Hey guys, so, like, Gears of War isn’t bad. Well, I guess I should clear this up: it’s not as bad as I expected it to be when I first heard about it and from what little I saw at E3, but not as good as I hoped after hearing a few hands-on experiences. The game is very solidly built and I really don’t have any complaints about it. It just doesn’t feel that special yet.

Gears of War decided to completely redesign how you play a 3D shooter. The controls are very different from anything that I have played. There is extremely heavy emphasis on cover and hiding. It took me quite a while to get use to the controls because of this emphasis. Unlike Lost Planet, which feels very natural like a glove that fits perfectly, Gears of War is not and is more like a really cool glove with flames and skulls on it that is just a little too small but will fit if you work it out a little. If you don’t have good cover and you can’t learn how to stay well covered then you’re dead. Plain and simple. There have been very few instances where I have been able to run into a fray with guns/chainsaws blazing and last more than a couple seconds.

I am playing it in 1080p on my new TV (I don’t know if the game is native 1080p or how the hell the 360 is working it, but either way, my console is set to that) with the color setting on “Vivid” (I started on lucid, but didn’t like it as much). It’s pretty, but no where near what was promised in Unreal 3 Engine shots that I saw two years ago. At the start of the game you’re given two options for difficulty: Casual or Hardcore. There was a third option which was grayed out (I still don’t like how most games now make you unlock hard difficulties), so I assumed casual equaled easy and hardcore equaled medium. After about an hour with the game I’m pretty sure that hardcore is the hard mode for the game and there is no easy mode. But it’s good, and I stuck with it. It doesn’t feel as fair for a hard game as God Hand does because many times in Gears of War I was left wondering why the hell I was able to survive doing basically the same thing as last time when I had died.

If I had to compare this game to other games I would say it is a combination of Doom, Time Crisis, and Halo. The shooting sections feel like Time Crisis because you get to a location, duck, pop-up, fire, duck, reload, repeat. The doom aspect comes from the enemies and their ferocity, also the occasional “ahh, I’m safe… OH CRAP MORE?!” moments. The AI and team segments feel heavily Halo inspired. To say that the game played just like any of those though would be a lie, overall it comes off feeling very original.

This has gone on longer than I intended for a first impression, sorry. The part of the game that I have been paying more attention to than I probably should is the “Destroyed Beauty” theme for the setting/story. So far the game is doing a good job with it IF you’re looking for it. The strength of the game’s story is how subtle it is. Unlike another game with the same abbreviation of title (*cought*godofwar*cough*), the thematic content and underlying ethics/principles is more in the narrative than the story telling. Little things like “this place use to be gorgeous” or “You’re the guy from the Alphon Wars, Coool!” with the response from the main character being “Not really” are where the emphasis lay. Unlike a fair slice of jRPGs which take these ethics and principals and literally spell them out for you, this game allows for you to pick up on it. Most of the back story and history is in the Art Book, and it’s well thought out and implemented into the game impeccably. As an added bonus, the voice acting is on-par with (or even exceeding) most big budget Hollywood action films. The only thing that could make the voice acting better is if they got the voice actor for Brock Sampson to do the main character. Oh, and one of the achievements is an excellent Clerks reference.

I’m going to stand with my initial statement that the game is well crafted and very solid, but not really doing anything that goes above and beyond for me yet. I am only about three or four hours in though, so all impressions are initial. I really hope that the story and narrative stays together here.

Personal stuff: I got vaccinated for Smallpox today. The next 10-21 days of my life could potentially really suck.