Gears of War Review

By Tom Bramwell Published 7 November, 2007

Fenix the fight!

Version tested: PC

Billed by its creator as a game that would "place gamers directly in the shadows of a ravaged world, surrounded by the beautiful remnants of a destroyed city and the horrific dangers that hide in the rubble", Gears of War is designed to be a crowd-pleasing blockbuster. From the chainsaw bayonet to the exploding crossbow bolts, from the giant spider clawing at your helicopter to the elusive, sibilant stirrings of cloaked monsters buried deep below the earth in an ocean of golden death. It's an almost ceaseless chain of brutal skirmishes and firefights fought by tank-like muscle men who eat gravel for breakfast and sound as though they chew on wasps when they polish their armour, which isn't very often, because they're too busy washing their hands in blood. But despite its ludicrous, comical violence, its likeably primitive caveman cast and its brilliant graphics, the reasons it works are almost entirely distinct from the qualities of the action films to which its impact is often compared.

The story is so basic that it would barely cover a pamphlet, let alone a screenplay: the world is at the mercy of ground-dwelling Locust warriors, and you have to stop them. So they come out of the ground, and you kill them, which gets you closer to your objective. That's it. The triumph here is understatement, rather than execution: dialogue sequences and cut-scenes are cheesy and largely installed to break up the pace, but the fact it leaves a lot of questions unanswered gives it the closest thing it has to mystique. A lot of the clashes you face have their own timbre and recognisable characteristics, but they all follow the same script. This would make a good ride at Universal Studios, but it won't make a good film unless they have a big old think about it.

And yet it is good, because Epic has streamlined the traditional third-person combat mechanism, given you an adhesive bum and concentrated on the world you inhabit. If Halo is Combat Evolved, this is combat by intelligent design. Every battlefield is engineered to support the game's delightful central mechanic: locking yourself to the backside of a cover point with the spacebar and then pressing mouse2 to lean over the top and fire. From your first encounter on a bridge between opposing wings of a desolate prison to the final boss fight, it's all about gluing yourself to cover points and making every second of exposure count.

'Gears of War' Screenshot 1

The blood trails and splatters are unlike anything you've seen since you last shot holes in a ketchup bottle.

Sera feels like a hostile place. When the ground rumbles, it means an Emergence Hole is opening, and Locust forces are about to pin you down until they're dead. You can toss a grenade in to close one quickly, but that's only if you can get close. Otherwise you're in for a rough ride. When night falls, you have to engineer a passage of light between cover points, because the bat-like Kryll will cut you to pieces as soon as you step into shadow. But Sera has retained her dignity. Ravaged though she may be, she's actually your biggest ally; a convenient network of cover points calculated to support efficient marksmen, helpfully stocked with ammo packs and beefy guns.

It's beautifully, addictively simple, and the basic cover-to-cover combat is built upon excellent weapons. Your main assault rifle, with its chainsaw bayonet melee attack (the most absurdly and brilliantly violent finishing move since the best days of Mortal Kombat), is a gratifying mainstay, while shotguns, sniper rifles and that crossbow - with a bolt that sticks into enemies and then blows them to pieces a second later - work hard to own the slots in your limited arsenal. The best thing about the guns though is active reloading. When you press 'r', a reload bar appears under your gun in the top-right, and by pressing 'r' again as a cursor lashes across it you can affect your rate of reload. Time it so that it locks to a narrow white marker and you slam in another clip almost instantly, giving you a burst of higher-powered ammunition. Mis-time your active reload, though, and you jam your gun, wasting valuable seconds.

'Gears of War' Screenshot 2

Enemy AI isn't tremendous, but it doesn't have to be. Leaning against things is the star.

