gears of war review
Every once in a while there comes along a game that takes the gaming world by storm, in doing so also sets and redefines the standards that future games in that category have to follow. Gears of War available exclusively on the Xbox360 is one such 3rd person action thriller. Developed by Epic Games, the same people behind the infamous Unreal series the game is undoubtedly a masterpiece.
Set in a world torn by war, you take the role of Marcus Fenix, one of the toughest heroes ever to appear in a videogames, as mankind battles for survival against an enemy known as the Locusts. Your job in the game, which you might have guessed, is to eliminate all possible Locusts threat from the world.
To help you accomplish this task you will be given a huge arsenal of weapons. Weapons like shotguns, machine guns, sniper rifles, grenade launchers etc are all here. But in the game these weapons are not known by these boring names. In fact they have all got stylish names. For example, your machine gun is known as the Lancer, sniper rifle is known as the Longshot and so on. You will also have access to 2 unique weapons namely the Torque Bow and the Hammer Of Dawn. The Torque Bow is a set of bow and arrow, which uses very special arrows. These arrows not only impale an enemy but also explode after a few seconds of impact, thus making sure that the enemy stays down for good. The Hammer of Dawn on the other hand does not require any ammo. It is a gun which has a laser attached to it. All you have to do is aim the gun at an enemy for a few seconds and then watch him burn to ashes as a satellite-guided beam of energy fries him
But you can’t use the Hammer of Dawn all the time because firstly it requires clear skies to work, which you don’t always have in the game. Secondly, you can’t use it against fast enemies since they move and dodge all over the place and constantly attack you also.
Speaking of uniqueness, your Lancer weapon comes equipped with a chainsaw also. So if an enemy gets too close to you, you can slice through him with your chainsaw by pressing the B button. There is nothing more satisfying to see your chainsaw shred the enemy into pieces and splatter its guts all over the place. Pressing the B button with other weapons allows you to perform a melee attack with all other weapons.
There are 4 slots in which you can carry weapons. 2 slots are for heavy weapons such as the shotgun, sniper-rifle etc. 1 slot is for small arms. Small arms include a regular pistol and a magnum like heavy pistol. Finally 1 slot is for frag grenades. Frag grenades can either be thrown at enemies or attached to them by pressing the B button. The 4 slots are not interchangeable, which means that you can’t carry 4 heavy weapons at one time. You can only have a combination of 1 small weapon, 2 heavy weapons and frag grenades.
You will hardly run out of ammo for your weapons since you can either pick up ammo dropped by enemies, or pick up boxes of ammo that you will occasionally find lying in your path. The game even rewards you if you reload your guns right. When your gun is empty, pressing the RB button will initiate the reload sequence. A small meter appears with a moving bar. If you are able to stop the bar in the right spot, Marcus will reload the run quickly and get a damage boost, but if you fail then you will end up jamming your weapon thus taking more than normal time to reload your gun. In the heat of battle getting a reload right and getting back quickly into the fight can be really satisfying.
Even though Marcus is tough he can’t win this battle alone. Therefore, you are a part of a team of 4 men, referred to in the game as Gears. You will either have 1 or 3 comrades fighting alongside you depending on the situation at hand. In the game you frequently have to split up because there are 2 roads leading to your destination. You get to choose which one to take. Pressing the LT button allows you to take the left route whereas pressing the RT button gives you the right route. After choosing your route the team splits up into 2 groups of 2 and tries to survive and get to the other end. Even though the game offers branching routes, no matter which route you take it doesn’t affect the storyline. All that is affected is the kind of enemies and action that you get.
When commanding a squad you can give them orders also. By pressing the face buttons you can give them commands of Attack, Regroup and Hold Fire. Even if you don’t give them commands you teammates are capable and smart enough to take of themselves and fight hard. If one of your teammate takes a lot of damage he will get knocked out but not die. As a result you can go over to him and revive him with the press of a button. But if you die its game over because your teammates cannot revive you.
