War for a better tomorrow...Today!
Ok onto the story and lets try to get past this quickly as it pains me slightly, you play as Marcus Fenix a big, burly, gruff voiced man who probably eats babies along with best buddy Dom Santiago. Anyway the evil aliens destroying the world on this occasion are The Locust who are destroying the world because… well it's never really explained why apparently character motivations don't apply to this game, so of you go to save the world via blood and violence just like the Lord intended it. The characters aren't particularly well developed and you never find yourself emotionally attached to them except for Baird who is pretty awesome.
So Gears of War is a third-person shooter which focuses heavily on a cover system and the cover system actually works well with the press of the A button you'll go flinging yourself in front of a strategically placed rock and you press A again to leave it. It all works very well and it's a good job that it does as the whole game is based around this idea to the point where a little variety wouldn't have gone amiss. As mentioned the game is a third person shooter a la Resident Evil 4 and uses the EXACT same over the shoulder aiming viewpoint (so all of you who say that Gears revolutionised the third person shooter are wrong as Leon Kennedy and his stupid haircut beat them to it) and once again this suit's the game well as it makes scouting for cover much easier and shooting from cover simple as well. One thing that continually annoyed me about this game was low camera action running viewpoint as it made it very awkward to see where you are going and Marcus Fenix apparently has the turning cycle of an articulated truck as no matter how hard I pushed the thumbstick he wouldn't budge an inch.
Ultimately the core gameplay mechanics work well but Gears of War's main problem is that it's all so bloody samey oh sure sometimes your shooting locust in a courtyard and sometimes in a mansion but when it comes down to it the whole game is one big hide-and-seek-a-thon(that might not be a word) where you find a useful rock kill baddies and repeat the process until you find your hand reaching out for Call of Duty 4 or Bioshock or failing that a knife. This could all be acceptable if the set pieces were exciting but they are not all the bosses are ridiculously easy to defeat and they make you fight one boss 3 times! That just screams of were running out of ideas syndrome(might not be a medical condition) and felt like lazy development of the highest order. If you can deal with repetition though then you will find a fun game in Gears it's not setting the world alight but it's competent and an easy way to pass a few hours. Which brings me on to my next point this game is short and I mean short. It can probably be completed in 5-6 hours depending on competence but this is a good length for me after all it was getting pretty samey so who knows what they would have done with 3-4 more hours apart from makes us fight the Berserker more times.
Gears of War is visually stunning and is certainly one of the prettiest games on the market, it does portray the gruesomeness of war and does immerse you in it's apocalyptic world of pain and misery. Also I have never seen so many variations on the colour brown it's really quite impressive. The locales themselves are well designed especially when your outside and despite the games linearity it does give a sense of scope, so full marks for graphics. The sound is good as well with the music suiting the mood required and the voice acting been top notch also(even if the script they were working with was questionable at best). This all should be expected of a game that had as big a budget as this did though.
The game does feature numerous multi player elements mainly focusing on the Co-Op side of the gameplay where you and a buddy can team up split-screen or online to play through the campaign mode together and it does make the experience a lot more fun. There are also competitive multiplayer elements featuring the usual death match, capture the flag and the like. There all fun and is still pretty popular online to this day.
Gears of War is an interesting game because it does very little wrong but doesn't do that much right it is very run of the mill, competent, lacking some blockbuster moments but what you do get is a well put together shooter which is fun to play with a mate that should be going cheap if your one of the two people who have not played it. So maybe Gears wasn't as bad as I thought it would be it's certainly better then Halo but then again a particularly bad case of herpes is better then Halo.
Pros
+ Good, Competent Action Shooter
+ Gorgeous Visuals and Good Sound
+ Co-Op and Multiplayer is fun
Cons
- Repetitive and a bit boring
- Set pieces are disappointing
- Story is truly terrible
Overall
6.5/10
P.S Don't you find it annoying how every shooting game these days has a cover system what ever happened to the good old days where you'd find a protruding bit of scenery and hide behind that.