be running for a specific piece of cover and get snagged on a wall on the way. The snagging takes only a few seconds to correct. Unfortunately, at the risk of sounding like a crappy DeVry University commercial: do you know what happens in a few seconds? You die in a few seconds. You’re best bet for surviving in such a situation is to frantically tap A and pull your joystick backward, inducing your character to perform a series of backwards rolls . I love that word “induce”, it’s always used for the most disgusting of circumstances. Other than the glitch of being snagged on everything in an exaggerated 10 mile radius, the cover system works better than any other game I’ve played. You only get hit by standing up, being flanked, or by a grenade.

The camera was a little frustrating. It works, but it could work better. In GRAW one could change which shoulder the camera was over. In GoW the camera rarely switches shoulders. This made it hard to see what was on my other side without turning my character. The camera is zoomed out to give the player a wide view. I played as a long range person keeping Locust at bay, but my teammate(Barry) had to turn his sensitivity up a notch for the shotgun. All in all the camera is great, but nothing beats being able to control it yourself.

Visuals:

It’s the Unreal 3.0 engine. What else is there to say? It may not be as pretty as Oblivion or Far Cry…… but it’s a war ravaged world. What do you expect, flowers? If anything, it is the most realistic looking game to date. The pale colors of the world are still strikingly beautiful in their own way. Also, unlike too many other games, the scenery in each stage was definitely unique.

Sound:

I never noticed a glitch, but I was also too knee deep in alien intestine to care. The music was uninteresting to me, but luckily I had a good .wma list playing from the Xbox Connect. “Mad World” (the song from the ubiquitous advertisement for the game) was played on a loop till I was sick of it. The voice acting was definitely good. Maybe not Pixar movie quality, but better than any other game I’ve played.

Cheats:

How well can you toss that grenade boy?

Value:

I have no regrets in my brother paying 60 bucks for the game.

Replay:

Beaten it twice and working on the third. Good enough?

Rating:

9.7/10 A very satisfying, must-have game with very minor cover and camera glitches.

Added: Specifics

The game has 2 player co-op through the campaign in the forms of Split screen and Xbox Live.

Posted under Game Reviews, Platform-Xbox 360