Gears of War Comments by Kristan Reed

@dudefella

As you were so polite, despite my better judgement, I shall return to this thread for one more post.

I was going to comment specifically about someone yet again suggesting that EG were trying to stir up controversy by writing reviews. I mean, that is what they do here, write reviews. Their reasons for splitting the review were stated and seem quite reasonable to me. In this case it meant they were able to go into greater detail regards each game mode without brying people in pages. I just understand what the big deal is with reviewing the two parts seperately, does it really matter either way.

Anyway, half way through writing something about how writing two reviews was hardly controversial, I suddenly for dejavu and realised that it doesn't matter how many times I write something like that I will still read the same sort of comment the next day.

I know EG represents a wide band of gamers, of all ages, with all sorts of tastes. And I realise that grumpy kids (not you, I'm talking generally here) shout loudest and stand out in the crowd.

Everyso often I forget that most gamers are rational intelligent people, I mistakenly believe if only briefly that all gamers go round saying irrational, hateful, badly spelt and grammar free things in constant uppercase. And I think "christ, is this my audience, is this whom I work for" and its not a happy thought.

If I think EG have done something wrong I'll politely says so. The reason I seem to jump to their defense so very often is because I see their professionalism under such random and illogical attack so very often. At least I come here under my own steam and so I can always bugger off again (and sometimes I do just give up on the threads for a bit, like when the 360 came out and everything turned to angry shit for a while). EG staff have to deal with this all the time and I swear they have balls of steel (Ellie excepted) and the patience of saints. I would have quit ages ago in the face of such an unappreciative mass and gone to write for Gardening Magazine or something similar where people are a bit more relaxed, a bit less hormonal and a bit less mad.

Well, thats the long answer anyway :)

Gears of Pants Down more like

The reviewer does touch on an important point, that being the unacceptably large number of just plan nasty people who are currently online.

The truth is that the really popular shooters such as Halo, and Gears of War do tend to bring out the worst of the online gamers - even to this day, jumping into a Halo match is more chore than pleasure.

THere is only so much that Microsoft and the developers can do to make Live a nice place to be but in the end, if you get into public matches, you will always be faced with people who refuse to play the game in a manner that the developers envisaged it to be played.

My advice, build a solid friends list and create a smal community of like minded players and set up plenty of private matches.

I'm not bother about this review, 8 is a good score. But EG have just done this for hits.

Read the reviews for TH8 and SC:DA and the contradictions stand out like a saw thumb.

You got this wrong and you got halo wrong, but u just have too much pride to admit it, the score that is. In comparison to other reviews your score doesn’t make sense. Unless of course all your after is hits.

Shame really, when you look at the fact they have effectively reviewed this twice (hits!) combined with the amount of “he said” “she said” rubbish on EG news section these days. They really are just copping out for hits.

Shockingly I find my self turning more and more to 1up and ign, which is wrong.

I think this sounds like a fair score. I have no doubt that Epic will fix some of the problems, and I also have no doubt that they plan to release further gametypes and clan support .... for a cost - DAMN THESE MICROPAYMENTS.

But I think if a developer is going to release an unfinished product with the intention of selling the finished product later on over the marketplace, then they don't deserve more than an 8.

/saws thumb

Crikey! A seriously hyped game that is full of knobheads in ranked matches you say? Where have I heard that before..... It does sound like a fun game but it seems the Halo2 twats have found their new game :(

Not that I plan on joining any sort of ranked matches against strangers ever again - Halo 2 put me off that for life. It would be nice to be able to unlock some of the multiplayer achievements though - PDZ managed it in player matches so why not GoW? I'm not a 'score whore' by any means it's just a cool feature to be able to compare with your friends...

8/10...so, just as good as 360 Pacman then, but not quite as good as Sensi Soccer? :o)

Oh god, who let him in?!

@ Adam - You're such a tool.

Yeah EG has an agenda. Soon krudster will be telling you that you should only eat 4 fried chickens and a coke and dry toast, white.

I still think the whole essence of ANY multiplayer game is playing with friends. As was/is Halo 2. I never venture beyond my own back yard in that respect.

