I may seem well-versed in games, but truthfully, I have barely scratched the surface of everything there is to play. Take the following game for example: it's a beloved franchise that's been around for nearly 15 years, but I've only gotten a chance to play it today. BACKGROUND:
As I established in the intro, Gears of War is a franchise that's been around for quite a while. If I remember right, it's five games deep, with Gears 5 having released only a couple of years back. But despite this, I have never played it. That's because it's an Xbox exclusive, and I've never owned an Xbox console in my life. However, with Game Pass PC, I can play Gears of War. The version I'm playing is the Ultimate Edition, which means it's a remaster of the original Gears of War for the Xbox 360. I thought that this would be the most appropriate starting point for myself considering I don't know shit about the franchise. PLOT: Gears of War is set on a planet called Sera. During a day known as Emergence Day, a bunch of subterranean aliens called the Locust invaded the surface, causing mass destruction and killing a lot of people. The COG (which is a sort of military power) has taken over the war effort, and one of their most pivotal actions saw them bombard the human cities in an attempt to quell the Locust offense (they did this after they evacuated everybody, so don't be alarmed). The game's events take place 14 years after Emergence Day. Our protagonist Marcus Fenix has been reinstated into the military after spending time in prison (for deserting, or something to that effect), and joins Delta Squad. Their mission is to map out the Hollow, the subterranean network where the Locust live, and deploy what's called the Lightmass Bomb to blow them the fuck up. Of course, the mission is far from a breeze, as they encounter all manner of resistance, including one General RAAM, one of the Locust head honchos. The main plot itself is pretty standard stuff; "ragtag team is humanity's last hope against alien invasion" isn't exactly groundbreaking these days. There are plenty of story elements that I was interested to learn about (like the circumstances behind Fenix's imprisonment, the "Pendulum Wars" they kept mentioning, the seeming disdain people have for COG), but the game doesn't take any time to build the world and flesh any of these things out. Seems like I'd have to play the sequels or explore other media to learn about all that, which is a bit of a shame. The characters don't get to be much of characters, either; you get tidbits of backstory, but you don't really see any of those come into play, nor do they go through any serious character growth. While I was amused by their personalities, I unfortunately didn't feel too invested in any of them. Perhaps that will change if I explore the sequels. The villains aren't that much better; you spend most of the game fighting nameless fodder, and the one dude with a name (General RAAM) gets zero character other than "oh shit, this bitch is big, mean, and ugly." Doesn't help that at the end, they clearly appear to be setting up a sequel by throwing in the classic "here's the actual person pulling the strings" shit. PRESENTATION: From what I've read, the original Gears of War was a graphical triumph during the Xbox 360/PS3/Wii era of consoles. The remaster certainly captures the impressive visual fidelity and realistic feel, but the overall style and the locations you explore didn't really do anything for me. In terms of character designs, the Locust look pretty freaky, though I can't really say that I find their designs particularly iconic. On the other hand, the COG soldiers (called Gears, because of course) sport armor that have since become quite recognizable; even I recognized the armor despite not being familiar at all with the series. The sound design is just as polished as the visuals, and the music sounds like something out of an action movie. Voice acting is solid as well; Marcus Fenix himself is voiced by the one and only John DiMaggio, one of the most prolific voice actors out there. GAMEPLAY: Gears of War is a cover-based third person shooter. What that means is that there's a heavy emphasis on using your environment as cover from enemy fire. Taking cover is just as essential in this game as running or aiming; pressing the button for it near walls or barriers causes Fenix to hide behind them, and you can peek out of cover to fire, or remain in cover to regenerate health. The cover button also has additional context-sensitive actions, like a dodge roll, vaulting over low obstacles, and shifting across walls. I enjoyed fighting my way across an area while maintaining cover, but this many actions being tied to a single button caused a fair share of awkward accidents. Positioning yourself so you can aim while in cover is also a bit cumbersome. You have a small assortment of weapons at your disposal, most of which are acquired from the corpses of your enemies. A lot of them are pretty straightforward, but a few others are more interesting, like the Lancer Assault Rifle (which has a chainsaw at the end, giving you a unique melee attack when you have it equipped), the Torque Bow (a fun charge weapon that shoots out an explosive arrow), and the Hammer of Dawn (which is a targeting gun that causes a beam from the sky to bombard the target). You also have frag grenades, which is self-explanatory. The game has a mechanic known as Active Reload. When you reload, you can press the reload button again, and if you time it right, you get an Active Reload, which makes your reload faster. Get the timing perfect, and you get a brief damage boost for your weapon. I liked this mechanic a lot; reloading is usually when you're most vulnerable, and having a way to mitigate that is neat. Plus, I like that there's an incentive to get really good at it, because the damage boost from a Perfect Active Reload does make a difference. In terms of enemies, most of them are typical soldier-types, and you only really have to pay attention to the weapons they have on them. There are only a few enemy types that have unique behaviors or require a specific strategy to beat; most of the time, the challenge is managing the number of enemies so you don't get overwhelmed. There are a few sections that require a bit of puzzle-solving to get through, like a level where you have to kite a lumbering Berserker to bash through doors, or lighting a path so you don't get devoured by the Kryll (which kill anything that steps into darkness). None of these are particularly hard (though a few do take a few tries to figure out), but I thought they were fun. The campaign is linear for the most part, with very little room for exploration and barely any backtracking. On occasion, you get to choose between one of two paths, which leads to slightly different interactions or fights. For the most part, however, you're just moving forward. If you look around, you can find COG tags (the game's only collectible), which unlock comics you can read in-game. If you're interested in the story, these are worth finding, though I wish the stories those comics told were actually part of the game as well. You can also choose to play the campaign in two-player co-op mode, and from what I can tell playing alone, some sections work really well with a second player. If you prefer to fly solo, the AI will control your partner, but in my experience, their presence doesn't make much of a difference outside of the specified co-op segments of the game. Strangely enough, the game has this sort of tactics menu where you can give your squad orders, but again, it doesn't make a difference if they shoot the enemies or not. There are also a bunch of multiplayer modes (all of which seem to be your typical multiplayer shooter modes, plus some unique modes), but I didn't check if people were still playing them. I wasn't really interested in playing this game's online, but if I had to guess, Gears fans are probably too busy playing on Gears 5 right now. I would also assume that trying to get the online-based achievements for this game is probably a pain in the ass. VERDICT: Gears of War is a mighty fine game in its own right; it's got impressive visuals and solid cover-based shooter gameplay. However, I wasn't that invested in the story and the characters, and I encountered some minor issues with the controls that made its otherwise decent gunplay a little annoying to deal with. Overall, I found it to be an OK experience: pretty fun, but not spectacular in any way (at least not in my view). Despite my lukewarm feelings towards this first game, I do intend to explore the rest of the franchise down the line; it's my hope that the sequels have more of what I'm looking for in terms of story, and perhaps improved gameplay. At this point, I would consider this game what I call an "essential"; it's one of the defining titles of the 360 era, was a big step in terms of excellent graphics, and spawned a successful franchise that's still popular today. It should be played at least once, if only to appreciate that it's become a remarkable point in the history of games. Outside of that, my standard recommendation is that people who like sci-fi shooters may get a kick out of this, and people who don't like gore and prefer more story might not enjoy this as much. - end -
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July 2024
Derryck
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