Microsoft's beloved Gears franchise makes its debut on the PC. Whilst having growing pains, it is a fantastic game.

User Rating: 8.5 | Gears of War PC
Gears of War makes its debut on XBOX 360 in 2006 and quickly became a marquee game for the console. A year later, the game comes to the PC where it almost fills the shoes it tread with on the 360.

The game features Marcus Fenix, an imprisoned army vet, who has been called on by human to fight the evil locust. The game has some story but it, essentially, is a vehicle to shoot more bad guys and have some grandiose scenarios.

The game features a solid single player campaign and excellent multiplayer modes that are brought over from the 360. Gameplay is as excellent as ever and I do recommend playing with a 360 pad because the games seems more natural with it.

The major qualm I had with the game are the loading times, installation times and some bugs. Having installed and played hardware-taxing games such as Crysis, I find it incomprehensible that Gears should take 30 minutes to install on a PC, refuse to run telling me I have a executable error with Games for Live, force me to troubleshoot and install the patch, only to find more loading screens.

Gears of War is an excellent game if you can get over the long install and troubleshoot process to get it to start. Excellent production values, influential gameplay and excellent, but not gorgeous, graphics make it a solid addition to anyone's PC. Poor storyline, dead-beat characters and poor optimization of PC code mar what would have been a perfect game.