The best game i have ever played (Gears of War (Xbox 360))

Member Name: NottsFan

Product:	Gears of War (Xbox 360)
Date:	29/05/07 (315 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Graphics, Online

Disadvantages: Lack of Features in the Story

Story
Gears of war is based in the future when locust take over the universe, and it is up to the cogs (solders) to save the world and kill off all the locust. In completing this game there are 5 long acts with 3 different difficulties. Casual, Hardcore and Insane. Each one is a big step up. As you play the game you will witness many different kinds of locust, which use different weapons and behave in different ways. The story is very simplistic although hard. Simplistic in the way that the game is very repetitive. For example you enter a kind of battlefield where you have to kill of the enemy’s and then once it is cleared, there will be a checkpoint and the game will be saved. That is how the game generally works which makes it different to games like Call of Duty 3 as there is plenty to do with a lot of variation. For example you can drive tanks, shoot off tanks, guide people by using your binoculars, attach destructive bombs to places, jump, massive range of weapons, many different scenes (from trenches to small town inside houses and using special weapons like the mortar which is basically a bazooka which takes advantage of the double analogue sticks to control. All this array of features does not seem to appear on Gears of War. You may think it sounds boring- But it is certainly not. With by far the best sales of any game on the xbox 360 that clearly demonstrates how popular it is and the quality it is.

Weapons
In this game there is a little range of weapons. At all times the most amount of weapons you can carry is 4. You start off with the general weapons. Lancer which also contains a chainsaw as its melee attack, a hand gun which is good for a quick burst of bullets and to knock people down with, a shotgun which is the weapon to use for a close battle and frags which you can either throw or attach to people which results in blowing them up. The less common weapons known to this game which you can swap with, is the burstfire gun, which is like the lancer with a better damage ratio but does not come equip with a chainsaw, smoke which can smoke out an area to make it hard for any one to see and shoot you and a different kind of pistol with also takes more damage of your opponents. Then the more complex weapons are the sniper which is great for long range as it has a zoom, torque bow which can be charged up and shot in a kind of cross bow fashion and if you aim it well it will attach to the enemy and blow them up instantly, hammer of dawn is a kind of satellite gun which can only be used outside, when activated a beam will come down onto the destination and destruct anything or anyone close and then there is the boom shot which is essentially a rocket launcher and will kill on impact on people. The great thing about this game is when you reload if you get a active reload which is a perfectly timed reload when the bar comes across the bullets will damage locusts more which is a great and interesting feature. Whereas if you reload badly it takes longer to reload which isn’t ideal when a locust is running at you.

My personal view of the game.
My first thought when I got this game was…WOW!! And it still is but not to the same extent. You will find me playing this game sometimes around 4 hours a day on live sometimes, as it is so addictive. Also all my friends think the same way as there’s nothing better then playing gears of war with your friends. Story is great as it’s value for money on casual it took me around 8 hours, then later I tried it on hardcore and that took me about 10 hours, then I thought as I like the game so much I might as well play it on insane. That was a challenge but I did it in the end and that took me about 14 hours all together to complete. I think this is the best game of its genre by a mile. I think it is incomparable to the likes of Pro Evo as it is a completely different genre and that is one of my favourite games as the game play is simply brilliant.


Graphics
The graphics are breathtaking. They really are. Although dubbed down over the xbox live system it still contests with the best gamed graphics ever made, and I would take pleasure in saying the graphics I witnessed in the story section was the best graphics I have ever seen and by quite a long way. I have recently purchased ghost recon and that was also brilliant graphics. Its certain things on this game that make you think the graphics are so good. The soldier’s faces actually look real and when you first see the locust’s faces they are actually really scary and not nice. The attention to detail on this game is frightening like the background images which you wont even go through have ridiculous graphics and such things as the sky and the transport like the train on the fifth act actually look real and I really fail to see how they can improve it for Gears of war 2, but it is clear they can tweak it in a few places. One moment in this game should create gaming history with everyone and temp people to buy it. When the tension is built up right at the end of the story and you have to defeat Raam. The cinematic is crazy and also frightening. Raam is the perfect kind of character you might have in a nightmare. Completing this game certainly makes it feel like it is a war and adventure and I think we can only thank the hard effort Epic games put into this title and all there doing with the new maps on the multiplayer.

