Welcome to World Zero - Reviews for the hardcore gamer

Gears takes place within an interesting enough post-apocalyptic, Earth-like world called Sera in which a ruthlessly brutal, underground race of demonic creatures called the Locust have decided to wage war on the planet’s surface. The story is actually pretty sparse, and you’re dumped straight into it with absolutely no background info, sans what’s in the manual. What you do know is you play the role of Marcus Fenix, a former soldier for the Coalition of Organized Governments, locked away in prison while the Locust invasion is underway. Things are going bad for the humans, so your buddy Dom comes to bust you out. Apparently, things are going so bad that the prison itself has been all but destroyed by the ongoing war, parallel to most of the planet’s surface, leaving virtually no real repercussion to your prison break. After fighting your way out of the infested penitentiary, you meet up with a small band of soldiers and are air-dropped right into the middle of the Locust invasion. The story is there, it’s just that the actual telling of it is so minimal that it ultimately comes off as inconsequential. So many aspects could have been better fleshed out, not simply just plot for plot’s sake, but because this post-apocalyptic world is interesting, and you want to find out more. What exactly happened at Marcus’ trial? How long has this war been going on? Exactly what the hell are the Locust anyway? All these questions seem to be seeded right into the game, almost like the answers have been purposely left out. What little Gears gives you is pretty decent, but you’ll definitely be left wanting answers that you just won’t get…at least until the inevitable sequel.

A lot of what Gears does so well actually originated in the relatively obscure game released on the Playstation 2 a few years back called kill.switch, the first 3D shooter to be based entirely around a cover system. I’m actually pretty surprised that this is the first game we’ve seen since kill.swicth that utilizes a similar mechanic. Though, with Gears’ undeniable success, I would assume we’ll be seeing a lot more “stop and pop” shooters on the shelves very soon. But as the old adage goes, if you can’t do something new, do something better. And Gears definitely does. All of your non-combat actions are contextually tied to the A button, making the cover system feel very fluid and easy to use once you get the hang of it.

To keep things interesting, the ruthless enemy AI likes to outnumber your squad, flank you, or downright charge you suicidally. Luckily, your standard issue rifle comes equipped with a chainsaw bayonet, not unlike what you may have seen in the Warhammer universe. Rev that bastard up as a rushing Locust attempts to flank you, pop out around the corner, and you can give ‘em one hell of a surprise. Making contact isn’t as easy as a regular melee attack though, a single shot from an enemy can disrupt your chainsaw, causing you to have to rev it back up, leaving you completely vulnerable in the process. When you do manage to pull off one of these brutal kills, chances are you’ll find it to be one of the most visceral, satisfying ways to take out an enemy you have ever seen in a game.

If I could describe Gears of War in one word, that word would undeniably be “thick”. Everything in this game from the characters, to the weapons, to even the environments themselves have this bulkiness to them that not only adds additional layer of character to the game world but gives it a realistic weight; a heaviness that that feels reasonable considering the hulking brutes that make up the cast of characters, yet somehow doesn’t feel cumbersome. You’ll feel like it takes a great amount of effort to hurdle over the top of a barricade or slice through an armored soldier with a chainsaw…but you’ll never feel like it’s an encumbrance. This works because the bulkiness throughout the game is consistent, and despite this bulkiness, every motion still manages to feel fluid in execution thanks to the top-notch animation that effortlessly conveys a sense of quickness and precision within every action the characters perform.

Gears of War is a masterpiece in terms of in-game presentation; it’s simply unmatched visually. This isn’t purely attributed to Gears’ impossibly beautiful graphics, it’s because there is an amount of refinement to Gears that very few developers take the time to flesh out. Everything from the way your weaponry ejects spent shells to your presence in the environment has been gone over with a fine-toothed comb to insure that everything in the game looks how you would expect it to look and feel how you would expect it to feel. Firing each weapon produces an appropriate muzzle flash, the right kick followed by convincing expended ammo. Slamming into cover causes your character to grimace from the pain of hitting a stone wall at full sprint. The devil’s in the details. What makes Gears such a success is that it doesn’t just get the combat right, it absolutely nails the often overlooked details that are so easy to leave out, on top of getting the combat right.