Coupled with cover-to-cover action, this gives Gears of War a satisfying fluidity and totality of combat control that even the best first-person shooters in the overstocked PC genre rarely achieve. And it never gets old, because the solution to each skirmish is down to the layout of your surroundings, while the fun is derived from the mechanics. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the new PC-exclusive section introduced to bridge the gap between events in Acts 4 and 5. Rocket-launching Boomers on raised platforms, turret gunners in narrow, sand-bagged corridors, Theron Guards in leafy parks, Seeders without the Hammer of Dawn... It doesn't matter if adjacent battlegrounds look alike; providing the cordons, crates, rubble and enemies are stacked differently, it will play out in a distinctive way. Epic has stumbled on a formula that only needs basic tweaks from scene to scene to remain engaging.

Gears isn't without its novelty moments, either - and while the over-zealous signposting and prompting is a legacy of dumbed-down console design, it's hard not to smile as you direct your squad-mate Dom through a plague of Kryll using a searchlight, or watch an indestructible adversary dance to death under the laser beam of an orbital death-ray.

The transition to PC has been extremely kind, too. Although you can plug in a dual-stick controller and play it like a console game, the introduction of keyboard and mouse control improves the combat no end, adding a greater degree of precision to an already largely flawless game of trigger-tugging. Although you will have to succumb to Microsoft's Xbox Live for Windows model with its attendant gamertag and "Guide" concepts - whether you're on XP or Vista - you can do most of the things you want on a free account, and there is an undeniable satisfaction in accumulating those Achievements and gamerpoints we all pretend we don't care about. Upon which note, your targets are much the same, but there are now 33 hidden Cog Tags to uncover rather than 30.

You're also still allowed to play online co-op without paying for the subscription-based "Gold" account. This is something well worth undertaking, too, because the mounting absurdity of Marcus and Dom's situation becomes extremely comic, and it's a hard game to watch without wanting to poke fun (not for nothing, after all, is all the grunting and grimacing lampooned with affection by all those who play it). The PC version also adds an Editor, which has the potential to deliver even more free content to support the game's enjoyably different multiplayer modes. As an online shooter, Gears can't really rival Team Fortress 2 or Counter-Strike for depth, tactics and poise, but it's a natural extension of the offline game's hardest fire-and-move scenarios.

Not that it's ever lonely. Throughout the offline adventure, you're accompanied by at least one of your fellow "Gears", partly to support the excellent co-op mode - playable online, of course - but also to give the world a sense of balance. One of Gears' biggest strengths is that you never feel as though you're more than evenly matched. You can understand how the Locust overran the general populace - they spring from almost anywhere and they cut people to pieces with menace - but their strength is in numbers that their delivery mechanism's vulnerabilities place in jeopardy. As a small cluster of die-hard soldiers, you're equal to them in a skirmish, and that's how the game plays out.

'Gears of War' Screenshot 3

The Brumak danced with you on Xbox 360, but he flirts with you throughout the new PC chapters. What a tease.

One downside to this approach is that you are sometimes pegged back by your comrades' failure. When Dom, Baird or Cole Train take too many bullets, they sag to their knees and need to be revived by running over to them and pressing the action button, but you can usually ignore this and soldier on without them. Except sometimes you can't - if they're slaughtered by Kryll, or blown to pieces, you have to restart from the last checkpoint, and this happens a bit too often for my liking.

Gears on PC overcomes one of the Xbox 360 version's issues by separating the roadie run control - a sprint move shot low-down by a handheld camera, which is excellent - from the button used to take cover, but there are still times you will run and snag on a piece of scenery, and the game's excellence in combat comes at the cost of manoeuvrability, the lack of which may come as something of a shock to fans of Quake and Half-Life. There are also sections designed to fracture the relentlessness that serve better to frustrate - a laboured journey in an armoured car that sounds good on paper but bores in practise, and a mine cart ride (yes, it is 2007) that could have been removed without hurting anybody, spring to mind most readily. And while mostly your adversaries scale up interestingly, the laziness of the exploding, monkey-like lambent wretches or the flying eyeball Nemecyst isn't easily overlooked.

'Gears of War' Screenshot 4

Mark Rein did my tech support, you know. I'm such a player.

