 |
System: Microsoft Xbox 360 | Released: 2006 |
| Developer: EPIC Games | Publisher: Microsoft |
| Genre: Shooter | Players: 1-2 Co-Op
(1-8 Vs. Online) |
| Game Save size: 1 MB | Reviewer: Josh WK |
Note: This review presumes you are well-aware, and quite comfortable with, Big Dudes. It is required that you understand the meaning behind Big Dudes, whoever they may be, whatever they are and whereever they are from. Throughout this review there may be several instances where Big Dudes will be mentioned; in fact, Big Dudes are necessary for this review's success. Hell, Big Dudes ARE this review.
Take heed. This is a review, for a game, about Big Dudes. (ED NOTE: Think Duke Nukem)
***
Gears of War is a videogame. It may confuse you from time to time attempting to be something else, like a blockbuster summer film in North America, or a really bad racing game with shooting mechanics. Or, the controls, which, yeah. The controls. Hard to learn, intuitive when mastered, I guess. At first, you will be struggling through learning every possible thing at once, all while trying to grasp the plot over blarring gunfire and unintelligable dialogue. You will, however, have fun killing things, once you get over the fact that you will, yes, you will, die. Alot.
That being said, this is Gears of War. It is a videogame... a shooting videogame. With a handful of different guns, enemies, and levels, you have what composed this piece of electronics/art/entertainment/pocketbook drainage incarnate; a testimate to what has come and what shall be, audio and video with hand/eye coordination combined into what becomes a videogame, about shooting some monsters, with a gun, as a Big Dude. No matter how you slice it, this is Gears, in a nutshell.
It is kind of grainy, though. More on that later.
Gears is a fun game. It can be a very fun game, if you have friends-- actual, real friends, with bodies and EVERYTHING-- to play it with. You run around a greatly dark-toned map with your Big Dude (everyone in this game but The Hot Chick is a Big Dude; that is, a giant, herculean monster of a man/monster, with tree-trunks for arms, legs, and basically steroid muscles everywhere they can be inserted), you tuck and roll, and, much as you do in real life when you're getting shot at with a gun, take cover. You can "blind-fire"-- also similar to total real life gun-fighting situations, you take cover somewhere, press the fire button, and shoot without aiming, pointing your gun outward without revealing yourself. You can also totally throw grenades this way.
Forgive my sarcasm-- the "realism" is, honestly, nailed fairly well. Where it fails is in the fact that it takes many, many bullets to die, while a space shotgun at close-range will blow my Big Dude's entire body into space chunks of gutty HD. I can unload an entire clip of Lancer ammo-- that's the HEAVY MACHINEGUN, kids-- fans of Metal Slug, feel free to yell this frequently-- into some kid from Italy who is in a special online clan that is spelled with characters I'd need an extended font support download to spell correctly, and he will somehow avoid hit detection entirely and melee me with whatever he's carrying and bring me into "Bleed Out" mode.
"Bleed Out" is when you've taken enough shots/damage/etc. to your Big Dude, and he falls down, unable to fight, but still alive. It's kind of cool at first, until the first few hundred times you are forced to just sit there, watching your avatar of a Big Dude do what I like to call, and will call, from now on, since I just invented it RIGHT NOW, the "omg i am ding wtf" animation. Your Big Dude will do this for awhile, as the screen turns more red, unless an ally runs by and hits the Revive button to save you. Or, if you're online, in a few select modes of play, you can mash the A button frantically to stop the bleeding, or something, which works on the nearly impossible occasion that your opponents don't immediately finish you off to get some Achievement they need involving foot-stomping (they call it the totally-rad CURB-STOMPING).
As I said, the "realism", thing Gears has going for it, yeah. It tries to have it going for it, but it's as if it's going off in several different directions at a certain point, trying to create it's own game terms and make itself a game, thus defeating the ultimate (and untimely) purpose of creating an ultra-realistic videogame. But then, hell, that'd be presuming they were trying for realism, wouldn't it?
Let's analyze the facts. There are several guns with their own coined names, but none of these matter at all. "Longshot" is a sniper rifle. "Boomshot" is a grenade/rocket launcher/hand cannon-ish... thing, that never really seems to aim right, no matter how hard you try, because you'll almost always die before you can manage to sneak a shot off in the only way it could be done usefully, at long-range. There are two types of machineguns, one with a chainsaw bayonet (easily, the best part of the game, showcased plenty and why, well, it shows), and then there's a shotgun, a bow that fires high-powered explosive arrows, and your obligatory two types of handguns that, admittedly, can be used past a last resort weapon, which is kind of cool. Most of these are pretty basic, fundamental shooter weapons. You can find them, with different names, down in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart, in just about any shooter released in the last fifteen years. There is a weapon called "The Hammer of Dawn", though, that relies on a realistic idea of creating a gun that can only be fired outside, destroying just about anything in it's path, granted it has enough time to focus on it's target. Why? It uses satellites to align a high-powered laser. Because of that, it never runs out of ammunation, but because you need to be outside-- AND the satellites have to be "online" (and with much anything in real life relying on technology, this can vary)-- you can't always use it. If you could, it would be the best weapon in the game, let alone the coolest. Nevertheless, this kind of play mechanic, it's pretty damn slick.
***
You will find that you will probably need to raise your brightness level to play Gears effectively. This is because Gears is dark. Dreary. Somewhat artistic, yes-- but, damn. Blue Sky in Games, guys. This is getting ridiculous. I don't want to have to see another hyped game eight years from now that is like this, or ever again. You automatically lose points for this. This is weak sauce. Try bright colors; try a rainbow of Crayola. Make me a shooter that has the videogame-coloredness of Super Mario Sunshine with the action-packed death-gunning madness of the original DOOM. Farcry, you kind of had the right idea. Sort of.