Possibly one aspect of Gears that impressed me the most is the simple act of reloading your weapon. Dubbed the active reload system, upon tapping the right bumper, a meter pops up under the weapon section of your HUD. Hitting the right bumper again when the meter passes the “sweet spot” results in a perfect reload, effortlessly slamming in a clip with expert precision, not only cutting your reload time in half, but providing every round in the new magazine with a slight damage boost. A small buffer zone around the sweet spot results in a quick reload, but no damage boost. But the brilliance here is missing the buffer zone entirely results in you jamming your gun. This method fits in perfectly with the gameplay itself, especially in a scenario where you’re pinned down in a bunker and enemies are charging at you from all sides. You empty a clip into one foe, taking him down, but the next one is already barreling down on top of you. Tension is high, and if your nerves get the best of you, you’re not going to be able to flawlessly pop that clip in and go back to work. You’re going to fumble. You’re going to jam your gun. This additional level of tension fits the already on-edge nature of the cover system like a glove.

Gears of War’s multiplayer is a different monster altogether. Abstractly, it almost mimics the movements of a chess match. Two teams of four start at opposite ends of a symmetrical map, each player strategically bouncing from cover to cover, meticulously moving to meet the opposing team in the middle of the “board”, head-on. It’s almost a thing of chaotic beauty, watching a methodically calculated match play out. There’s just one small hitch; ranked matches aren’t governed by players’ actual ranking. Any player can join in on any game, with any player. Since stringent teamwork is such an absolute necessity in Gears, something as small as a team with a single player of insufficient skill can result in your side getting absolutely slaughtered. If you don’t lay down cover fire as your teammate goes in for a chainsaw kill or dives for a close piece of cover, it’s your ass. Getting paired with a player who is constantly going off on his own to grab the Boomshot, or is always rushing in with the chainsaw only to get shotgunned in the face will yield bad results no matter how much weight you pull. In Gears, your team must act as one, and a simple handicap of three versus four can easily become a game ending disadvantage.

Gears has a few minor issues, but what it does right it does on a near unprecedented level. The campaign is a stirring experience that often feels more cinematic than most action blockbusters. The multiplayer, while potentially frustrating, combines a perfect balance of strategy and balls-to-the-wall action. The real clincher, however, is that the game itself is so visceral, so atmospheric, and so well done that it’s virtually impossible not to acknowledge Gears of War as a technical wonder and, more importantly, an absolutely unforgettable video game experience.

Rating	The rating scale in detail
10	++ Video games just aren’t supposed to look this good.
9.8	++ Outstanding, intense orchestral soundtrack. A huge plus, considering how an unfitting, modernized soundtrack would have been the easy way out. ++ Sound effects, most notably anything involving someone’s demise, are fantastic.
9.0	++ The cover system is undeniably the best yet implemented in a shooter. - Teammate AI leaves something to be desired. - Use of rank in multiplayer is borderline broken.
8.9	++ Polished to an unprecedented level. - The Mad World trailer has more depth to it than the entire 10 hour campaign. Where is the level of emotion that Cliffy B. hinted at pre-release?
8.0	+ The campaign is a little on the short side, but it doesn’t outstay its welcome. Co-op and multiplayer offer a great deal of longevity when the story’s all said and done. - The amount of overall content is a little shallow compared to what the game brings to the table. Too much is riding on the promise of downloadable content.
9.4	The next-gen war has started, and the first shots were fired by Gears of War.

	Gears of War
	Platform: Xbox 360 • Developer: Epic • Genre: Action/Shooter • ESRB Rating: M • Words: S-Hiryu