Like many other action games these days, you don’t have to worry about health in the game because there isn’t any. When you take damage from enemy fire a small red skull starts appearing in the middle of the screen. Keep taking damage and the skull keeps getting darker. When it becomes full dark red, taking one more shot will result in your death. So you have to stay in cover and wait for the skull to disappear before you jump back into the action.
Cover is the most important part of Gears of War. The basic and best strategy of the game is to take cover and engage the enemy. If you try to run and gun through this game you will fail miserably. Not only you but also your enemies will engage you using this strategy. Similarly, flanking is a strategy that both sides can use to efficiently eliminate the enemy.
The gameplay of Gears of War is fast, furious and addictive. The enemy AI is very smart and knows how to use the environment to its advantage thus making for a challenging adversary. Also, the Locusts come in different shapes and sizes thus requiring a different kind of strategy to beat. For example, wretches are fast moving small Locusts that usually attack in large numbers. Thus, you can’t take cover and fire at them because they will gang up on you and kill you before you do. So the best strategy to kill them is by either using a melee attack or using a shotgun to blow them to pieces. On the other hand, the Berserker is a huge Locust that can only be killed by the Hammer of Dawn since normal weapons don’t deal any damage to it. Hence, you will have to lure it out under clear skies and fry it. The different enemies keep the action fresh and make you want to come back for more.
The presentation of this game is simply spectacular. Gears of War takes full advantage of the power of the Xbox360 and delivers a truly next-generation experience. The graphics of the game are superb with Marcus and his team looking very life like.
All the enemies have their own distinct nasty and evil look. All the environments whether inside buildings or outside on the streets are full of detail. Destroyed vehicles, wrecked buildings and holes in the streets all present the perfect picture of a war torn world. Lighting and shadow effects also look nice. When you slice through an enemy with your chainsaw, or take damage from an enemy that is near you, blood splatters all over the TV screen in a very gory fashion. The rain and lightning effects in the game are one of the best I have ever seen and the clouds float over you like real natural ones. The camera work done in the game is unrivalled and the slow motion effect used in the cut scenes simply adds more ****to an already stylish game.
Just like the graphics, the game sounds awesome. All the attacks, whether melee or guns, pack a mean punch and sound just like they should. Voice acting in the game is brilliant, and the conversations between you and your teammates, is just what you would expect from 4 guys who are part of some big war.
Gears of War is truly a gem of a game. If you own an Xbox360 and haven’t played this game yet, do yourself a favor and play it.
CALL OF DUTY 3 review
World War II (WWII) has been the subject of various games across various platforms. Call of Duty 3 (COD3) is one more game that draws inspiration from the greatest war mankind has ever known.
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COD3 is the 3rd game in the popular and hit Call of Duty series. The game is a first person shooter (FPS) and is available on current gen and next gen platforms. Although COD 1 and COD 2 were released on the PC and were smashing hits, surprisingly COD3 is not scheduled to be released on the PC as far as I know. This review is all about the PS2 version of the game. The storyline and game play mechanics etc all remain the same no matter which console you choose to play this game on. Some button configurations and graphical differences are all that you will find when playing this game on different consoles.
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COD3 takes place after the infamous landing of the allied forces on the beaches of Normandy. Hence the whole game takes place in France as you try to liberate Paris from the clutches of the Nazis. Like it’s predecessor COD3 lets you play as a soldier from 4 different nations, namely, the British, the Polish, the French and the Americans. Although this is a good idea as this gives variety to the game it does not affect the overall experience of the game. Firstly because your character in the game does not speak. So it does not matter which country he belongs to as he does not share any opinions, emotions etc. which might get you attached to your character(s). Secondly the storyline in the game itself isn’t very interesting therefore making no difference as to which side you fight for.
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By making you play as a soldier from 4 different nations the game makes you realize just how many people were involved in WWII. Its not just playing as 4 different soldiers that makes you realize this, when you are playing the game there is so much happening around you that it automatically makes you feel that you are just playing a small part in something much much bigger. With other soldiers fighting alongside you, tanks plowing through fields, airplanes dropping bombs etc all happening at the same time adds intensity to what already is a great game play experience.