@ Adam o E

The EG staff don't know you. They've never met you. They probably never will. Same goes for virtually every single gamer on here, be they xbox, ps3, pc, christ even gamecube fanboys, whatever. The only place they interact with us unwashed masses is here. Why on earth would Krudster be too scared of fanboys to review the games honestly? Answer: I don't think he would...

ADM SI TEH GEZAR MAN HA SPEKS TEH TRUTH!!1!!!! LOL DMN UNDARVALUAD RAVEIWS!!1111 OMG

Adam: it doesn't deserve a 9. It's just a very very pretty 3d action game, with some very suspect controls (the more I play it, the more I find the controls are restraining me). Why must you duck+cover before vaulting a tiny wall? That's inane. Why aren't the controls remappable, and why is the melee button placed so that you can no longer use the right stick, and therefore rely on things standing still so you can hit them? That should have been on a bumper button... Why does the graphics engine obviously struggle a bit when rendering multiple humanoids close to the player: hint - watch for when the detail level jumps. Why are difficulty levels seemingly only changing the number of bullets it takes to kill an enemy? Why is running around like a loony with a chainsaw actually /safer/ sometimes than ducking and shooting as you're supposed to? Why can you only crouch when at a wall, stopping you using 'loose cover' for lack of a better description?

It's a good game, but it's not a great game - it's a graphical marvel and mindless blast that will tide us over until the next one. I will enjoy playing through it, mostly - I'm never going to have it in my top 10 best games ever, but that's the level of game it was billed as.

Well, the more I play GoW, the more I'm enjoying it. Absolutely cracking game, I think, and that's without having much of a chance to play co-op.

But I agree with the review - think that it totally sums up what is good (and there's a lot that's good) and what's bad about the game. Actually, it's a cracker of a review. Totally fair, IMHO. The lack of any ability to make a party is a disaster, and this is a game that is absolutely screaming out for clan support. And that's coming from someone who has never joined a clan in his life.

Doesn't really matter whether it's Epic's fault or MS's fault - that's one for people in the industry to argue about. Either way, it's totally irrelevant to the average gamer - all that matters is that there aren't any clans or parties. You can't score a game based on who's fault it is - you can only score the game on its own merits.

The game itself is superb - had some cracking games against EG people - but it could be much better. 8 seems about right to me, even if (for me) it's an easy 9.

(Interesting to know the answer to my question - "Why has no online lobby system come even close to Halo 2?". Answer seems to be "Because MS have fucked the system up.")

/eats cheese
/throws meat

To be honest, I've heard nothing but good things about the multiplayer elsewhere. I thought the MP would easily give GoW a 9 or 10.

So did I....

:/

Gears of War - X360
Avg Ratio: 95%

whatever this review says the games awesome in single player and co-op, cant speak for dm yet

@kanga

Thanks for humoring me. I completely agree with your sentiments regarding parts of the gaming community, and sadly parts of EG's community (though it has to be said that the majority of EG's 'loyal' community is gold compared to many, many other sites like gamefaqs, gamespot and ign). It was never my intention to flame EG or the like, but I do believe that my question was valid. I may have overreacted, but there has been so much controversy lately and I was just thinking out loud. I guess in this case maybe a separate MP review was justified as it is the biggest game to hit Live since Halo 2. Having said that, I do hope EG doesn't make a habit out of this, because good intentions aside, it does stir up controversy. I look at the threads for these games like GoW and Resistance and I can't help but shake my head and feeling genuinely appaled by some of the... less rational comments. And I very much appreciate EG for doing their own thing and not being influenced by hype. Of course there are instances where I still disagree with EG (I thought Splinter Cell DA's review was very, very generous and too forgiving) but I never feel that a review is in any way unfair, it can always be attributed to different strokes for different folks. So yeah, glad I cleared that up.

Note to Eurogamer: Please review the game as a whole next time, thanks!

...is banning people from the comments section really not possible EG? Never seen someone such a blatant troll as AoE.

Really, you've stooped to low jabs at EG editors? Good for you.

Jaysus, I really hope there's a good enough 360 game soon to cure AdamOfEternia's post-purchase anxiety, he seems really insecure.

To be fair though he does have a bit of a knack for astonishingly unfunny metaphors. Credit where it's due and all that.

shinji is a fatso

LMAO

And he called me a kid

(This is my last post today about AoE.)

