Two days ago, I took the plunge and bought an XBOX 360, a third-party intercooler, one wireless controller to match the one bundled in with my premium console, a pack of four grippy thingies for said controllers, and the Special Limited Edition of Gears of War.  I'll be getting my XBL subscription and wireless router in the coming days, so look for me online soon.  I'll probably go by "ShlingBo" or "ShlingBad" or something idiotic like that since I can't seem to come up with anything cooler.

Anyway, back to "Hardcore".  My pal Nick and I just plowed through Gears' campaign on the hardest default setting, appropriately named "Hardcore".  Was it easy?  Well, not always.  There were lots of restarts and plenty of "come revive me, dumb****!!", but we saw it through.  Our estimate is that it took--ball park--eight hours to kill General RAAM and claim our pwnage.  But then, there was some thoroughly light, semi-excessive drinking goin' on, so I could be wrong by a half-hour or so.  I  can't remember when he showed up.  Or when I showed up.  Where am I?

Eight-ish hours doesn't seem very long for a campaign, and that's because, you know. . . it isn't, but with Gears, it's different.  The way the game flows makes it perfect for a dedicated playthrough.  In fact, I almost wouldn't want to play the campaign without going wire-to-wire on it.  The game rocks in ways that few games do.  Think: the atmosphere and mystique of Metroid Prime meets the carnal, tense action of Resident Evil 4, only it's all hopped up on Agent Orange.  You duck behind stuff, do combat rolls, splinter skulls shottie-style, and hack through the armor and flesh of big, ugly-ass monsters with a chainsaw.  A CHAAAIN-SAAAWWW.  Why hasn't this been thought of before?

Hey wait just a second here.  The purpose of this blog was supposed to be to remind everyone of the hardness of my core, not the radness of my Gears.  There'll be time for raining praises in the full review.  So for now, try not to think of how kickass Epic's new game is.  Instead think to yourself, "I've been noticing that Shen has a pretty hard core.  It's like iron, that thing.  I might need to get some core hardness training just to keep up wi. . .."

. . .guys?  Anyone?  Aw. . .