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COD 3 has the usual arsenal of guns and explosives that you have come to expect from an FPS set in WWII. In the game you will get to fight with an MP 40s, Thomson, Trenchgun (shotgun), Sten, Springfield Sniper Rifle and many more. All the guns look nice and sound great with the sniper rifle being the most fun to use. In the explosives department you have got frag grenades, used for blowing enemies and stuff up. And you have got smoke grenades. Smoke grenades are used to create cover for you and your squad members. Again, the explosions from frag grenades look and sound sweet while smoke grenades create such an awesome smoke effect that sometimes you will find it hard to find your way in all the smoke.
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In the game you never take on a mission alone. You will always have AI controlled team members to aid you in your missions. This is both good and bad. It is good because you have extra soldiers helping you clear out the Nazis. The AI controlled soldiers do an efficient job of killing the enemy and they also move around the map without any problem or getting stuck anywhere. Also your team mates speak a lot on the battlefield telling you what the current situation is, what you have do next, where you have go etc. Having them around is bad because in the heat of battle it is very hard to identify the good guys from the bad. So if you by mistake hit your mate and he/she dies because of your error, the mission fails immediately because friendly fire is not tolerated in the game.
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In total there are 14 missions in the single player campaign with each mission being divided into various objectives that you have to complete. Sometimes you are given a choice as to how you want to go about completing an objective while others are straightforward. Objectives in the game are similar to what you might have come to expect from a WWII FPS, like going from point A to point B, destroying machine gun or anti aircraft emplacements among others. Missions are also varied with some having you driving jeeps, manning guns on jeeps, driving and blowing stuff up with tanks etc. Also the missions can be played on various difficulty levels depending on what kind of challenging you are looking for.
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Perhaps the biggest change in COD3 is the elimination of the health bar/meter. Now if you take damage in the game the screen starts flashing red. When three quarters of the screen turn red you have to find cover. If you are successful in finding cover then you will return to normal in a few seconds. But if you fail to find cover and take more damage when the screen is flashing red you will die. Don’t be mistaken that since there is no health meter you will be able to run and gun through the stages because you won’t be able to. If you do try to run and gun your enemies will be more than happy to stop you dead in your tracks.
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The developers have also tried to make this game more immersive that previous installments. Two additions have been made to the game to help the game achieve this task. First is the method in which you place a charge on any object that has to be blown up. Instead of just pressing a button and running away this time around you have to press a face button, rotate the right analog stick a few times and then press a face button again to place the charge. Second is the addition of scripted hand to hand combat with the enemy. Once in a while playing the game an enemy soldier takes you by surprise. What follows is a hand-to-hand combat mini game. When this sequence occurs you are first required to press the L1 and the R1 buttons alternatively. Then you have to press face buttons, whichever appear on the screen. Although these two new button pressing mini games aren’t as awesome as those found in other games, they nonetheless change the pace of the game and add variety to it.
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Graphically the game is nice to look at. The environments are detailed with trees, bushes, and flowing rivers etc adding nice touches to the scenery. Although at times the movement of your teammates and that of the enemy looks unnatural and, sometimes you will also see dead bodies floating in mid air these graphical glitches do little to hamper the overall great graphical presentation of the game.
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In the sounds department the game also does well. As mentioned earlier all the different weapons sound great with each having distinctive firing noises. The music in the game which starts playing when a fight is going on and dies down when your just exploring the map, suits the game perfectly. One bug that I encountered while playing was that sometimes when you are reloading a gun the sound of reloading disappears. While other times some random sound effect didn’t play when it should have.
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Even though the AI is good at attacking it is not that good when it comes to evading our attacks. While enemy soldiers use cover effectively you will still see them at times run blindly into our line of fire and get slaughtered. And if you throw a grenade towards the enemy they just sit there and wait for it to blow them to pieces rather than kick it out of the way or get out of harm’s way.
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When all is said and done even with all its faults COD3 is still a great game. It is by far the most intense WWII FPS around right now and highly enjoyable. PS2 owners who have been waiting for a good FPS to be released should definitely play this one. While other consoles owners should also check this game out. But if you’re not a fan of the FPS genre COD3 offers nothing extra ordinary which will make you one.
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