My honest review! Read on...
The very first time I played GOW was on single player, hardcore, by myself and everything that I saw and took part in throughout the game was absolutely mind-blowing – the combination of stunning graphics, beautifully simplified gameplay, ridiculously badass characters and new innovative concepts (active reload being the main one) all jelled together in perfect harmony that satisfied just about everything I wanted to see in the hyped – up game of the year. It blew me away.
Another reason for me saying that this game does live up to the hype is because the second time I played it, it was over xbox live on coop (all be it on the puny casual mode). Again, it delivered the same experience as the first play through, but with added enjoyment because of the new tactical decisions my friend and I had to think about. Plus the added hilarity of arguments: “no way in hell am I going to take the left path; remember what happened last time?!?!” etc… Coop is quite simply more enjoyable then single player, its nice for a game to finally have some thought put into its coop. Instead of just spawning another Marcus in the game, there are different routes to take and glimmers of o – so – awesome coop perfection (how can you not love the part with the spotlight?).
Now. The graphics – yet another obvious reason why this game is good. Have we ever seen in game graphics as good as this before? No. Sony eat your heart out. Very rare for me to say that (being the Nintendo fan that I am) I am hardly ever bothered about the graphics. For me gameplay is everything, nice graphics are an added bonus. BUT. GoW has great gameplay with particularly sweet graphics. An unstoppable combination.
I have stated the main reasons I think GoW lives up to the hype (there are of course many others; weapons, options you have when in cover etc…) now for the negatives. The main weakness of GoW is how shallow the game really is. Firstly. An all-out American story of: Giant bug things V super cool American characters, who kill the bugs and save earth, with of course drama and bravery along the way. Pfftt… thrilling *rolls eyes*. I know that games aren’t exactly created to tell good stories as the main purpose. But the storyline of GoW is comparable to that of Jumpman needing to save a woman from a barrel-throwing ape.
In all honesty, I think what Epic has done is completely focus on badass soldiers, scary bugs, huge guns and gore and let the story take a back seat. Maybe core gamers are more childish than I originally considered, as the game is an obvious success. However, I believe the amount of violence and bravado that has been poured into GoW is simply a way around the shortfalls of this game. As I have said; this game is definitely a success. There must be a vast amount of juvenile gamers that enjoy hunks of meat and chainsaws and blood. This brings a feeling of poignancy indeed. What are gamers becoming? Remember what matters people – the enjoyment from gameplay and overcoming the odds through strategy and intelle-- *chainsaw buzzes* my younger cousin - "oh yeh! got him good the little £$^%^*% " -- never mind...
Not only is the game shallow, but the length is also pathetic. I’m talking the size of a gerbil’s whoohaa here… 3-6 hours of single player campaign if you go sight seeing along the way whilst walking behind the granny in front. The first playthrough made me think: “huh… very, very awesome… but… that’s it?” Finishing a game in one sitting is not on. I’ll be honest: I felt a little ripped off.
The gameplay. I find this hard to explain by typing, if I was speaking to you I could explain better. Anyway. Simplified gameplay and controls are usually most effective. Just look at games such as the Mario series, Castlevania, Halo, Sonic etc… But for some reason, on GoW I get more annoyed and bored of the gameplay every time I play it. Enemies are very simple minded and very predictable, so each time I play through. I know exactly what to expect. Don’t know about anyone else, but I’m sick of the cover system. This game was never meant to be realistic, so why the cover system? Many people seem to love it. I despise it. It isn’t ‘tactical’ and it isn’t realistic (the amount of children I have heard say the game is realistic because of the cover system…). I would enjoy the game much more, if you were allowed to play it more hardcore and just delve into battle a bit more. Instead I duck… shoot at some pixels. Duck, reload, shoot at some more pixels, and repeat. Not an enjoyable formula.
The game is also unbelievably linear. It’s a straight path from the very start to the very end of the game. Which to be fair is boring. In my eyes, freedom in a game makes it more enjoyable – not even that much freedom… But just wider areas and hidden rooms where you can find rare weapons, or power-ups. Or even the ability to fall off the edge of high things – keeping you on your toes a little more. Basically, I feel like a claustrophobe when playing GoW. There is no vastness to the game, no epic feeling of legendary gargantuan battles. To make things worse, the limited amount of options you have on where to go, by the 3rd completion of the game I had explored every route (not bothering with the cog tags. Why anyone would want to find them I don’t know. It’s just boring) and tried out every strategy. This is an absolute major weakness, that turns a promising, fun game into a no – brainier after the second play through.
To summarise. I absolutely loved GoW the very first time I played it, because everything was fresh and new and absolutely stunning to look at and for this reason, I can understand why this game has been hyped about. I also fell in love with the coop the first time I played (bearing in mind shooter coops are my favourite type of game) it is very enjoyable to think of tactical solutions to problems. It is just a pity there aren’t many problems to overcome. The length, depth of story, the linearity, the juvenile focus on violence and the boring “shoot at pixels then duck” style gameplay ultimately undermines the experience Epic set out to create. There are flares of fresh, innovative ideas and the game is mind-blowingly fun to play through the first time around, making this game a must play (even if you rent/borrow it). But GoW is unable to stand the test of time… I got bored of it about a fortnight after buying it. At least the ending was left open for a second coming.
The goods:
Best in game graphics to date
Superb Coop
Some innovative flares
The bads:
No-brainer storyline
Extremely linear
Short campaign mode
(I did not include multiplayer in the review, simply because I hate it. I am therefore bias and do not want that to unfairly interfere with my true opinion of the actual game).
Jeees.. a bit long winded! Thanks for reading!