On Xbox 360, Gears was also accused (albeit only subsequently) of feeling unfinished. Ironically, the absence of narrative coherency in the latter stages and the stunted conclusion worked in its favour, dramatically, and the added PC stages walk the tightrope of existing exposition quite impressively without blunting the enjoyably inconclusive finale. Which is to say that they literally bridge the gap between one place and the next (amazingly, you turned some pressure valves - "I am your father" it is not), but they don't plug any of the holes. You still end the game with plenty of questions.

With all that said, Gears of War remains a triumph. It is an almost relentless march of unpretentious, cartoon violence that serves as a satisfyingly brainless alternative to the complexity of its contemporaries. Whether played alone or with a friend, it's essential gaming - different enough to defy direct comparison, and versatile enough in what it attempts to sustain an otherwise predictable campaign. While other games lurk unconvincingly in the shadows of action cinema, desperate to be counted alongside the films they pillage, Gears achieves all their strengths - gratifying spectacle, comic violence and rugged activity - by concentrating on what makes the best games work: simplicity, skill, and more than a little bit of absurdity.

9 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (77) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Hench #1 4 years ago

    lol I thought this was an xbox 360 exclusive

  • Max_Powers #2 4 years ago

    Replayed a bit recently on the 360. One of the most enjoyable games on the 360. Shame the multiplayer matchmaking is so basic otherwise I'd still be playing it.

  • barnard666 #3 4 years ago

    its gone up a point, I so wish I could play the new bits on my xbox...I know they said that's impossible, but I would at least hope to see them in the sequel as an unlockable extr or something.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #4 4 years ago

    "this is combat by intelligent design"

    So do Gears of War's "primitive cavemen cast" spend their time fighting dinosaurs, then, like in that American museum?

  • afghan_jones #5 4 years ago

    Reading this reminded me how bloody good fun gears actually is.

    Utter genius.

  • BrokenSymmetry #6 4 years ago

    "a satisfyingly brainless alternative to the complexity of its contemporaries."

    What are these alternative games I have missed?

  • megadaisy #7 4 years ago

    cant wait to play this co-op with my wife - theres far too few co-op games these days. Will we need 2 copies though?

    Also can you play as a female character as in UT?
    Edited by 1 at 07/11/07 @ 09:43

  • LeD #8 4 years ago

    The extra content will find its way onto 360 - mark my words.

  • Ace_McCloud #9 4 years ago

    So better than Gears then? .... wait a minute!

    (I know, I know! But someone had to say it...)

  • Talha #10 4 years ago

    "It is an almost relentless march of unpretentious, cartoon violence that serves as a satisfyingly brainless alternative to the complexity of its contemporaries."

    Erm - is that a compliment? ;-)

    The review doesn't mention what graphical bells and whistles PC users can derive apart from the new levels. EG often misses this out.

  • Zomoniac #11 4 years ago

    Better than Gears of War then?

  • jlaakso #12 4 years ago

    I can't stomach the characters. It would be miles better if there was no dialogue and no cutscenes. The gameplay's good and it looks the part, certainly.

  • GamesConnoisseur #13 4 years ago

    PS3 or Wii only owners can then sample the gaming delights that is Gear of War on PC, dont be put off by its coming on X360 a year ago. Have the cake and enjoy it!!

    A best example of a third person cover-based shooter in a FUN way!

    What I am interested in is year long spend on getting this PC version done, aside from extra chapter, was it necessarily that long? Wasn't porting between X360 and PC made in heaven? Or was it mainly exclusive thing?

  • Mugwum Verified Operations Director, Eurogamer Network #14 4 years ago

    "Erm - is that a compliment? ;-)"

    Definitely! Sometimes it's the way to go. Not everything has to be all clever clogs like BioShock.

    "The review doesn't mention what graphical bells and whistles PC users can derive apart from the new levels."

