I don’t know if there was a topic on this game already, I didn’t really search. But I was wondering if anyone else had a chance to play this game?
While the graphics are the first thing to floor you, as you play you notice that even though the gameplay boils down to running for cover, and taking timed shots over and over again, the different locations and situations that the game put you in allows this mechanic to stay fresh.
I’ve only played a little bit of multiplayer, so I can’t really comment on that since I got absolutely annihilated.
If anyone else has this game, I would love to get a game together over Live sometime.
Gears of War is THE reason to own a 360. Nothing compares on the system compares right now in my opinion. Of Halo 2, Bungie’s Jaime Griesemer said:
[quote]
In Halo 1, there was maybe 30 seconds of fun that happened over and over and over again, so if you can get 30 seconds of fun, you can pretty much stretch that out to be an entire game.[/quote]
Gears of War nails this 30 seconds more than any other game I can think of. The cover mechanism is pretty much perfect; you’re not 100% secure and you’re not exposed too much. There’s a lot more tactical thinking in this game that lots of people give it credit for. You need to decide when to move from cover, where to, when to wait for the enemy to come running to you so you can blind fire a shotgun in their face.
I love it, and I normally shy away from macho-posing style games like this. Coop is fantastic and actively encourages real team play, and I love the design work. I’ve not played multipayer yet either, but the guys at work are pestering me to so I’m sure I will soon enough
The game is phenomenally fun. I just finished Casual mode last night and have started working my way through Hardcore mode (simply, for no other reason, to get more Achievements… damn you Microsoft!!!).
Absolutely brilliant. The story is fairly weak, but the delivery of the story is top notch. The dialog is well-done, but in a Hollywood action movie-esque sort of way. Not award-winning by any means, but enough to get you to like the characters and make you really feel like you’re a part of the team.
The cover fire mechanics are nothing new. Namco’s kill.switch did it very similarly, but GoW just fine tunes it and makes it work that much better. And let me tell you… the cover fire mechanic works perfectly for coop games. Someone takes point and arms himself with the machinegun/chainsaw, and moves from cover to cover while the other guy stands back and lays down cover fire with the sniper rifle or torque bow…
In the end, it’s still just a corridor crawler. You run in a somewhat straight line throughout the whole game, but they do so much with the level design that it never gets boring (at least the first play through).
I think the game is massively overrated (much like Halo II).
Don?t get me wrong the game is fun and great (worth getting) but its not the be and end all , and the cover system like the AI sucks . Having one button doing 3 diff actions, is just asking for trouble and it shows in this game , really frustrating when in a middle of a fire fight.
I?ve been playing RB 6 VEGAS and its cover system is just so much better (As is GRAW) , when you die in those games , it?s for the main your fault, not poor controls . Then there?s silly things, like why the need to have a button to pick up ammo (when it could have been better used to separate the need to have the A Button handle jump and run) , and the gameplay is far too much shoot then take cover ever 30 sec?s, the Vehicle levels are so poor and pointless one wonders why EPIC even put/left them in.
That said the Co-Op online mode is seamless and the best I?ve ever seen and set the bar, as do the graphics in the online modes (when most LIVE games downgraded their Live Maps) The graphics on the rain level are some of the best one could ever wish to see, and the game is fun , and for me brings in elements from some of my fav films like StarShip Troppers, Aliens , the music score and voice acting is the tops too.
But for me the likes of FEAR, GRAW and Vegas are the better games.
The AI and Firefights in FEAR are the best I?ve played this side of HALO and games AI is most impressive I?ve witness . The cover system in Vegas is just so much better done and handled , and GRAW for me is the best game I?ve played this year .
Have you tried FEAR? It’s your typical first person shooter with a supernatural theme taken straight out of a Silent Hill game.
I don’t know about you, but I’m more drawn to the story than anything else, even if it’s been done to death already as long as it’s told in an original way.
Only going by the demo, FEAR’s control completely turned me off unfortunately, so I was left with no interest in it.
Gears of War… while the experience isn’t up there with something like Halo for me, I wouldn’t call it overrated. It’s still a completely fresh game, solid on absolutely every level, and stands alone for the moment as the new visual benchmark not only for the tech, but also the coherence of the production. For me it represents a milestone, from this point things may get a lot closer to film, where how ‘good’ a game looks is thought of in terms of the inspiration and craft that has gone into it and not so much how many arbitrary effects it has or lacks.
I would actually have to say that F.E.A.R.'s story didn’t do it for me, I did like how it wasn’t told strictly through in game cutscenes, in that you could get more clues and pieces from telephones/computers you found; but in the end it didn’t draw me in as much as Monolith’s other 360 game Condemned (granted they are two totally different experiences).
I do agree that mapping almost every action to the A button did present challenges in Gears of War, but I had the same problem with F.E.A.R. where if I didn’t play it for a week or so, I would have to relearn the entire scheme since everything was used.
Just a side note: but I think that since almost every single shooter on the 360 uses rumble to signify when your character is taking damage, I have grown used to it. When I first started F.E.A.R. though, there was no such feedback, and I was finding myself dying more so than not before I learned to notice the red flashes on the side of the screen. Kind of makes me wonder how playing Resistance: Fall of Man would be like, since I really want to try that eventually.
Played my first game of serious versus multiplayer on Saturday (usually only play coop), and HOT DAMN, that was some good fun.
Despite the fact that the chainsaw bayonet is actually not that useful (too slow, leaves you vulnerable), there is no other frag in any shooter that is as satisfying as the chainsaw kill.
Big problem is, though, that in a crowded game, once someone gets a chainsaw kill, it usually causes a chain reaction of chainsaw kills. Hilarious to watch.
I’m playing through Gears of War at the moment, it’s an excellent game. If you’re looking for a reason to buy a 360, this game certainly is one.
The atmosphere is really well done though… dark and moody, a world where humanity is on the brink of extinction. And graphically Gears of War’s visuals are among the best you’ll find on any system. I love the subtle features that the developers have added in to make the game more accessible, such as allowing the player to hold down the Y button to quickly focus on items of interest.
My only gripes so far are that (a) the gameplay feels a bit linear… invisible walls, can be found in certain parts of the game, and also (b) it generally doesn’t feel as varied or accessible to a wide range of play styles as some other shooters out there such as Halo. Not that it has to be, as they both very different games, but with all the “Gears is the Halo of 2006” talk it’s hard not to make the comparison, if only subconsciously. Gears seems to focus more on certain styles of shooter gameplay, and does these well.
No doubt the second and third games in the trilogy are in the planning stages already.
I’m very impressed with the graphics and gameplay…
…early on in the game the play mechanics (run cover shoot, run cover shoot) seem a bit repetitive (not in a bad way, as most “shooters” are typically repetitive) but the 3rd person over the shoulder play style is the best I’ve seen in a game since RE4.
There’s a part of me that suspects that Cliffy B was very much inspired by the awesomeness of RE4, as Gears seems to have the same type of play pacing / cinematic pacing, etc. etc.
I’m looking forward to finishing the campaign mode, as well as getting online with it.