On Live
On live there are 4 different kinds of modes you can play. One of them appeared in a late update for the game, which is called Annex.
Here are the 4 modes explained.
Warzone- is a battle where if someone guns you down there is no getting up unless one of your friends revive you then you will be back up and can continue with the battle
Execution- this is the same as warzone but when you are down tapping the ‘A’ button as fast as you can will help yourself get up.
Annex- this is basically defending your own area. You will have to go to the destination and make sure the opposition do not take it over, if they do then they score points, for each second you are in the area you get points and you can select the number of points you want to make it first to.
Assassination- There is a leader on each team and only they can unlock the weapons, so whichever weapon they unlock there team will be able to use. Whoever wins the round for the team becomes the new leader for the next round.
There is also a choice of player or ranked matches. Player matches do not count for anything. They are good for practice and you can go through the maps in the same server which you can not do in ranked matches as when someone has won a ranked match you have to leave and enter a new server. With so many people owning this game you are always likely to get into a good and exciting game. The host can choice from a range of features to personalise the server, on player matches they can change where weapons are placed and which maps they want to cycle through while on both of them you can decide how many round you want, what bleed out time you want, which map you will play on and which mode you want. Being the host sometimes gives you an unfair advantage which is the downfall of this game but personally being such a small problem doesn’t really matter to me. The most players you can have on a side are 4 players. But on ranked matches it is possible to start a 3 on 3 matches. A player match can start with any number on each side, which is good sometimes but can be a challenge to some people. There have been many update and new downloads to take advantage of including 4 new maps and some glitches have been removed.


Price
I bought this game for around £45 around Christmas time and the price hasn’t changed substantially but has dropped slightly. This game is certainly worth the money as it is additive good quality and contains hours of fun. If you don’t want to pay that price for a game you can always take a look at ebay.co.uk. I have purchased many games off ebay in the past and have had absolutely no problems.


Multiplayer Maps

Canals- this is set on a canal with 3 main bridges all connected to each other, this map has 2 snipers, frags, torque bow and a special pistol. This is one of my favourites and is perfect for a slower battle with long shot weapons.

Fuel Depot- Fuel depot is based at a depot which contains lots of boxes a hangar and a factory, this map has a hammer of dawn, frags, 2 snipers and 2 hammer bursts. This is good for an explosive game.

Gridlock- this is set on one street with cars, van , two towers and a sniper tower. This is probably the most popular maps on the game and is a bright map compared to most of the dark maps like mansion. This map has a sniper, two hammer bursts, frags and a boom shot. This is great for many reasons.

Mansion- this is one of my favourites and is set in a old mansion where you can access the back garden of the mansion where the boom is, the back door of the mansion is a very dangerous place to be with the frags and boom being very explosive weapons while people with those weapons still need to be wary as a sniper can still shoot you from there.

Tyro Station- I don’t really like this map, but if you’re after the torque bow achievement you should play this map as there are two torque bows. It is set at a train station and you can get killed if you are on the track while the train is coming. When on the track there is a set of stair going down underground, where many people already are. But going up to the top where the trains go past is most popular as both bows are up here.

Old Bones
This is one of the new maps, which you can download for free. Both sets of teams start inside and nearly all the action ends up outside where you can find a boom shot and a sniper along with the frags. This map is fairly good.

Raven Down- This is also one of the new maps you can download for free. It is set on four separate streets and is a very small map. There is a helicopter which has crashed in the middle of the four streets. This is a great map for a quick battle and a attackive player as there is no long shot or explosive weapons apart from the frags which are found the back of trucks.

War Machine- this is easily one of my favourites because of many reasons. It has a range of weapon from torque bow to sniper and there is always a rush for these weapons. Upstairs there is a troika looking down on the downstairs waiting for people to shoot it.

Clocktower-This is like war machine in the way that there is a upstairs and downstairs but the upstairs is used much more in this map as there is a sniper up there. There is also a bridge where you can find a boom shot at the end. Both spawns can be very good places to hide.

Rooftops- if you are a king of the hammer of dawn this is your map. There is a hammer of dawn on either side and this map is often seen many explosives blowing up cogs and locust. There are also frags, torque and sniper. The hammer of dawn is found in a hut near spawn.

Overall this game is immense and you can have hours of fun as long as this is your kind of game. Brilliant graphics, good but simplex story and an excellent online multiplayer which I play just about every day and never get bored of it.

Summary: If you own an xbox it would be a crime not to buy this.