    Very little. Graphically it's the same game, except you can run it in higher resolutions. The chunky men look very silly but in a nice way, and the detail levels are often obscenely high, but you're not fighting to see as you sometimes are in other rubbly game worlds.

    "EG often misses this out."

    It's a targeted campaign to make you cry.



    "So do Gears of War's "primitive cavemen cast" spend their time fighting dinosaurs, then, like in that American museum?"

    Actually, er, yes. In effect.

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #15 4 years ago

    Watching Tom saunter through this made me want to play it through all over again. Good stuff - always thought it deserved a nine, too.

  • Killerbee #16 4 years ago

    What are the system requirements for this? I'm actually interested in picking it up, but I've a worrying feeling I will probably have to wait until after I've done my next PC upgrade (some time next year, I hope!).

  • magicpanda #17 4 years ago


    MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS


    OS: Windows Vista or Windows XP
    Processor 2.4+ GHz Intel; 2.0+ Ghz AMD
    RAM 1 GB
    Hard Drive 12 GB free hard drive space
    Video Card NVIDIA GeForce 6600+, ATI X700+
    Online Multi-player: Broadband Internet Connection, Games for Windows -- LIVE
    Edited by 1 at 07/11/07 @ 09:29

  • Drpwnage #18 4 years ago

    I liked the cut scenes, they were short with amusing macho dialogue. As Tom points out they just serve to break the pace of the action up and give you chance to watch the Unreal engine in action.

    Although I can appreciate the improved accuracy you get with kb/mouse, it would be a more sterile experience and I would miss the visceral feel of using a pad with a trigger and rumble which is so well implemented in Gears.

    Edited by 1 at 07/11/07 @ 09:29

  • Eraser #19 4 years ago

    Brilliant game. Am playing it on XBox 360 right now and I'm loving it. Have to say Bioshock's better though.

  • defdaz #20 4 years ago

    SWEET

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #21 4 years ago

    What I am interested in is year long spend on getting this PC version done, aside from extra chapter, was it necessarily that long? Wasn't porting between X360 and PC made in heaven? Or was it mainly exclusive thing?

    Actually I played a version of it on PC a couple of weeks before the 360 version came out. Didn't run too well on my PC at the time though, despite the fact it was above the minimum spec listed there (3.5GHz P4, GF6800), so they've probably be polishing performance as well as creating extra bonus content for the PC faithful*.

    The exclusivity was part of the issue, I expect, and it's probably meant that Epic have said "We're not allowed to put the PC port out for a year anyway, so we can spend a year doing it with less people, and focus more on finishing UT3".

    *finishing the levels cut from the 360 version because they weren't finished

    Edit: The strikethrough tag doesn't work, then.
    Edited by 1 at 07/11/07 @ 09:43

  • aldo_14 #22 4 years ago

    Is there a demo? I'm not sure on this amongst the slew of less, er, crotchguardy* games due.

    *I've never been a fan of Epics American Football In Space character style
    Edited by 1 at 07/11/07 @ 09:47

  • kangarootoo #23 4 years ago

    I got to the bit where GEoW was not described as not being pretentious, and all the sprinkers went off in my building.


    @jstar

    Its not exactly the same game is it, neither is it on the same platform, neither has it been released at the same price, so it is allowed to have a different score.

  • Killerbee #24 4 years ago

    Thanks Panda.

    Well, my current PC is above that, but only just, so I think it's probably worth waiting a bit.

    /goes to look at the prices of new graphics cards and processors

    /am cry

  • magicpanda #25 4 years ago

    They really need to make a Demo.

  • Downside #26 4 years ago

    dull game set in a grey world with backdrops that look like painted canvas versions of a city-in-ruins.

    Does the PC version allow you to save anywhere or are you stuck with the utter shite save points the 360 version had? Pick up gun, run to here, listen to boring dialogue "cut scene" run a bit more, another bit of dialogue, run a bit more...get to fight.. die... repeat?



