Gears of War Review

[{GJ}Riptide]

Release Date: November 7th, 2006 (that's right i'm reviewing a game 7 years old)
Developer: Epic games
Platform: Xbox 360, PC
Multiplayer: Yes

Story

Emergence Day is the title given to the day the Locust Horde emerged from under the surface. They positioned themselves to come up in the middle of most major cities and declared war by killing 25% of the human population in the first 26 hours. That was fourteen years ago. Your story begins when Dominic Santiago breaks the main character out of jail and reinstates him to the military, Marcus Fenix. It is believed scientists found a way to end the war using a lightmass bomb. The catch is the lightmass bomb must be planted underground, somewhere nobody has been since emergence day. Guess who gets the honors of doing that. All of the characters you meet throughout the game are different and really just adds to a great experince. The plot is very straight forward and doesn't reveal much of the past or plot turns yet. Those are saved for later games.

Gameplay

What was so revolutionary about Gear of War was the over the shoulder, take cover gameplay. It was really the first 360/ps3 gen game you can't just run around and shoot people. Even on easy if you didn't take cover, your dead. The game takes great advantage of military like formations such as flanking. The weapons are amazing in their simplicity, each weapon is very basic but it's exactly what you want in a gun. A shotgun is a shotgun, the sniper is a sniper and the aiming for all weapons is perfect. But the gem of the arsenal is the Lancer assault rifle. With it's trademark chainsaw on the bottom used to cut Locust in half is an iconic image in modern videogames. Most boss battles in shooter games are pretty lame unless the franchise is metalgearsolid. Gears of war is another exception. With 3 major boss battles in the game, each are very unique and require different skill sets to beat. The Locust General RAAM looks like a total badass and is a very fun boss battle but I would of liked more story involvement with him. With the exception of one badass cutscene early in the game, he's MIA until the end.

Final Thoughts

For an early 360/ps3 gen game, gears of war is beautiful in it's misery. It really drives home the fact that the human race is fighting for it's life, and not doing so well. It's a breath of fresh air that all the characters are unique and have their own style/story. The only problems with gears of war comes in the story being the gameplay is almost perfect. Since the game starts 14 years after E-DAY and you start off in jail for a reason all the characters seem to know about, it would of been nice for some past history. Also would of loved more General RAAM involvement

Rating: 9/10