Gears of War
Xbox 360
This is my first review of an Xbox 360 game.
I admit, I feel like I have crossed over to the dark side. I have been a loyal PlayStation user all the way back to the good ole days of the PS one. I have always ignored the Xbox systems, dismissing them as inferior product. I have only ever played a handful of original Xbox games. I never checked out the 360. Still, over the years I'd heard many good things about the Gears of War series. I always told myself that some day I would get a 360 for cheap after it became obsolete and then check these games out. In 2017 this opportunity finally opened up for me. I got a 360 plus all three Gears of War games for under two hundred dollars. This was a deal that could not be beat. It didn't keep me from feeling like a traitor, however. Like I was cheating on my significant other the PlayStation with another video game system.
I'd get over it, though.
I really wanted to like Gears of War, and my expectations were that the game would blow me away. I have to admit that the game did not leave a great first impression. I am not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. I couldn't figure out what was going on with the game's story. There was a brief opening scene, but nothing that really explained what was presently going on with your characters. Also, I couldn't tell any of these characters apart. Even after beating the game, I honestly couldn't tell you who was who. They all seem like a bunch of generic meatheads with no real distinguishing traits. I found it hard to get into the game for this reason. They are all interchangeable, complete with similar looks, similar voices, and similar gruff personalities. Even though some end up dying along your journey, I found myself not caring because nothing really set anyone else apart from the pack. Certainly nothing impacted me enough to elicit any kind of emotional response from me.
I also felt as if the action moved a little too quickly to the point where you become desensitized to it. Right off the bat you are running and gunning for your life, which is cool I guess. But the game's over the top action sequences combined with its fast moving combat feels a little Michael Bay-esque to me. Explosions everywhere. People yelling and running and shooting. Mayhem, but really crisp and sharp looking mayhem. Also, the action never seems to stop. The whole game feels as if you are jumping right from one high-tension action zone to another.
One of my initial thoughts was that the game's combat system seemed very similar to some other games I have played. You draw your weapon with the left trigger, firing it with the right trigger. You move with the left analog stick, aim with the other. The over the shoulder perspective, combined with the game's sighting system when you draw your gun seemed very Resident Evil 4-like for me. The combat itself reminded me highly of the Uncharted series. The D-pad based weapon system is a dead-ringer for Uncharted's. You run, roll, and take cover like Uncharted. You can throw grenades like Uncharted. You take damage and recover from the damage (simply with time) just like Uncharted. Also like Uncharted: you collect lost dog tags rather than treasures pieces. Different items, but the way they work is exactly the same. The whole thing was too similar.
I had to Google when these two games first came out. Gears of War came out in late 2006, nearly a full year before the first Uncharted game hit the shelves. So it was Uncharted that ripped off Gears of War. I still don't know how I feel about this. I always thought Uncharted was one of a kind, and then I find out it ripped off soooo many things from a different game on a rival competitor's system. Hmmm....
Eventually I settled in and acclimated myself to the game's Michael Bay-like fast paced over the top styling and I started to have fun. I still didn't care much about the characters. The story line still didn't seem like much else other than simply running and gunning from point A to point B. But at least the combat was fun. I enjoyed the rush of battle. I liked experimenting with different techniques. Running in and blasting away versus taking cover and being cautious. I experimented with different weapons. I was never afraid to throw grenades.
For whatever reason, killing your enemies is extremely satisfying in this game. It is the best thing about the game to be honest with you. Whether your enemies drop to the ground, lose their heads, or simply explode into a mist of gore it is always a very satisfying feeling when you take one out. And the more clever of a way you find to do it, the better.
The game did challenge me on occasion, even with me playing on casual difficulty. You learn through a lot of trial and error. I died quite a few times, and it always made me come back smarter and angrier the next time. I took it as a personal challenge when I died, and I wouldn't want to stop playing until I could pass the area. It happened on more than one occasion as I played where I would survive a battle and tell myself I would stop playing at the next save point. Then something would happen and I'd tell myself "okay one more battle." And then that battle would turn into another, then another, then another... The game is not super hard by any means, but it is a challenge. That challenge definitely fueled me to keep on playing. Because the game's mediocre story line and characters certainly were not living up to their end of the bargain.
Graphically, the game looks fantastic. I admit that I live in the stone age and I don't have a PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or in fact any next generation system that has come out in the post PS3/360 era. So to me this game looks amazing. Great enemy designs, great backgrounds, great cinematics, great level layouts, great detail in the game's environment. Really. The amount of detail is truly astonishing. Areas look lived in and are filled with small personal touches. The closest thing I could compare it to is the Last of Us, which is remarkable when you consider that this game came out in 2006. It is eleven freaking years old. Jiminy Cricket. This really makes me feel old that I am playing a game that came out eleven years ago and to me it feels like it could have been a brand new game released today.
At first I had thought the game was going to be just a mindless shooter, but it turned out to be a little bit more than that. And by little bit I mean a little little bit. There are vehicle stages where you control the vehicle's main gun while a non playable character drives. But really all you are doing is still aiming and shooting and killing your enemies like you've been doing all along. There are breaks in the action from time to time where your characters simply walk and converse. Other areas make you use your head. In one stage, there are flying enemy swarms that hate the light, and will not attack you as long as you are in the light. So you have to keep out of the dark and shoot things to cause explosions which create light to allow you to move on. So not everything is one giant battle. There are lulls. But it doesn't really feel like there is much if any diversity to Gears of War's game play.
The game is very short. It took me 3 or 4 sessions to complete the campaign. Some sessions were an hour, some were longer. I don't know if the game gave me a tally of hours played at the end, but I would imagine it is somewhere in the ten hour range. It can probably be beaten even quicker too if you are not taking the time to explore every square inch of the game like I did. I still missed a crap ton of hidden dog tags, so I don't know how that's possible.
I feel as if this is a very well made game. There is no denying that it is fun to play. It got off to a slow start with me, but by the end it had won me over. Not to say it doesn't have its negatives. I still think the characters and the story line are rubbish. I think the overall story line of the game's universe has potential, but what we saw in the first game was very basic and forgettable. I have faith that it will get better in the sequels. Also, this is a game that is famous for its multiplayer. I have only played the single player campaign. So I don't have the full experience that someone who has been playing the game online from day one would have. I don't know if the servers are still up, but even if they are I don't think I'd want to play with anyone online.
While a good story line is important to me, it is not essential. If it is a fun game I can overlook a bad story line. And this is a fun game. It is not the greatest game I have ever played, but it is challenging and entertaining. It's a nice, fun game. That is really all I can say about it. Great graphics, but I think a great story line would have made it more memorable. That's the problem I am running into here. The game is nothing memorable. It is a short, amusing experience. But that's it. I expected more. Perhaps my expectations were too high. I do plan to someday play this game again and give it another shot. We'll see if my opinion changes. But for now, it gets a:
Overall:
C+
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