The first blockbuster for the Xbox 360; though with the benefit of hindsight, it's really not all it's cracked up to be.
Straight off the bat, let me say it straight; Gears is a really good game. Graphically it has set a new standard in next-gen visual fidelity, it has some intense, action-packed shoot outs and implements a cover system which every shoot 'em up released over the past decade has needed, but never used. Gears is, for all intents and purposes, a good game. But only that. A good game. Not a godly work of mythical genius. Not a mega-hit like Metal Gear Solid, or Halo. It's success is one of simple marketing, eye-catching graphics and casual-friendly gratuitous violence. Not that i dislike the chainsaw by any means....
Over-rated is the phrase of the day. But enough of my whining. Let's get into exactly why i have such little love for the behemoth that is Gears of War.
The game opens with no storyline whatsoever. You are Marcus Fenix, a COG soldier wrongly imprisoned, freed by your friend Dom who has been sent to re-recruit you to help in the fight against the Locust, an army of alien-monster-things who have risen from under ground. None of this is told to you. At all. Everything is simply implied for you to gather yourself. You have no idea WHY you're fighting, what you're fighting, what the overall progress of the conflict is. Nothing at all.
Basically, it's an excuse to drag you through a series of firefights. And i'm cool with that. The game lacks a plot however, which can be a major downside to some. The entire story arch of the game sees you simply deploying a device to map out locust tunnels, so that you can then deploy a bomb which will send waves of light through them, eliminating any locust within. That's the storyline of the entire game. Not only does it lack a satisfying ending, it lacks any satisfying story at all.
The gameplay itself is great. Fun, visceral combat with the locust. Staying in the light to avoid the ferocious Kryll. It's great stuff. It just doesn't last very long. The game has one of the shortest single player campaigns i'm aware of, and has been completed in co-op by myself and a buddy overnight. It's that short.
But that's not the main problem. My issue with Gears is one which has developed into an overall dislike of the game's creators; Epic Games. Why? Because Gears of War is plagued with bugs, glitches and horrendous lag in its multiplayer componant. The game has been out nearly a year, has doubtless amassed millions of dollars in revenue, yet Epic cannot bother themselves to fix any of this. To put that into perspective, Ghost Recon 2 launched with a fault whereby the host of the match would spawn in the game before everyone else, yet the bodies of players would still appear in their spawn points, allowing for two or three "free" kills while everyone else was still loading the game. This was fixed in three days.
Gears of War has the same roadie run glitch it launched with. You still have to shoot two feet in front of what you want to hit because of bullet lag. Hosting a game still equals automatic win. I wish that was an exaggeration.
And not only that, but i've paid $10 for new maps which supposedly came with a patch to fix "known glitches and exploits." The roadie glitch is still there. Host advantage is still there. Bullet lag is still there. And for good measure, the "patch" added a new glitch which allows you to slingshot yourself off the map and shoot people from inaccessible areas. Great job, guys!
Not only have i paid $70 now for a short campaign, broken multiplayer and new maps, but the game is now being released on PC with a whole new Act to flesh out the short single-player, the maps i paid for already, NEW maps, a new game mode, and doubtless fixes to all the horrendous problems.
And i, who paid for this game already, get none of that. Great PR, Epic. Heck, i'll put my preorder down on Unreal Tournament 3 right now!
Of course, i dont want to appear as though i'm blindly hating on Gears. It's a great game as i've said, and nobody needs me to go through all of its strong points. We all love Marcus Fenix. We all know the graphics are beautiful. Reviews take all of this on face value however, and i think it's about time somebody made a review taking all of the game's horrible multiplayer flaws into account after months of waiting for fixes which just aren't coming.
I've amassed nine thousand kills on Gears, and cant bring myself to keep playing for the coveted achievement. Multiplayer really is that bad, and if Epic dont pull the finger out and do something soon, they can file me under ex-fan.