[360] Gears of War

Originally Posted by Lipid

Beat it on hardcore. Insane is next on the list ><

Man, you're already beating the game, and most of us haven't gotten it yet

I pre-ordered mine through Circuit City (do they give you anything special with it, or do you have to buy a deluxe version to get anything?), and they said they haven't gotten it in yet either, nor does it seem likely that they'll get it in tomorrow.

If the game doesn't even last that long, I may consider getting a refund (I don't have Xbox Live, and don't plan on getting it anytime soon, mostly cause my room is far away from my brother's room where the router is, and I'd have to buy about 200 feet of LAN cable to hook up the Xbox). I pre-ordered it, and I really only did that because it seemed like a badass game (not to mention the Xbox magazine had a CC coupon for 15% off Gears of War), but if it's not going to give me much value for my money, I think I'll wait till it goes down in price (I seriously considered Chrome Hounds, but hearing that the single-player mode sucks, as well as not many peeps on the Live version anymore, I didn't buy it).

Oh well, looks like it's back to Dead Rising for me.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Well, just got the game from Circuit City (along with a faceplate I bought the collectors edition). I won't blame them, because there's not much they can do regarding shipping (if anything I'm pissed at Fedex or UPS, whichever one they use). Here's my initial impressions, and I do like it for the most part.

The cover system, where you hide behind stuff, is really nice, and definitely gives it a fresh feel despite being a shooting game. It's not HALO if you're wondering. It's probably more along the lines of Star Wars: Republic Commando, because you're always with at least one other guy, and you can "rez" them if they get "killed" (ironically enough, if you get killed, you just die and have to restart from the last checkpoint (I don't know about co-op though, this is true for single player though). While you can go in with guns blazing if you want, that's often not a good idea, unless you're down to one bad guy left after a long firefight.

Some of the deaths seem cheap, because the bad guys can do exactly the same thing you do to them, assuming it's a regular grunt with a gun. You can often 1-shot a mob with a shotgun at close range, but they can do that to you as well if they have a shotgun. It was also kind of funny at one point how I used the chainsaw on the rifle to kill a mob, then one of those bastards chainsawed me right afterwards (because I didn't see him behind me). Cool animation for it, and is insta-kill if you land it, but it sucks when they do it to you lol, and you can still get shot up by his buddies while the animation is playing out, so just a warning for you if you get overzealous being a Friday the 13th Jason-wannabe.

The AI is relatively good, and enemies will try to flank you if they can. They will also use cover (well, the ones that don't have explosive weapons anyway), and cover each other as well. Like one guy hides and reloads. While you're waiting for that guy to pop back up, his buddy starts to shoot at you. Even if it's just one guy, he will try to trick you as well. For example, you saw where his head should be when he pops back out, so you put your aiming cursor there. Instead of just popping back out though, he may duck first, then come out to shoot you, so that your shot will miss. If it's cover where he can shoot you from the other side as well, he may alternate sides so that you think he's coming out one end, but he comes out the other. It's still nothing compared to a human player, but the AI is challenging and does give you a good run for your money (oh, and before you ask, the NPC soldiers that are on your side are pretty smart as well, and can usually hold their own, and will even save your booty from time to time. There's no friendly fire in the campaign, so feel free to light up a machine gun to kill a mob next to them).

The last boss really sucks balls because he has so many cheap manuevers, like being able to 3-shot you with his machine gun (I'd imagine it's insta kill on the harder difficulties), and if you're hiding too long, he has a zerg of bats swarm you. You can hide near/under a light to repel the bats, but if you're in view of him, you'll probably get lit up by his gun. I've noticed during this fight that the cover system can be very flawed. Here I was trying to sneak around to the other side of the box so he wouldn't be in direct view of me, but my character apparently decides to make a leap into the open, which then leaves me to get shot up, or if by chance I somehow dodge the bullets, the bats make sure I don't last very long.

I'm sure I'll beat him eventually, but wow I hate bosses that are tough because they can only be hurt at certain times (like HALO 2), and are given so many cheesy moves to help them win (rather than having them dodge and use cover the way his minions do in the game). I don't mind a challenge, but when the challenge is that the boss has 10000 hp and can 2-shot you, that's kind of lame after like the 10th death in a row.

I haven't tried it yet, but this game would probably rock on co-op, because there are times you get split up, and each player goes through a slightly different area (still the same end goal of course). And it doesn't seem tacked on either, anytime this happens, the game seems to have a good reason for making you split up (like trying to find a way into a building where the front door is locked, or staying behind to protect something).

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by *AkirA*

Just got the game last night (finally), and Im wondering if you are making this statement based on how the game plays, or more to the effect that its not as good as Halo. I havent put to much time into the game yet, but so far its completely blowing Halo away. This is the first game Ive ever been completely in awe of how amazing it looks and plays.

I'm saying basically that if you're expecting a HALO or any other FPS type game, then you're wrong. While it does have elements of an FPS game, the game makes a ton of use of the cover system (Perfect Dark Zero does this too, to be fair, but in that game, it's often not needed that much at all, and you can just go in with guns blazin' and be fine for the most part), which I also like.

And yeah, this game's got a better storyline that HALO 2 although it's got that "one man army syndrome" lol. While I suppose this could be "the war from a squad's point of view", I often wonder why there's no air support (other than at the last boss, and yes, I'm aware that any air support brought in usually gets shot up. What I mean is like a fighter jet doing bombing runs. And yes, I'm also aware of the satellite cannon thing, but it seems like you can only use it when the game requires you to kill a bad guy with that specific weapon, otherwise "The satellite is not in orbit above"). Or even why are there no more ground troops other than 4 guys? You can almost tell that anyone wearing a helmet and doesn't look unique is going to die (they'd be an "extra" if this were a movie), while the guys that are wearing uber-looking armor won't die as easily. I already knew at the beginning of the game that the guys in the generic armor was going to die at some point early in the game, and I was right lol. And once those guys are gone, it's just you and 3 other guys for the most part fighting the bad guys.

I'm not bashing any game really with my comments (other than HALO 2's story which seemed kind of hashed together), just that this game feels familiar to many others, but has enough qualities to it that it feels like its own game.

Now that I think about it, this game is probably more like Resident Evil 4 in terms of combat and what not. Cept you can move around more easily in this game, for better or worse (least you don't have zombies mindlessly charging towards you and eating you, but guns kill quicker than a bite lol. And see my above comments about doing a wrong move while fighting the last boss).

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.