11-15-2006, 11:01 PM
Quote:I've heard nothing but great reviews about this game, and I've heard that it will be to the X-Box 360 what Halo/H2 were for the original X-Box. Is it going to be purely 360, though? If there's no chance that it will be ported, and the game's popularity continues to grow, my focus on the Wii might waver a bit. =o
Not too much, though. I really want to play a "Versus" version of Duck Hunt. =D
the chances for gears of war to be ported is close to zero. and it definately won't be ported to the Wii.
A couple things to add to the above review:
many of the reviews i've read have claimed the AI of your allied units to be wonderful. I think this is fairly misleading. throughout most of the game you have 4 team members following with you, with all the crossfire and tactical situations the game presents it really becomes imperative that each of your team members is working efficiently especially on the harder difficulties. i've found the AI of your team mates to be essentially the same as the AI of your opponents. Many times they will either stay too far back and not advance for positioning very well and other times they will just go balls to the wall and end up getting slaughtered. Either way you really cannot rely on your team members to assist you other than drawing fire for a few seconds while they get PWNED. The Enemy AI will offen do the same sort of moves and also tends to jump out in the open and proceed to run straight through patches of dark territory (which you do NOT want to do in this game.) leaving them as easy pickings. the difference between the enemies and your allies is that there are a hell of a lot more enemies.
Online Vs. is a lot of fun, but presently it is far far from where it needs to be. Many of my online teamates have openly admited to never playing the campaign. I suppose that could be one reason why 90% of the players on live just run and gun as if this was Halo. It is obvious that this game is not supposed to be played as a crazed frag-fest, but more short sweet tactical encounters. Unfortunately very few of the online maps encourage this type of play. more often than not players are encouraged to go crazy killing everything you see and are rewarded by being the first person to get to a certain map spot or by just getting lucky with a chainsaw rev.
the main thing that can rectify the above online issue is to release more map packs where the maps actually force players into confined areas where every gained inch actually can turn the tide. There is one map presently that does this but most of the other maps seem to be of the "large central area with lots of little debris and if you control one map point the other team is pretty much done for" mentality. this wouldn't be a problem if you were forced to fight for said map point but when it is just thrown in the center of the map, with each opponent spawning on opposite sides it just leads to an all out sprint by both teams to be the first one there. so much for tactics.
many of the other issues with the online battles can be resolved in higher level play by premade teams etc. With 4v4 battles in relatively small arenas it is obvious that they want to make every kill count. This is further amplified by the fact that it is not readily apparant many times if the individual you have in the crosshairs is an enemy or an ally. the models are distinct enough that given a second or two to look you will know, but in the heat of battle you rarely have this couple seconds, especially if that would mean taking a chainsaw through the face yourself if you were wrong. unfortunately the game offers the option to turn off friendly fire (which is what, of course, 90% of the games are set to. in fact i think it is the default setting.) This setting alone has the ability to amp up the depth of any given match and i think in higher level of play it will become a given to have friendly fire always turned on. but by having it turned off it just further devolves the game into a frag fest.