I apologize-- this has taken a dark, menacing tone, somewhat in the vein of it's subject matter. I'm not intending to focus on Gears' weakpoints. However, as opposed to the main focus this game has had in the past-- that is, that it's TOTALLY BAD-ASS AND THE BEST EVER DOG-- I'm simply admitting it has them. It does, really. It's not a perfect game at all. Is there a perfect game? If there is, let me know, and I'll be sure to tell you why it isn't. Sorry. I'm like that, folks.
I like(ed) Gears. It's got some amazing soundwork, there. Music and audio are almost a key element of playing the game, which is great-- to know when a primary battle is over, for example, you have to listen for the moment when the soundtrack-- which is booming, orchestral, on-your-feet excitement you'd expect from something like this, but I digress-- lets loose this guitar riff of awesomeness through your speakers that basically tells you, "You've done it, man. Take a drink from your beverage. Breathe." I love that. Music needs to go hand-in-hand together with games more often, in an effect more or less different than Dance Dance Revolution-- or even Guitar Hero, dare I say it. We need more games where the hero slays the dragon to the sound of bongo drums playing as he jumps from vine to vine, platform to platform, as a bass guitar slams you hard at every time you strike, varying in length and detail with performance of your skill, making you FEEL the blade, the music, the, shit, everything.
Gears of War is kind of on the right track with this. It's multi-directional at different points in the method of execution, however, and tries to do too many things, succeeding greatly in many ways and failing in others.
There's a level early on-- a driving level. In it, you and your partner must both steer a large, futuristic vehicle while firing a... uh, "gun" (it's more like a Halogen nintendolight, though) that fires a concentrated beam of light for a few seconds. Both players can do either, but you can only do one thing at a time; that is, you can't drive and fire at the same time, because there is supposedly only enough power for one option. It is a purposefully-designed game mechanic that is two things: one, painfully obvious, and two, stupid. No matter how talented you are at coordinating with your friend (who can be, also, anyone from Xbox Live, random or otherwise) a plan to win, a means of switching between driving/shooting or otherwise any other way of beating the level, you will end up struggling to the end as one person doesn't know you're shooting now, or the other person drives into the side of a ruined car while you're aiming, or you make the mistake of driving while they're shooting and you're just TRYING to get your timing down between driving and shooting and it's just a terrible, terrible mess of anger and frustration and oh my God, it's horrible. Not to mention, the "U.V. Turret" that you use to shoot with has the worst aiming and shooting, on a vehicle, in a videogame, ever-- so much so that you will frequently try aiming at the bats that swarm around your vehicle and eat you at close-range and miss, every time, because the aiming reticle is non-existant and will not, ever, hit a target that is attached, or very near, the vehicle-- that I officially stand by my decision in saying that, yes, this is the worst case of aiming on a vehicle with a gun in a videogame ever created. It's an unfinished product. It's... one level. With awkward controls. And if you're wondering, if you don't have a partner to play with, the computer will not control him in this level at all. Yeah, you heard right. You have to control both steering and firing by yourself.
...It goes without saying I believe most people-- from my experience, at least, and a few others-- are pretty much, in a few words, incredibly fucking happy when this level is over. This nonsense has to stop in games. No more "levels we just want to get over with". In Gears case, though, it's worsened by a crippled vehicle mechanic that you only get to use in one horribly-designed level, and then never see again. You never need to rely on the skills you learn from doing this, if there are even any to learn. It's really just a lesson in wanting to get something over with to get back to what is good in life. This level of Gears of War is a job. A bad job. If you can survive it, you can go websitehome and get back to what's good.
Online, you will find a whole new world of difference from the offline. Gears of War has, officially, distanced itself from the horrible, horrible online world that was created by regular Xbox shooters before it, an empty husk bereft of human intelligence, sense, or personality, complete with "rap battles", the word "fag" used as an openly-available insult, and incredibly loud sounds of things supposed to be music mixed with drunk people. Instead, Gears has a pretty friendly enviroment-- fairly, anyway, as you battle people the world over, far from the United States. All too often you will find yourself getting yelled at by a twelve-year old boy in the United Kingdom, or a Hispanic male of unknown age or descent repeatedly asking whether you speak Spanish, IN Spanish(ED NOTE: Te Hablas Espanol?!). It's alot more wackier. Don't expect any hand-holding, though, unless you specifically ask for it.
Gears of War is a great game. No, really. Despite it's short-comings, it's a challenging, fun, major romp through what could be considered, probably, the most successful third-person shooter, both critically and amongst the masses, of all time. It has put Xbox Live on the map as far as Xbox 360 is concerned. People are... playing it now. Alot of people, actually. In a world where connecting to another PSP in ATV Offroad Fury is, literally, almost impossible online (believe me, I tried, frequently, but that's another story, for another time), Gears has become a testament to how remarkably easy it is, in this day and age, to get on to a high-speed internet connection through an Xbox 360, and play somebody else, even if you have no one to play with, anywhere in the world-- not only that, but possibly become associated with them permanently! In that, it is a winner; it has changed Microsoft and their Xbox name, in all seriousness, and the name is finally synonymous with other titles besides Halo when you mention it (thank God). Will Gears of War 2 do as a sequel what another sequel did to the masterpiece saga (though widely overrated) of Halo and correct upon it's past self, going beyond better graphics, and giving us a better gameplay experience, fixing it, harnassing it, and turning it into a wonderful ball of joy that will inevitably make the new one in a league of it's own and/or the old one, considerably, obsolete?
To that, I wait with bated breath.
Score: 4/5
