An amusing guilty pleasure, but hardly worthy of the obsessively rave reviews it gets from its overly captive audience.
Had a bad day? Just want to tune out for a while with some cool graphics, funny one-liner-style heroes, and a **** of slow-to-die but easy-to-shoot enemies? Well then, you are in luck! ‘GEARS OF WAR’ is just the thing you’ve been looking for. But please keep in mind that ‘GEARS’ is NOT in any way shape or form, a true “Tactical Shooter.” If you’re looking for a replacement for ‘RAINBOW 6: VEGAS’ or ‘GRAW-2’ ...well then, I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree entirely. (...and why the hell would anyone want to replace ‘R6: Vegas’ anyway?!)
However, I do give the folks at Epic credit; they incorporated some decent, 101-tactics into the game, like the use of cover. But don’t be mistaken, ‘GEARS’ is still just a high-end run-n-gun game with lots of enemies to kill, kill, kill! But make sure you keep up on collecting that ammo ...you’ll need all of it. The measly selections of weapons are all just fancy variations of pea & potato shooters. Oh, and other than closing those damn emergence holes, the grenades you get are about as useful as **** on a bull! And the chainsaw is loads of fun for at least the first 50 or so poor bastards you cut in half. But after that it gets a little old.
One last note: I read another reviewers’ summary statement, which went something like this: “GEARS is the most Realistic Tactical shooter ever made!” (no seriously, I’m not making it up ...he really said that). Now I’ve already covered the lacking “Tactical” aspects of this game, but with this reviewer in mind, I feel compelled to cover the “Realistic” aspect of it... Okay, the main characters (our heroes) stand upright and appear to be mostly human (which seems fairly realistic, but that’s about as real as it gets). They each wear what appears to be about 500 pounds of heavy armor, can run, sprint, and even dive out of the way. They are at war against creatures called the Locust Horde that emerged some time ago from deep below the surface of the earth... okay, yeah... you get the idea... and it doesn’t really get any closer to “Realistic” from there.
‘GEARS’ is definitely FANTASY! But I think that’s the point. Good fun breaking all the rules. Games don’t all have to be ‘R6: Vegas’ Tom Clancy style REAL. This sort of game can be fun too. And ‘GEARS’ does this sort of game better than anyone else so far. But there’s still room for some real improvements. I give it a solid 7.5 out of 10.