vainglory

Okay, so I lied. I like the pictures. Every post is getting one. And not JUST because I get to post one of my favorite abuses of photoshop ever, but I’d be lying if I said it weren’t incentive (hi Joe!).

This post was for Gears of War, and was written on Nov. 16, 2006. Special Features: my promising to write a bunch of reviews for games that I never get around to writing (some things apparently never change), and a baffling decision to use the word ‘cyberpunk’ with reference to a game that isn’t particularly cyberpunk in any way. Go figure.

That’s right. It’s that time again. It’s time for me to write a geeky expose on my latest adventures in the world of video games that probably four people on my list, total, will get anything out of or even be remotely interested in. To you four, I say: welcome! To everyone else: Did you hear me say GEARS OF WAR? What is wrong with you people?

So, let’s cut to the stuff. In this installment, I will be discussing Gears of War (stay tuned, though, cos soonish I’ll be adding Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Tony Hawk’s Project 8 and probably F.E.A.R. as well).

Ah, yes, Gears of War.

It’s one of two titles that I’ve been waiting for (the other being Splinter Cell: Double Agent), impatiently, ever since the release of Oblivion. The first question that everybody asks me when I tell them that I picked up Gears of War is, “So, is it like Halo?’” The short answer is “Absolutely not.” I know that IGN or some similar game reviewer wrote a preview for the game in which it was called ‘Xbox’s next Halo’, but I think they mean in terms of story interest, epic size, obvious intentions to turn into a franchise, and being a big, hyped up seller title. Yes, it’s true that you’re human beings facing a somewhat alien opposition, that your main character is a gritty badass and the time setting is slightly futuristic, but that’s really where the similarities end. For that matter, the previous sentence could probably describe hundreds of other video games. So what IS Gears of War like?

It’s beautiful, for one thing. You don’t need to play the game to know that - just check out the screenshots online. But I’ll get back to the design in a moment. Let’s talk gameplay. I’m writing this based on the gameplay I experienced when I completed the game on the ‘casual’ setting (I’m anal that way - have to beat the game on every difficulty).

For one thing, the setting is cyberpunk, not sci-fi. For those of you who think that this is splitting hairs, let me tell you why it’s different: this is a world that could feasibly resemble our own. There are helicopters and not dropships. There are shanty towns on the ground, not clean spaceports you could lick the floors of. There are grungy military vehicles that still ride on wheels and are powered by gas…not the slicker sci-fi alternative to that. It’s simply a totally different atmosphere.

Secondly, this is a third-person shooter, not a first-person shooter. To people who don’t play games often, that may seem like a very small adjustement, but the changes in gameplay that result are pretty significant. You will frequently, if not constantly (as I did) make use of the left-trigger aiming function, which is unwieldy when you’re moving, as it makes you a slow (re: probably dead) target.

Whereas Halo could be counted on to provide you with hours of that satisfying bum-rush, fuck’em-up-running style of attacking play, where you wade into a horde of oncoming enemies with guns blazing and engage in aerial acrobatics to evade incoming fire, you will get absolutely zero of that kind of action in Gears of War. For one thing, there is NO independent jump function (you CAN climb over low-lying objects, but that’s really mantling, not ‘jumping’ per se). You will not be able to jump around the level like an idiot in order to duck and dodge hostile fire. And, because you’re outnumbered pretty much all of the time, that means you’re going to be spending a lot more time finding adequate cover from which to attack, and looking for ways to flank your somewhat entrenched enemies: turrets, called troika, are plentiful and difficult to take out head-on, but easily defeated by a little bit of tactical maneuvering. I heard someone on xbox live questioning the fun-factor of a game with so much ‘run-cover-shoot-run-cover-shoot’ in it, saying that he thought it’d get boring and repetitive. For my part, I didn’t think so, and here are a few of the reasons why.

Level design: I told you I’d get back to this. The environments are - hell, everything is - beautiful in this game. The levels are largely composed of enormous, epic stone elements, all of which have suffered the indignities of war and which have therefore left plenty of rubble scattered around. As a result, I suppose that sometimes the visuals are exceedingly muted, the greyish-brownish color of destroyed, dirty stone and broken buildings…but I didn’t really mind. It was appropriate conceptually, and the architectural details of the buildings that remained standing were varied and interesting enough to keep things fresh.

NPCs: Your character, and the characters in your squad, are all very different and they keep a constant running commentary as you move along. The dialogue helps to uniquely mark out the moments during which you’d otherwise be just slogging through another tough city block en route to your next objective. The game does a very good job of giving you just enough information in conversation to get a general idea of what the story with each character is, without going into too much awkwardly-inserted detail. (On a related note, the game also leaves a whole heap of loose ends untied - and so if you hadn’t guessed that this game was going franchise before now, you’d certainly know it when you finish playing).

Story: What can I say? I already mentioned that you get more hints than outright story during the game, but that’s even more enticing. I finished the game wanting to know more about what was going on with each of the characters in your squad, and especially more about the main character, your protagonist, Marcus Fenix. Epic has managed to sign me up for a second ride, based on information they -didn’t- give me.

Sometimes, the things that -don’t- happen matter just as much as the things that do. For instance, I never had a problem with my camera - not once. I never had a problem controlling my guy. The AI is pretty smart - not genius, but pretty smart - and I can actually count a few times where a member of my squad actually bailed me out during an ill-timed reload during a fire fight. I very rarely had to ‘babysit’ any of the guys who were with me…and even when one did get temporarily taken out of commission during an engagement (you can revive them by standing next to them and pressing X), I was almost always able to finish off what we started without them, making it less frustrating when they did get axed. I never ran into a situation where I had to push and shove them out of my way in a small, enclosed area, and they rarely ran in front of my line of fire (although when they did, you will be delighted - as I was - to hear your main character tell them to get the hell out of his way. :D). I also never ran out of ammunition or a weapon to use, although there were times when I wished I had more explosives.

Actually, that brings me around to another great reason to pick up this game: the Torque Bow. This is possibly one of the coolest weapons I’ve gotten to use in a video game in a long, long time. Fuck yeah, torque bow.

Gripes? I have very few. The game was pretty short, and I’m not sure if that was just because I sat down and played it for hours at a stretch, or because disk space was taken up by the graphics, or if it was a design choice, but whatever - I could happily have played another 10 hours. ^^ I also kind of wish that there’d been a little bit more variance in the enemies that you had to face. There -are- a number of different enemy types, and I never felt bored, exactly, but for the most part you should expect to be cutting down drones by the bucketload.

I haven’t played the multiplayer yet, but I may add a note here about it when I finally do.

As an aside, when you have a moment, go and read through the list of achievements. Most of them have hilarious names - at least, if you get the reference or the joke. My favorite? An achievement called ‘Is it a Spider’, which you receive for tagging (sticking) 100 enemies in ranked matches with a grenade. It’s a nod to Red Vs. Blue - and if you don’t know what Red Vs. Blue is, and you like this kind of game (or even just Halo, specifically), then SHAME ON YOU. Google it immediately. You can thank me later.