Anyone with a 360 should be playing Gears of War right now. Personally, I’m very stoked that the game lives up to its considerable hype (something Halo 2, arguably, did not). My full review is on GamerWithin, but upon putting in another 10 or so hours into the game, I’ve come up with a list of things I most appreciate/love about this shooter. What do you all think about it?

Things to Love (in no particular order):

1. The Guitar Riff
This will become most player’s favourite sound. A subtle, but cool, guitar riff plays when you have killed all enemies in a particular firefight. It’s your cue to get off your haunches and move forward once again. As some of the battles can be incredibly hard, hearing this sound is a reward in itself.

2. Blind Firing
The Casual difficulty level never actually gives need for this, but Hardcore and Insane certainly do. While the cover system is great, even exposing yourself for a few seconds can spell your death. Enter the capacity to blind fire over cover at enemies at close to medium range. On Insane, this has saved my life more times than I can count - in just the first chapter alone. It is particularly useful for chopping up rushing enemies and for getting other to drop back into cover. When they do hunker down again, that’s your hint to pop up and start laying down the smack on their exposed bits or as soon as they come up again.

3. The Lancer
I’m not sure if the assault rifle with the chainsaw on the end is the coolest weapon in a FPS ever, but it makes the top ten in my books. Not only does it look cool, have good accuracy and rate of fire, but its close-range attack is some of the greatest visceral fun you can have in a game. The only thing to remember is to not rev it up until you are in range of its attack. On Insane, starting it even a few steps out of range will result in your intended target spinning around and killing you with a shotgun or a smackdown before you can get the teeth into him. I found that out the hard way a few times.

4. Graphics
Beyond the resolution and general look - which is awesome - I am in love with all the little touches. Look at the architecture of buildings that are in the distance or outside of your battleground. You will notice that each one has an incredible level of detail. This is something seldom seen, and it just permeates this game. Every environment has so many unique touches and little attentions to detail that it is possible to just spend time wandering around and gawking at everything.

5. Difficulty
Halo had its Legendary, and Gears has its Insane mode. I appreciate the fact that this game is very tough on default levels and next to impossible on Insane. There is built in longevity here, and a careful bit of tactics can get you through every battle alive. The key lies in planning, familiarity with the encounters, and the ability to adjust tactics on the fly…. all the components that make final victory so very sweet.

6. Level Access
You can instantly see what levels you have completed, and what sub-sections in each have been done at the varying difficulty levels. Want to get Insane ratings on each chapter but are getting stuck somewhere? Just skip it, move on, and return to it at a later time. It operates about as perfectly as you could hope.

7. Co-op
This is my favourite feature of Gears, and likely one of the principal reasons it will sell so well. Co-op works nearly flawlessly, and once again you can just leap into whatever chapter and section with a buddy that you wish. Drop in co-op is great too. No reason why a buddy cannot join your game already well underway.

8. The Locust
Face it, these bastards look mean, fight well, and utterly deserve to die horrible deaths. Nothing is worse than an adversary that does not inspire any desire to kill them, and the Locust fit the bill as grade-A villains very nicely. The voice work is cool too. I though that them speaking some English would ruin them (like the Covenant’s English did), but it appears to work very well.

9. Marcus
This guy is great. He looks like a total bad-ass, is a wonderful anti-hero, and becomes someone you can connect with over the course of the game. We need a lot more info on him and his back-story in the next installment, but the thread is off to a fine start.

10. Active Reloading
Who would have thought that Epic would discover a means to make even reloading your gun entertaining? The system is brilliant in its conceptualization and execution. Nothing like nailing a reload in the heat of battle, and getting a damage boost for those rounds as well. Of course, flubbing it can cause your death… something I believe makes the whole process crucial in just the right degree.

Things that are not quite so great

There is always room for improvement, and here are a few things that still stand out as odd or a bit rough around the edges.

1. Marcus‘ tone of voice
Get to the mines‘ level beginning and listen to one particular comment of his. When the Wenches that glow are seen, Dom says, “Did you see that?” Marcus replies, “Yep. Kinda wish I hadn’t.” Play that clip alongside one of Eyore’s from Winnie the Pooh, and tell me they don’t sound identical - I mean, completely and utterly the same. It’s quite hilarious actually… but one that does break the mood a little. All we need is Dom to sound like Piglet and we’ve got the perfect match for hunting Heffalumps.

2. Adversarial Options
Quite frankly, not enough. No clan support, no invites in ranked games, no capture the flag, territories, or other modes. Poor post-match and in-match camera support will make this less likely to be a contender for the Professional League’s roster of titles. We need some fleshing out here.

3. The Brumack
Why can we not fight him!? One of the coolest enemies ever, and he only shows up in a tiny cut-scene? What’s the deal here?

4. Not enough destructibility
I want to blow massive chunks out of the walls, see the dust in the air, and witness more stuff shatter and splinter. Yes, I’ve been playing F.E.A.R. and lot, as well as the original XBox’s BLACK. We’re next-gen, and I know Unreal Engine 3 can handle this... so let us see more of it please Epic. It would add a lot to the action.

5. Cost
It is worth every penny, but games just keep going up in price. Ouch to the Bank Balance.

So, what do you think? What parts of the game did you find particularly great… or not so great?

- Martin VanWoudenberg