The weapons in Gears of War are a good mix of classic and new age styles, there is even a one shot pistol and sniper rifle. The classic shotgun can take off a Locust’s head in one shot while the unique crossbow charges up, pierces the armor, and then explodes in bloody greatness. Weapons are nothing if using them isn’t fun. In Gears the focus is not on how many bad guys you kill, but how you kill them. The best way that I found to kill a Locus was to shoot them a couple times in the knees making them fall down half way, next run up with either your chainsaw, pistol, or good old boot and finish them off. It is weird that even after the 50th time I chainsawed a bad guy in half or smashed their head into the pavement with a curb stomp it never got old, never.
The single player campaign consists of 5 acts that are separated into about 30 chapters. This sounds like a lot but some of the chapters can be completed in 5 minutes. Others take up to 20 minutes but the point is the game is short, especially on “casual” mode. Fortunately there are three different modes of difficulty, casual (easy), hardcore (medium/hard) and insane (the Halo legendary mode of Gears). I have played through by myself on both casual and hardcore and the difference in time is a lot, 4-5 extra hours of gameplay can be achieved on this more difficult mode. Mark me down for my second gripe however, I only wish the length of the game had been fattened by a few hours or acts. Epic didn’t give us only the single player campaign mode though, they included a co-op mode that is as good if not better than the single player mode. You can play through co-op mode on either the same Xbox 360 (split screen) or using system link, but the cream of the crop is the Xbox Live version of co-op. Never a second of lag and the voice chat gives it the feeling that the person is in the same room with you at all times. Split screen makes it a little tougher to play, but because you get the full screen to yourself during online co-op the game rocks. Videogames usually have a terrible record of taking a good single player game and putting it alongside a horrible co-op mode. In Gears you get the entire campaign in co-op mode, something that Halo made famous years ago.
The multiplayer modes don’t stop with co-op though, far from it. It’s hard to say what the best part about Gears of War is because the single player is awesome, the co-op campaign is awesome, and the online versus is awesome. This last mode takes the feel of Unreal Tournament and shrinks it down in size. Epic was bashed at first for announcing that versus mode over Xbox Live would only include 4 on 4 battles, a small number compared to what gamers are used to with games like Battlefield or Counter Strike. Every one of my worries about the multiplayer was instantly shattered once I got to play a game of Warzone over Live. There are only 3 modes to fight it out in and they are: Warzone, a basic 4 on 4 team battle; Execution, same as before only you have to execute your opponent to finish him off; and Assassination which is a take on king of the hill but with teams (each team has a leader, leader dies you lose). Gears of War include the basic ranked and unranked matches and a decent online system. Ten multiplayer maps (with more to come in the future as downloadable content) rounds off what is one of the best online versus modes I have ever played over Xbox Live. The levels are unique and well designed. They range from a train station, to a mansion, all the way to a run down city; you can even fight it out on the edge of rooftops. You play as either the COG’s (Marcus, etc.) or the Locusts and each team has a selection of 5 or so character models. Get together with 3 of your good friends and use teamwork and you are literally unstoppable. Our team last night had the nickname “train of death” because of this. I have put in ten good hours on the multiplayer mode alone and it has yet to get boring or repetitive.
