Overview:

Well here yah go, one of the most anticipated games to come out this year. As you all know, Gears of War came out as probably the most memorable next-gen games back in 2006. I mean i was pretty excited for it. Gears of war continues the story in the trilogy and follows Marcus Fenix into the clutches of the intrepid Locust. I’m not very passionate about most 3rd person games save Mass Effect, but the game delivers.

Story:

I am not going to go too in depth with this because I am sure you all know most of where the story goes. The first game ends with the detonation of the human’s weapon of mass destruction. Then our heroes finally get to chill, although the war has been going on for like 15 years, they do all this damage in like 2 days, but that is beside the point. This then takes us to the second game where it begins in a kind of shabby hospital, followed by a chat with the chairmen who claims he is going to end this war now blah blah. Ultimately the only real point in his speech is that he wants to attack the Locust on their turf. So you take off to Landon to drill down to their clutches. Kind of a side story that seems just thrown into the game is Dom’s search for Maria, his long lost wife, no word on his kid. That’s about the gist of it. The majority of the game is spent either underground or inside long bi-symmetrical annelids. Well I guess there is a large amount of ground covered in the game.

Gameplay:

At first the game is very similar in gameplay to its predecessor. Actually most of the game is. What is new is the more vibrant environment that you get to kill aliens in. The Gears of War world has always looked great, but the map design just keeps providing the expectations. The fighting versus the first game is a lot more polished but it keeps the same tone and feel. It gets real repetitive, but still fun as always.

One of my favorite aspects of the game are the enemies. Not just how well they work with their cover system, but the different types of them. From Grubs, Tickers, Wretches, Boomers, Grinders. There always seems to be a new creature to kill. Another aspect that not a lot of people take into consideration is how well it feels. Fenix feels as though he is actually walking and many games have the issue of the playable characters as though they are sliding, then again Epic has always been really good at this.

As for the gameplay and story, they mesh well. The game is riddled with tons of scripted sequences, and as I am a fan of mostly open world games, the scripted sequences are what make this game. Watching a Corpser in the distance jump on a tank or a Brumak shooting a Raven down never gets boring as you watch it. Another theme with this game seems to be size. Everything is bigger from draw distances to enemies. The game does it big.

Some Pointless Banter: Whats with all the random ass switches and levers. The floor buttons other than creating cover would have no realistic use and I wish they could have been more creative with the switches such as giving the a more fundamental purpose. The only other complaint that I have is I feel like the Locust city should be more elaborate than the way they portrayed it

Graphics:

The visuals of Gears have always been a treat but they actually manage to take it to the next level. The sights take you from location to location and never seem to disappoint. I love the characters face animations and there hair. It actually has a sense of realness to it, unlike in games plagued by this problem such as Fallout 3.

Score:

Overall: 8.7/10 (Knocked down a little due to reasons in my pointless banter.)
Story: 8.5/10
Gameplay: 9.0/10
Graphics: 9.0/10