  • andromeda #27 4 years ago

    "I got to the bit where GEoW was not described as not being pretentious"

    any game that calls it's levels 'acts' deserves a reality slap.

  • Drpwnage #28 4 years ago

    The checkpoints were spaced very well in Gears. Long live checkpoint systems, I am a convert after years of gaming on the PC and being used to satisfaction and tension destroying quick saves.

  • Trane #29 4 years ago

    'any game that calls it's levels 'acts' deserves a reality slap. '

    Care?

    Nice review Tom, I'll definately be getting this, particularly for the online co-op which sounds like a hoot.

  • UncleLou #30 4 years ago

    Nice. Now I'll definitely get Crysis, but it's between this and Call of Duty 4. Can't buy 3 shooters in November/December, can I?

    /ponders

  • nickthegun #31 4 years ago

    Any chance of the extra levels coming as DLC on the 360?

    Would probably prompt me to rebuy it as this review really has made me want to play it again.

  • craigy Verified Senior Developer, Eurogamer Network #32 4 years ago

    Want. Want. Want!

  • kangarootoo #33 4 years ago

    @Trane

    "Care?"

    Well, no. Not a lot. andromeda's post was in response to mine, which was a joke.

    Irony?

  • kangarootoo #34 4 years ago

    @UncleLou

    CoD4, hands down.

  • Putty-Man #35 4 years ago

    I dont even own a PC (at least to play games on) but I read this review anyway just to remember how good this game is.

    PC owners have something to look forward to here, now where's the new downloadable content for the 360!

  • groovychainsaw #36 4 years ago

    Sounds like they may have even improved the controls - I hated the controls so much in the 360 version I traded it in after a week....
    In 15 years of playing all sorts of shooters, I have never been made to feel so bloody useless at controlling a character (and I'm not that bad at games normally ;-) , I can complete halo on legendary etc.etc.), with him sticking to walls when you want to run, climbing over things when you want to take cover. Honestly, this has to be the most over-rated game I think I've ever played. It literally does nothing interesting, apart from look nice (and even thats an acquired taste).

  • skillian #37 4 years ago

    Nice. Now I'll definitely get Crysis, but it's between this and Call of Duty 4.

    I'm in the same situation, but I'll probably go for Gears. FPSs are pretty comon on the PC, plus I wasn't particularly enamoured with the CoD demo, but I haven't played a good third-person shooter since Max Payne.

    edit: Also, I don't ned an new online FPS at the moment, but co-op on this (as long as I can play over LAN) sounds like it might be fun.
    Edited by 1 at 07/11/07 @ 10:23

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #38 4 years ago

    So wait if on PC you can play this online with a silver live account, whats the point in paying for gold again?

  • barchetta #39 4 years ago

    @groovychainsaw: +1

    I borrowed this from a workmate and had 5 hours of frustration before giving it him back. Thankfully I had not done my usual and purchased it on a whim.

    Still, might be prepared to give it another go - after CoD4, AC, ME and any other acronym that comes to mind.

  • groovychainsaw #40 4 years ago

    I think as you point out barchetta, there's too many excellent games to put up with anything this decidedly average/poor, I just can't see where even the 8s come from, let alone the 9s...

  • Xerx3s #41 4 years ago

    So wait if on PC you can play this online with a silver live account, whats the point in paying for gold again?

    Gold allows you to play online on the 360 and allows you to play on the pc against 360 gamers.

  • skillian #42 4 years ago

    So wait if on PC you can play this online with a silver live account, whats the point in paying for gold again?

    Matchmaking, multiplayer achievements and doing your bit to help Microsoft seize control of online PC gaming are the reasons you might want to pay.

    @Xerx3s: there's no cross-platform play on Gears.
    Edited by 1 at 07/11/07 @ 10:45

  • Azazel #43 4 years ago

    "It is an almost relentless march of unpretentious, cartoon violence that serves as a satisfyingly brainless alternative to the complexity of its contemporaries."