I can totally understand this review. The game is being marked down not because there are morons playing, as some one put it, but because the developers did close to nothing to punish the abusers.

Its exactly the same way I feel about WoW pvp. There I am guarding the flag in Arathi basin cause I want to win and I need reputation, while everyone else buggers off to kill people and rank up honour. Result? We lose the game and everyone has 10X more honour than I have. What have Blizzard done about it? Absolutely nothing. Anyways, I digress...

In this day and age the developer is duty bound to FORCE the players into cooperating if the game is a team based game. This is so because most gamers are young adolescents who seem to believe that the world is there to grovel at their feet. The fact that EPIC did not take any of this into consideration is honestly sad. Moreso because the game sounds like it could be so much fun.

Rant over... ....Wii anyone?

Gears of War and 360 this christmas for me as opposed to PS3 frame rate issues and inferior third party titles

Damn - Gonna have to change my name to Papstation3 now

I'll take Wii please Avaloner... And if you could throw in a free 360 and a copy of Gears that'd be great. I'll buy Zelda off my own back, I've got it reserved... Cheers.

Until Bloodflowers wrote this I thought I was the only one having problems with the game:

Why must you duck+cover before vaulting a tiny wall?

Why is the melee button placed so that you can no longer use the right stick, and therefore rely on things standing still so you can hit them?

Why does the graphics engine obviously struggle a bit when rendering multiple humanoids close to the player?

Why are difficulty levels seemingly only changing the number of bullets it takes to kill an enemy?

Why is running around like a loony with a chainsaw actually /safer/ sometimes than ducking and shooting as you're supposed to?

These basic flaws, in conjunction with an insultingly bad character design, have made me question whether I know what makes a good game any more. Thank god I'm not the only one less than impressed.

I agree there are a lot of morons on Live but I just had the most enjoyable online expirience ever playing this game. Only had it a few hours but I love it. Its not hype, its a great game!! Great to look at and great to play, and there is more to come from the downloadable content.

Awesome game.

8/10 and 8/10

OMG 16/10!

LOL. :)

"You got this wrong and you got halo wrong, but u just have too much pride to admit it, the score that is. In comparison to other reviews your score doesn’t make sense. Unless of course all your after is hits."

Yeah they do, most other sites have inflated scores where a 7/10 equals crap.

Thanks so much for taking the time to properly analyze the multiplayer of this game. Don't listen to the fanboys who complain about the fact you didn't give Gears of War a 10 or that you divided the review into single- and multiplayer components--frankly, I'd take one of your well-written reviews, no matter how much I disagree with the score, over the mass of hasty, shoddy pieces of poo reviews from most other sites. They gloss over the games far too much and rarely give me a good idea if I'll actually like a given game or not.

"None of the above are flaws, it's just your ignorant to what makes a game more balanced and you haven't played it enough to see the reasons why you're wrong."

What a load of shit. If you seriously think these issues are balanced you're a fool (and what is it that qualifies you to judge this so accurately?). They could've mapped vaulting walls to the 'A' button by holding it down and still used a quick press of 'A' to stick to them.

"You can move around slightly, it's so people don't run around chainsawing everyone to death in one hit, this makes it harder to get one hit kills and it's a wise move."

"It's not safer, if you get hit your chainsaw is lowered and leaves you vunerable."

Err, are you thinking before you type? You think limiting your movement when it's needed most, in a frantic melee situation, is a"wise move"? Especially when, as you next contradict yourself, it's so easy to be hindered with the chainsaw revved up anyway?

There are plenty of issues in the game - lod issues, floating scenery, clipping through scenery, shadows projecting through scenery/seperate from the player/npc model, frame rate drops, etc (of which I've experienced all first hand). None of them are game-breakers but they are there. Not to mention the serious issues that some people are reporting about missing geometry and disappearing objects.

Some of the above are definitely flaws, some are just design decisions. Just because they were designed that way doesn't make them the only or best way to do them.

"Try giving % of DNF stats so you can avoid quitting retards. Try giving instant point penalties to users that host and quit."

Wow, what world are you living on krudster.

