Gears of War is a great game of it`s own but the porting issues prevent it from being playable.
Lost Planet - one of the first Xbox360 ports - was quite interesting and I enjoyed it, but it had it`s own problems, even not related with porting. However, despite the scepticism, I got the game and installed it.
The first shadow of doubt was during the installation process - no, the game installed with no errors (unlike some of GameSpot`s members), but the sound my PC was giving during it made me to belive that my fellow was going to blow up. After this absurd idea a new demon rose in my mind - The Optimization. Could my PC run it? Will it run at all? Of course it would. Only 3 months old and packed with the latest (maybe not THE latest) stuff. No doubt it would. Sure. Right. Ohh, what a dissappointment.
The first thing I noticed was the bleak main screen and music. It felt like a good game. I selected the `New Game` option and put it on `Casual` difficulty - God knows monster what Epic had made. Then loading.... Slide show, probably devised to be the game - what the hell? Back to the main menu, to the `Options`. Oh, I see. Graphics setting - high. I lowered some unnecessarry stuff and started it again. Slide show again. Okay, now everything to medium. Still lags and framerate loses. But at least I could play it now. To the battle, lads!
The first thing i noticed - the ultra badass setting. Badass clothes, badass guns, badass voices. Even the main character - Marcus Fenix (ultra badass as you can guess) is so... OK, you got the idea. Future .Humans ar fighting against evil aliens (the original planet inhabitants as I understood) called the Locust Horde. We`re losing. The setting is apocalyptic and dark, enemies ain`t taking captives. The story isn`t told like this happened then, that happened then. When we`re out of our warm prison cell, nobody takes us with open arms. Soldier - your mission, your guns - to the fight! That`s one good thing.
What do we do? Kill. And it`s fun. Sharp controls, great and handy cover seeking mechanism, cinematic scenes, that feels like a real battle - and I give this game only 6.5? First of all - unbalanced difficulty - too easy on Casual, too hard on Medicore - fill Locoust filthy bodies with a magazine of plumbum and they hardly depart from life - without headshots you won`t live long. Also grenades are too weak, we can carry only two guns (the useless pistol cannot be swapped), also when your teammates get shot, they get up when all enemies are dead. Unless if it`s a very furious firefight, then they might die.
Nothing much about sounds - boom, bang, grr - the standard set. Music is good, at least I liked it.
And now to the graphics. They look great - in the screenshots. While my settings were on High it looked nice. On Medium - not really. Blood effects are simply ridiculous - looks like ketchup with black ink dropped in the middle. And the bolld doesn`t spill on the ground - you call that a bloody shooter? Did I mention the disproportionate system requirements? Boys, you are Epic Games, right? Why don`t do your optimization wonder with GoW like with Unreal Tournament 3? The game is also buggy - it stopped in the middle of my crusade and threw me out to Desktop. Did I mention that the game has checkpoint saves?
Disappointed. I can`t say anything else. I belive that it is a good game for the Bill`s beloved console, but I think that the porting was rushed. Maybe one day I`ll buy myself an Xbox360 and check Gears of War, but that won`t be today.