    Erm - is that a compliment? ;-)

    Hey, it worked for Serious Sam.

  • rhubarbandcustard #44 4 years ago

    I have completed Gears Of War on normal difficulty on my X360. At no time did I come across the 'Brumak' monster which looks so incredible in the PC trailers. Are the additional chapters of the game made for the PC coming to the X360 as DLC? Is the Brumak in the X360 game and did I just play it with my eyes closed? I am confused.

  • skillian #45 4 years ago

    Are the additional chapters of the game made for the PC coming to the X360 as DLC? Is the Brumak in the X360 game and did I just play it with my eyes closed?

    1. Epic say it's impossible, but devs lie about these things so often who can tell. I think it'll turn up at some point, if not as DLC then in the sequel somehow.

    2. Haven't played the 360 game, but apparently it is in the game , and you do a bit of running from it, but you don't fight it.

  • neuroniky #46 4 years ago

    I've just finished Bioshock and I'm currently playing HL2 Episode 1, but Gears still is one of the best games I've played this last year. It hasn't the best story, it hasn't the most polished control system I've ever tried, but it is rewarding, never too easy, and after playing it you feel the absence of the cover button in all the other games. Graphically is stunning too (I think the level that starts in the night under the rain is the most beautiful display of graphical power the 360 has given me up to date), and it makes adrenaline pump like no other game around.

  • Darren #47 4 years ago

    Personally I found the game great the first run through on the 360 (except for that awful, awful running camera) but now I feel on reflection that it was a bit overrated. The story is cliched SF rubbish, the characters are two dimensional and wholly unlikeable, the level design is linear, the A.I. of your teammates is poor, the vehicle section was terrible and the game was far too short with a disappointing final level. Oh and I hated the multiplayer mode. It's atmospheric with stunning graphics and sound though, all nicely presented but as a game I don't think I'd give it more than 7 now and it certainly wouldn't feature in my top 20 Xbox 360 games. While I can understand why people rave about it, I'm afraid I don't share their enthusiam. It's a good rather than amazing game in my book.

  • aldo_14 #48 4 years ago

    1. Epic say it's impossible, but devs lie about these things so often who can tell. I think it'll turn up at some point, if not as DLC then in the sequel somehow.

    I think they said it was (specifically) too big to be reasonable as DLC... but if they can sell HD TV and movies on the 360, I'm not sure that'll stay true forever.

  • skillian #49 4 years ago

    I read that it was more technical reasons.

    Like I say tho, how true that is is another matter.

  • BremXJones #50 4 years ago

    Having played this on the PC, I agree with Tom. It's even better on the PC than the 360 - those extra levels really help fill out the game.

    KG

  • BadBoyBonner #51 4 years ago

    [link url=http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article .html?art=MTQxNiwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
    ]http://en thusiast.hardocp.com/article.ht...[/link]

    Good article on running gears on a PC - top spec mainly.

    And goes on to show (again) why DX 10 is so wank.
    Edited by 1 at 07/11/07 @ 11:21

  • kangarootoo #52 4 years ago

    I have to add my 2p to the comments made regarding the controls. I found the whole cover system to be very sluggish.

    I have designer type thoughts on why this was the case, but I won't bore people here with them. I also thought the button assignment for the cover system was a mistake. I've said it before but I'll say it again, anyone who has played Rainbow 6: Vegas before playing GEoW is just spoiled for the experience as the RB6 cover system puts shows Gears up for the old school system it is.

  • BadBoyBonner #53 4 years ago

    @Darren

    Agreed - obviously the draw for quite a few was the Unreal Engine 3 being used to satisfy GFX whores (hides head in shame).

    Still looks good now, but once the sheen has gone - I'd say that the gameplay even on "Insane" difficulty is nowhere near as intense and satisying as a Call of Duty Game on Veteran.

  • kangarootoo #54 4 years ago

    @jstar

    It sounds as though we agree it is a very similar title at its heart, but not identical in all ways.

