Gears of War

So I'm a bit late to the part on this one but I only got around to playing Gears of War about a month ago. I'd seen that the gameplay was pretty cool but the characters and the graphic style of the game didn't really appeal to me. I especially didn't like the steroid ridden characters that seem to come with the Unreal engine.

Like this guy for example.

But these games have gotten cheap and I wanted to join in on the multiplayer fun my friends were having so I bought the first 2 games. So far I've played through the first game.

Gameplay

Given that this game practically reinvented the cover based shooter to the point where all the others mimic Gears these days, it's obviously doing something right. I think that the key to their success is that it's kept pretty simple. It's a basic 3rd person shooter with a simple cover mechanic. But every part of it is done right. They didn't overreach and try for too much - they just stuck to what the game needed and implemented it very well. So you get a simple, extremely satisfying shooter.

Can't speak to what the multi-player is like in this one as I only played with it for one evening before moving onto the Horde mode in the sequel.

Graphics

Not to much to say on this front - it looks about as good as every AAA title does these days. Two points against it though are the overuse of the "Real Is Brown" style to the graphics, and the ridiculously muscular characters that seem to be in most Unreal Engine games. Though you do meet some Stranded NPCs which don't have that look so I guess it's possible to have normal looking people in these games.

Story

Gears is an odd beast on this point. Leaping right into an "in media res" opening, the plot hits the ground running. But in doing so, it's skipping details to the back story like how the war started and who the enemy are. But it actually works really well. You don't need to know any of that beyond what you pick up from context, and it scores major points for following the "Poeple don't talk about how cars work" principle and no cast member engages in any "As You Know" speeches.

And as the game goes on you very quickly learn what you need to know about the characters immediate goals and mission and probably because I found the character's behaviour more realistic than expected I found myself actually pretty invested in how the mission played out. The games ends with a fairly satisfying outcome and still manages to leave it on a suitably dramatic cliffhanger for the sequel. So even after the game never really gets around to telling you what came before, it certainly left me wanting to know what came next.

Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed this game - so much as to play it through again on a higher difficulty as soon as I'd finished. It's not perfect but I can definitely see why so many games copied it's mechanics so much. The combination of action and cover based tactics worked well, and even the vehicle based Unexpected Gameplay Change doesn't detract from it. I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested in shooters.

Now I've got to get into the story mode of Gears of War 2 to see what's next. :)