Gears of War

[Occhidiangela]

I missed a golden opportunity to wave my copy of Gears of War in the faces of those in the PS3 waiting line forming in front of Circuit City yesterday, but I still have two days left to further torment and mock them. Right now, though, I'm trying to cover my sorry butt on the devastated world of Sera.

I squeezed in an hour or two of play last night (I was otherwise occupied with perfecting the facial features of a new Oblivion character). Ran through the tutorial twice in order to settle into the controls and get a feel for the battle mechanics. Fortunately, it only took two times before I got the hang of things and began pressing further into the first chapter.

It's not a first-person shooter. You're more like the angel watching Marcus Fenix's back (I say "angel" because your perspective is commonly over his right shoulder) but the sighting is smart enough for you to put your ordnance down precisely where you want it. Grenades even have their projected trajectory displayed before you lob the frag (which is important since grenades allow you to seal in the foxholes the enemy crawls out of).

While not powered nor pressurized, the battle armor worn by the characters is bulky and broken-in like that of the Terran Marines, which why it makes me think of a 3-D Starcraft shooter. Aside from the ubiquitous rifles and shotguns of the genre, you can also make use of a gun-type laser designator which calls down a satellite-borne particle beam attack (sort of like a Ghost painting for a Nuke attack).

Game literature and reviews all mention the use of cover during battle. There's a good reason for that: if you try to barrel recklessly into the fight because you think you'll be able to withstand the punishment, the game quickly reminds you that here, just like in real life, you don't have hero-level hitpoints! It takes just as much pepper to drop you as it takes you to drop any of the enemies you battle with. Offsetting this, however, is your regenerative health (enemies appear to have the same) and having lots of cover available (for all the tactical realism, I blink at the thought that a couch can effectively stop high-power bullets).

Reloading has its subtle touch. On the bottom of the ammo counter is a scrolling strip that marks how much time it takes to slam in a new mag (normally two or three seconds). This also opens up a mini-game where you can attempt to speed things up by hitting the reload button a second time: there's a small window of opportunity where, if you hit it, you can end the reload cycle early (say, in one second). But if you attempt and fail the mini-game, you pooch the lock and end up spending an extra second trying to clear a stuck cartridge.

The setting of the gave itself reminds me of the urban battlegrounds of Call of Duty. Imagine a beautiful southern European metropolis, styled with a 21st Century take on the Old World architecture of plazas, arcades and facades. Then carpet-bomb it a few times. There you have it, the city (which I presume is named Jacinto due to the plateau its situated on in backstory) where the last humans on the world are making their stand.

I'm of a mind to start calling the Locust footsoldiers I'm battling the "Krug", because these guys do look a lot like the baddies from Dungeon Siege. That is, if the Krug were equipped with ballistic armor and machine guns. I'm currently at the point in the story where the squad's trapped inside the Tomb of the Unknowns with a Locust Berserker stalking them.

Great write up, Rhydd, but you made me cry inside when you mentioned Starcraft: Ghost, which is on the shelf, most likely never to come down. :( My son and I had soooo looked forward to that game.

Occhi