    Surely then we can agree that single point difference measured on a scale on which a single point is smallest division possible, is hardly unacceptable?

  • skillian #55 4 years ago

    Interesting article - it seems to say there is no support for AA unless you run it in DX10 mode (with the large performance hit that brings).

    What is it with the Unreal engine and anti-aliasing? Very disappointing.

  • Katsumoto #56 4 years ago

    @ KG

    Were you playing with m/kb or a 360 pad, out of interest?
    Edited by 1 at 07/11/07 @ 11:32

  • Darren #57 4 years ago

    Doesn't the 360 version use AA? I don't recall ever seeing any noticeably bad aliasing when I played it. If the 360 can do AA with (presumably) DX9 then why can't the PC? :?

  • skillian #58 4 years ago

    Dunno, but GRAW and Bioshock had problems with AA on the PC too.

  • Azmat #59 4 years ago

    Even though i'd like to try this game out, the thing which stops me is live for windows. A pathetic attempt at re-inventing a multiplayer-platform, -with- different degrees of accounts. Just because of that i hope Gears MP won't be too popular on pc, as Live for Windows doesn't deserve any popularity. :(

  • bdc #60 4 years ago

    OOOOOH, 1 mark better than the 360 version! I'll have to buy it then.

  • rhubarbandcustard #61 4 years ago

    "The Brumak section on the 360 was one of the most anticlimactic fights ever and proof it was rushed out for last Xmas. "

    This quote from SquareJawHero helps to explain why I can't remember it. I am going to replay the game though, been a year since I did it and the re-release on PC has me psyched again.

  • Waldo #62 4 years ago

    Better than kill.switch then?

  • Cylinder #63 4 years ago

    Anyone seen it for cheaper than the £25 it's going for at Amazon? Otherwise I'll probably pick up COD4 instead (only £20 at gamestation.co.uk!)

  • kangarootoo #64 4 years ago

    @Cylinder

    According to the following handy site,

    [link url=http://www.best-game-price.co.uk/compare -game-price-code-B000VWQWJU.html
    ]http://ww w.best-game-price.co.uk/compare...[/link]

    Amazon is as cheap as it gets.

    Edit: I should mention that Tescos tends to crop up whenever someone posts about a really good price. Argos is one to watch sometimes as well. I think you need to pop into a store to see their deals though.
    Edited by 1 at 07/11/07 @ 13:06

  • Cylinder #65 4 years ago

    Thanks for that Kangarootoo!

  • Nick261007 #66 4 years ago

    Gears was bad on 360, lame characters and story, I can't see how it's a 9/10, I would give it a 6/10.

    Also Cliffy B makes me want to quit gaming. What a dick.

  • AlvySinger #67 4 years ago

    I could never kill the last boss, so never saw the end.

    That made me sad :(

    /goes back to playing everything on 'easy'

  • Benno #68 4 years ago

    better than gears then?

  • skillian #69 4 years ago

    If everyone just writes the same thing as the person above them we can get more comments than the Bioshock review!

  • TagemandBagem #70 4 years ago

    I hate reading these reviews that don't mention how heavily GoW "borrowed" from Kill.Switch. It's now the "GoW cover system".

  • WJF #71 4 years ago

    I think it's because only us 3 bought kill.switch

    Or it's a sinister ploy to re-write history.

  • Pablo2k5 #72 4 years ago

    As regards AA, you can normally force the Unreal Engined games to use AA via your graphics card control panel or via a utility such as nHancer.

  • Pulsar_t #73 4 years ago

    Where did I read that enabling both HD and AA in UE3 is troublesome for less powerful cards so it's disabled by default?

  • defdaz #74 4 years ago

    NICE!

    /ooc What a game. Visceral, exciting, amazing!

  • sharpfish #75 4 years ago

    Good review, good score... GEARS FINALLY GETS THE SCORE IT SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN PREVIOUSLY! (ish).

    anyway, I don't particularly agree that the mouse/keyboard is better IN THIS CASE, aside from the aiming being more precise you loose a hell of a lot by not plugging in your 360 controller.