The comment that grates with me is the one where it's suggested by the reviewer that the game needs an every man for them selves death match mode. Why? Does Rainbow? Does GRAW? If they did would people even play them? No. Would GOW benefit from it? No. It's designed in such a way that if you don't play together you die. All you'd get from an all for himself mode is that few clan friends would shoot each other last after erraditcating everyone else in unofficial teamwork.

Based on what's been said, I assume that Rainbow and GRAW2 will be marked down, and a retrospective marking down of Halo 2 to a mere 5 because let's face it, no game has more cheating than Halo2.

A fair review would comment on the fact that the online mode is fantastic, if you like team based games, and you can avoid the idiots... just like GRAW and Recon. It would highlight some issues which we all know are likely to get patched, such as points farming and stacked ranked matches, but it wouldn't let them affect the score to keep things consistent. Or are you seriously going to have a part 3 review that says, OK we take it back, when Epic patch (as MS will insist on its flagship title) the game to remove the exploits. Cliffy B has already hinted at more modes, more maps, and suggested they might even be free. Golly Gosh. And lets be honest, it was MS that said no Clans and No Party mode - Hardly Epics fault, and perhaps a decision MS will now reverse.

@zerolight: Er... It seems to me that you have read the review as you point out that krudster thinks that a one-on-one mode is needed but it's interesting to see that you don't grasp why it's needed.

Kristan stated that although he had an absolute blast playing in teams that worked the majority of the time no-one played as a team and only going for top kills (as in WoW), making the entire thing an exercise in frustration.

Based on this it would be better to have a one-on-one gameplay mode that these gung-ho ego-players could play, leaving the actual team modes to those that likes to play as a team.

It's a bit like having one runner finishing the relay just because he wants to be the one crossing the finish line, despite the fact that he never wins the actual race. Better to have him run the 100-meter dash and let the team players handle the relay.

I haven't played GRAW or Rainbow but I'm suspecting that they don't allow/cater to single ego-players f%&#ing things up as much as GoW does. And this is why it's Epics/MS fault that the MP isn't as good as it could have been.

MMUK pointed out that MS has a number of rules and regulations that a developer must stick to when it comes to MP on the X360 but it seems to me as if either Epic should be able to do better (they're very talented and creative people) or that MS should be able to evolve their ruleset so that it's possible to create MP that doesn't have to cater to the lowest common denominator only.

Your comment regarding the cheating in Halo 2 and that it should be marked down - although probably to some extent tounge in cheek - is IMHO silly. It serves a very good purpose in this context anyhow as the fact that there *is* a lot of cheating in Halo 2 just means that Epic and MS needs to do something better than Halo 2 for GoW, something that Kristan doesn't think that they suceeded in doing.

As for reviewing a game based on what might happen further down the road via patches and upgrades - no matter how likely it is - is total crazy and, in my book at least, poor journalism. I'm sure that both Epic and MS will support this with all they got, thay can't afford not to, but no matter what it's not fair to rate a game based on what it might become.

"Had my first single AND multiplayer goes on this last night and it's absolutely rock solid multiplayer. In fact it's about bloody time a LIVE game came out for the 360 with good solid kick ass netcode "

I agree... 360 has some killer games but the multiplayer stuff has, for me, been a letdown due to not very good netcode. Halo 2 still plays like a dream on 360 but a lot of other games have very iffy connections. GoW seems to have VERY good netcode and it is a joy to play. I played a 2h long private match with some of the EG forums guys here yesterday and it was absolutely ace! Thx guys. I love the "innovation" that teammates can be revived. We had some great moment with that, trying to rush to a downed mate before the enemy got to him to crush his face and both of us arriving at same time wielding chainsaws. Truly awesome!

I'm yet to play Gears but man I want to. Anyway after reading the forums on various sites I'm struck that I've never seen a game with so much hype and so many expectations get such a positive response from the gaming community. Most other games get a shit load of detracters who are massively upset that Bungie/Konami or whoever, didn't live up to their expectations... Gears seems to have lived up to or surpassed nearly everyones.

