Kinetic, intense, and thoughtful gameplay, with visuals and combat that keep it engaging make Gears truly special!
Thankfully, Gears doesn't go into the story more than it has to. It just throws you in the middle of it.
And, it's one hell of a nasty, energetic, and well conceived world!
This world feels alive with strife and ruin. The conbat and graphics play wonderfully into that. Everything feels lived in, ruined, massive. Visually, this torn apart world is convincing, and compelling as well!
The combat was revolutionary. The 'duck and cover' approach was terrific, and blended 3rd and 1st person shooting wonderfully, an area where Epic could have easily dropped the ball, and did not. The intensity of combat matches the visuals in this game...it feels important, it feels threatening, and it feels urgent!
Your teammates, while not always the best ai controlled in combat, seem like individuals when they talk. Very little backstory is given on anybody, yet they all seem like real people.
The duck and cover mechanics hold up well through the game, thanks to the variety of combat scenerios the game throws at you. It just keeps the awful coming at you so fast, that you can never just sit in on spot picking off enemies running through a doorway. Do that, and they'll flank you, or kick your head into the ground. The waves of combat seems standard in a game like this, but it's paramount in keeping the combat mechanics from going stale and simple. And it works...combat always feels intense.
I've mentioned before, that good and convincing storytelling in games will take precedence over a good stroy. Gears is a prime example of that. I doubt anyone will glow about what a unique and thought provoking story this is, but man, it feels like a story you're living through, fighting through, and hoping you'll duck long enough to live through.
Half Life 2 really began the trend of shooters feeling immersive, engaging, and making your character feel like they exist in a lived in world, and their role in it is important. Gears follows well on that tradition, and like Half Life 2, shows you so much of the world that it really looks, and more importantly FEELS like a world that really exists. Yet, Gears of War intensifies the combat system to another level, which helps sell the urgency, the intensity, and the believability of this game better than any other I can recall in the last year.
Easily the best game to have come out on the 360 on it's release date, and better than most to have come since. If Epic can find a way to reinvent the wheel with a sequel that feels as unique a playthrough as this game, Gears of War could easily be the franchise that buries the PS3.
I'm still amazed at how good this game really is. There's some intangible quality that makes this game great, that can't be pointed at a single element, but rather the sum of the parts contributing to something greater than they have ever been added together before. I keep thinking how easy it would have been for this game to fail...if the graphics were worse, if the combat was predictable, if the environments weren't so believable, if your teammates were dispicable...if one little thing went wrong, it could have failed so easily.
This is probably the 360's best example of a game that is 100% right, 100% everything it was supposed to be, and 100% proof of everything that is great about video games.
I can't say that about too many games. I can say it about Gears unquestionably.