    Rumble
    more pleasing active reload hit (buttons feel more natural)
    trigger for firing (better than a mouse button)
    analog walking
    comfort (sit back)
    Feels more designed for the controller and a bit 'light weight' on m/kb

    Now i'm a PC zealout and would always prefer m/kb on a FIRST person shooter but Gears isn't an FPS and it's enemies don't run that fast so the controller is fine and those pros make up for it's cons of slightly more fumbling about to get your crosshair over an enemy (which is fun, more like a real gun). Online of course I would use m/kb to keep up with the other players with faster aiming.

    In fps the controller is like steering a tank, but on gears it's beautifull done even on PC, plus you get the better gfx on pc (if you have a nice system) and the extra content so what's not to like?

    Finished this many times on the 360 but PC version does feel better regardless of what control method you use.

    Edited by 1 at 09/11/07 @ 13:28

  • sharpfish #76 4 years ago

    I wish people would understand this game is NOT about a story (go play Bioshock and see how much gameplay fun 'stories' bring you ... yawn).

    It's purely about the mechanic of taking cover and killing enemies. It's called 'gameplay' do any of you wet behind the ears spoilt brats understand that term in this 'games must have everything but the kitchen sink' era we live in?

    The core gameplay is amazingly addictive/fun and doesn't really get old, as many people have pointed out it's very hard to take other games seriously that don't have the cover system now because they feel clunky by comparision (and yes i'm comparing FPS to Third Person Shooters here for a second).

    The fact is not many games have made each and every bullet fired feel like fun, like a worthwhile act, it's usually just waves of fodder and you spray them with heavy ammo and move on, in gears you actually take your time and are involved far more because you have cover options and blindfire/zoom options which are all fluid.

    The story or character design isn't the best but it's servicable.

    Honestly I wish some of you whingers were back playing games in the 80's where we made the best of what we had instead of attacking every little point in a game that didn't live up to our own idea of 'perfect'.

    Gameplay will always be more important than story or graphics in a game, if not then we may as well watch a movie. And while the overall gameplay of gears is dumbed down (compared to for ex HL2 or Crysis) it's still addictive if you accept it for what it is.

    Having said this I still rate HL2 and Definitely (from the demo) Crysis over gears, but not really a fair comparison (fps vs tpps).

    Now Bioshock on the other hand is a game that does it the wrong way around, it's got a good story, supposed depth and all that but it's core gameplay is as dull as dishwater. Shooting splicers just isn't fun, no matter what you used.. the first time you use a new plasmid it's a novelty after that meh... they are just not fun to interact with and you basically play through that game for the story, in gears you play through it because it feels fun at every battle... that is the key difference in "good game design" versus "fooling the gamer by piling on everything that should be secondary to gameplay".

    BTW - for those with GF8 you can get AA to work in GEARS OF WAR on DX9/XP by using the latest NHancer and using compatibility set to 'oblivion' - runs fine with 8xAA on XP @ 1440x900 resolution with EVERYTHING on maxium settings.

    Edited by 2 at 09/11/07 @ 13:31

  • dnmoqf #77 4 years ago

    Man I returned this game. It still needs patching. Severely. It's very pretty and I like the gameplay BUT for some it loses ALL of the checkpoints now and then. It's a very big thread on the epic forums. The thread is named "All my saves and checkpoints gone."
    http://fo rums.epicgames.com/showthread.p...

    Also this bug, seems to be one of many for the PC version, has been present since release, and NO FIX.
    Edited by 1 at 18/02/08 @ 21:41

  • dnd #78 4 years ago

    actually i think this game is massively overrated. i find it quite boring and can only play it for about 20 min at a time. it just feels really shallow. sprint, cover, shoot. sprint, cover, shoot. it's basically a rail shooter...with cover. yay.