Graphically Gears of War beats out anything done before. The style is defiantly post-apocalyptic Rome with a splash of death. It is hard to explain how good this game looks on a 47-inch high definition television. Even my girlfriend was amazed at how realistic the game looks. The player models have an amount of detail that will literally make you wet yourself time and time again. Marcus’s uniform is one of a kind as are the other soldiers’ in your squad. One of them even sports a pair of Costa look a like sunglasses at all times; can you say detail? All of the weapons look good too, with realistic effects and grainy metal. I already mentioned how great the level design was but the detail in the world is unreal. Each act looks unique and makes you feel as if you just started up a new game. Nothing looks repetitive or reused. The draw distance in the city level is something to be looked up to by other developers. Superb lighting effects and explosions galore add to the already beautiful game. I could go on for pages about the graphical look of this game but you really have to see it to understand what everyone is raving about. When you run in this game the camera literally slopes down behind Marcus and bounces up and down like it would in real life; awesome. It looks like nothing we have seen before and developers should literally look to copy Epic in games of the future. This is seriously next-gen.
What makes a really great game great though, is the whole package. The old saying “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link” comes to mind with a lot of games that fall short in one category or another. Epic and Cliffy B. made sure this didn’t happen with Gears of War as the audio finishes off the masterpiece. This game should only be played with a 500-watt or higher, 5.1-speaker setup including a powerful subwoofer. Bullets ricochet around the room in high-definition sound while the chainsaw revs up with a thundering boom. The voice acting is better than a lot of stuff out there and I really cannot find anything to complain about. Better than average is the sounds of the Locusts. Each one is unique to it’s own model but the one that really stands out are the little things that crawl around on the ceilings/walls. These monsters shriek so loud they break windows as well as caused me to cover my ears on more than one occasion. Taking a cue from Hollywood, Epic created the closest thing to a playable action/horror movie available today.
At the end of the day there are not many videogames that really reach that status of great or amazing. The term memorable comes to mind instantly when thinking about Gears of War. Epic and Microsoft have really done something awesome here and we, as gamers, should be grateful. This game is one of those unique titles that will stand the test of time and go down in history as the “system seller” of the Xbox 360 in the year 2006. There are a few things that I hope will be fixed the next time around such as the longevity of the game and some very small multiplayer weaknesses, but the good outweighs the bad so much I don’t even remember what I don’t like about the game. I logged onto Xbox Live just a few minutes ago and never since I owned my Xbox 360 have I seen so many people on Live at one time, all playing the same game. It’s going to be a while before I pick up another game and get the experience I just had over the past few days, but that’s not a bad thing, greatness takes time. There is a reason they are all playing it; it’s the best thing out there right now on our beloved white box, go buy it soldier.
