Gears Of War Member Review for the Xbox360

Kicking ass and taking names

I remember the first time I played this Gears of War, a friend brought over his Xbox so we could play it; it was so fricken sweet I couldn’t put it down. I had to borrow his Xbox just so I could play trough it; I even bought an Xbox after that. I even named one of the climbing routes I made for my local club a couple of days later after it.

The single player campaign is a lot of fun. The fact that you can have a friend jump in at any time should be mandatory for all games of this type. Going trough the levels taking cover behind anything in your path and popping out to kill….I have no idea what they are, locust, aliens, monsters..guess they are all of the above. Badass alien monsters that swarm out of the ground like a locust horde.

A bit suicidal sometimes, but in some cases that actually makes them more dangerous , especially if they are equipped with your personal weapon of choice, a machine gun with a chain saw bayonete, sweet. Cutting baddies in half never gets old.

But most of the time it means that you can put an entire clip in their head while they are jumping over a sofa.

The only down side with the single player campaign is your team mate. He is a bit on the dumb side. He has a tendency to get him self killed in stupid ways. There are a couple of levels where you can’t walk in dark areas without getting torn to shreds by bats. Every now and then he will walk into this area just to get him self killed. Luckily if you cleared said area of badies he will automatically revive (or you can kill everyone in the area , but sometimes he will continue into the darkness. Run towards the light you dumb ass. But that’s why the coop is so cool. Just have a friend take his part, in any part of the game. And you will beg someone to join you on the last boss if you playing on one of the harder difficulties.

The multiplayer is also top notch, much fun to be had here. Succeeding to use the chainsaw on your opponents is far more satisfying then knifing. Not much to chose from when it comes to game types though, they may have given them different names, but it’s all the same. But screw that, fun as hell.

The music and overall atmosphere is terrific, the game is actually scary at certain points.

The dialog is also pretty good, we aren’t talking very deep final fantasy type dialog, but it is good and concise and really fits the current situation. The best line of dialogue is when you are about to assault an underground pumping facility and you notice the bad guys taking cover, your team mate asks you “Do you think they now what we are doing? “Well we aren’t here to sell cookies so they know something’s up” Pure genius.

But my biggest grief with the game is that it’s over a bit soon. It has decent length, but the last chapters aren’t that long as the first ones.

The story on the other hand doesn’t seem to be very present in the game. I have seen several video clips on the net that explain much of what’s going on, but if you haven’t seen this you wont know for example why you start of sitting in jail (I may be mistaken since I am far to busy revving up the chain saw when I play. (Feel free to correct me on this, and every thing else)

I haven’t bothered to check if there is going to be a Gears of War 2 because I am willing to bet my liver that there will be one. It’s a scary, funny, bloody, steroid induced rollercoaster ride. A Must have for all Xbox owners. Terrific graphics and sound, fun gameplay,the whole nine yards, minus a one or two.