Now I don't generally like to criticise scores but someone mentioned inconsistency and I feel its valid. Like I said I've never seen so many people say "this is the most fun I've had in years" in response to a game for a long time. And judging from the content of the reviews, I don't see how a game like Tony Hawks which seems to have innovated very little, can score a 9/10 and then a game like Gears of War which appears to be going down in history with a lot of gamers is gonna score a (i dont care what you say, in the context of great games 8/10's get frowned upon) mediocore 8. I don't mean mediocore in the 'that's an average game' sense but like I said in the context of great games. I wonder if EG finds themselves overwhelmed by hype and tends to be overly critical of the big name releases...

I agree with whoever said they got Halo 2 wrong. In retrospect I think Halo 2 was a much better game than everyone initially thought, we were just all too god damned excited about it!!! (although the story was boring hell... perhaps EG should split reviews into three for games like that, Single player, Multi player and Story;)

SONY WILL DESTROY YOU XBOTS. PS3 RULES. IT'S A REAL SHAME YA'LL HAVE TO WAIT TILL MARCH OR BEYOND FOR THE REAL DEAL

SONY WILL DESTROY YOU XBOTS. PS3 RULES. IT'S A REAL SHAME YA'LL HAVE TO WAIT TILL MARCH OR BEYOND FOR THE REAL DEAL

Yes, the key word there is "beyond", Mr Troll.

Anyway, I had many games of GOW on Live in a player matchb with 7 people on my friends list last night, and it was one of the best nights I've ever had on the service. Yes, right up there with the early days of PGR2.

The multiplayer, when playing under those circumstances, is a cast-iron 9. Any frustration caused by the actions of idiots in the ranked mode isn't Epic's fault. If you went into a pub and talked to 50 people, you'd despise a few of them. If 3 idiots came over to your house and played Pro Evo with you, you wouldn't have a good time either, despite Pro Evo being one of the best multiplayer games ever. That's society for you... and that's what Live reflects. Ranked modes put you together with people who you don't know, and could turn out to be utter pricks. I don't see how the developer can be blamed for the problems of society!

Of course, they should produce a patch to sort out the cheaters as much as they can. Horrific personalities, however... there's no patch for that.

basically Bungie's matchmaking needs to be released as middleware for developers

I got in from work at 3am this morning and this is the first game for several years that stopped me going to bed and kept me up till 6am. NUFF SAID RUDE BWOYS

I just played a ranked match where everybody was from different places in Europe so couldn't really talk to each other. Was still great fun though, and we won without needing to talk.

I don't really see too much of a need to talk. If you see a team mate in trouble, you help him out. Doesn't need shouts of "help" and if you see two of your team mates going one route, you and the other go the other route.

@Eighthours: But what if you had a way to sort out what fellows down the pub wanted to talk about what? Say, one line for all who only wants to talk football and one line for those who wants to talk about quantum physiscs.

That way, if you prefer talking about quantum physiscs you wouldn't have to wade through all the jocks who doesn't give a flying crap about physics, no matter how quantum they are.

The same goes for the guys outside your house. If you have a way of pre-screening the people you're about to sit down in your living room - a short quiz about their preferences perhaps - you should be able to weed out the majority of the guys who only shows up in order to trash the place and find the ones who'd love a great game of Pro Evo.

"people are such moany pricks these days."

lol

EuroSexMachine wrote: "It's not ranked 15th best game ever on Gamerankings for nothing."

You are correct; it's because almost every reviewer reviewing it fell for the hype and/or couldn't/wouldn't give it the score it deserves.

I haven't tried multiplayer yet, but single player has been a blast until now.

I totally have to agree with everyone who rates a game lower because the people you get to play with are jerks. Example: Counter-Strike vs Battlefield 2. I played both (PC) online a lot, and I haven't had this much fun online with Battlefield 2 ever. Why? Because the players you get to play with behave totally different. They thank you for supporting them. The gameplay mechanics really force teamplay and even on such a large scale it works. No comparison to any other online game. Counter-Strike is a great game too but the people playing it usually ruin everything after a couple of minutes. Not necessarily because of their inability to play the game how it is meant to play but because of the very rude behaviour. Not a single minute passes by without someone accusing other players of cheating, blabla. Never had any of this when playing Battlefield 2. As I said earlier, I never had such a relaxing experience playing online.

If the game mechanics do not provide such means for a friendly environment or do not punish rude behaviour (dropping out = loss, no matter what in my opinion) then it surely has to be reviewed accordingly.

Army of two?