The basic premise:
I've never been much of a big fan of action games and first person shooters, but gears of war took me in and kept me playing. Gears of war is a third person shooter, with the emphasis being on taking cover and fighting tactically rather than wading into the fray blasting anything that twitches and shrugging off bullets like rain.
The setting is near future, apocalyptic. A subterranean race called the locusts have emerged on the planet Sera, and have decimated the human population. The coalition of ordered governments (COG) have ordered that every fighting body be put towards the war effort, including Marcus Fenix, a prisoner who's been locked up for unknown reasons. You take on the role of Fenix as he and his fellow muscle bound COG soldiers (called gears), fight their way through the war torn planet looking to find a way to stop the ravening horde.
Game play:
Gears of war's biggest innovation is its cover system. A single button on the control pad is assigned to the "take cover" action. Once in cover you cannot be shot at unless you a) move, b) get outflanked, or c) stick an appendage out to shoot something.
Once in cover you have various options such as firing blind to keep yourself safe (at a loss of accuracy), leaning out of cover to aim (more accurate but exposes you to enemy fire), doing SWAT turns to duck from cover to cover to get a better position, the roadie run (half duck, half sprint), or simply leaping over the top to charge. This system is great as combat feels a lot more intensive and immersive. While many videogames have tried to simulate realistic combat in the past, Gears of War manages it superbly using this system to enable players to interact with cover far more easily.
Combat is fun, and rarely repetitive. The game only has a limited selection of weapons, but rather than having a few obviously superior weapons (the proverbial BFG), each weapon is tailored to a specific situation. The shotgun works very well in close quarters but is useless at range, and the opposite is true of the sniper rifle. The best gun in the game is probably the Lancer, your starting weapon. While other weapons have their uses, the lancer is your bread and butter, and you will only drop it very begrudgingly- and only if you run out of ammo. Plus the chainsaw attachment is just hilarious, a one shot kill on any enemy, in a very messy fashion. The locust weapons are pretty bad, but ammo is always available (Provided you are willing to take it from the current owner!)
The levels are well designed, and the events within them well planned. Shortly into the game, you find yourself and your squad sitting in a dried out circular fountain, trying to fend off attacks from all sides. It's intense, it's entertaining, and very cinematic.
Graphics:
Gears of war pushes the 360 to its limits with intense graphics. To experience them properly, you must play the game on a HD TV. It's the subtle little things in the graphics that don't show up on a low definition TV that really push the game's graphics from "good" to "excellent". The lights cast realistic shadows, gunfire lights up the immediate area, and you can see every chiseled line on your squad mates (and if you like to use melee weapons, your enemies,) faces. The game uses atmosphere very well, blending open, light areas for intense, action style combat, and dark confined spaces for that more horror-esque feel.
Multiplayer:
I don't use Xbox live as I feel the service is a bit of a rip off, but I did try out the game in Co-op. It worked very well, and shouts of “Cover me while I close the emergence hole!” brought both me and my friend into bouts of raucous laughter. Working as a team in gears of war really does improve your odds of survival and adds another dimension of fun to an already great game.
What makes it special:
Action games are dominated by countless bland FPS games that all have exactly the same formula with only a few little tweaks. Gears of War broke the mould and did it very well, proving that interesting design and new ideas can work, and can sell video games. And above all, gears of war is fun. I can't stress this enough, so many games I've completed only because I wanted to complete them for the sake of getting my money's worth from the game. Gears of war was different, I kept playing it because I was still enjoying it just as much when I put the controller down as when I picked it up. The game rewards intelligent play, (unlike most mindless shooters) so even if you are not a big fan of the action genre (I know I'm not), I would recommend you at least try out Gears of war. It's getting a little dated now, so its price has dropped to the point where you can pick it up second hand for about £20. Money well spent.
Overview:
Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 8/10
Game play: 9/10
Fun rating: 9/10
Multiplayer: 9/10 (Co-op only)
Overall: 9/10
