I Love War.

I honestly did want to make a post about Gears of War sooner, but it was lost in route to Gamestop and I had to wait a couple extra days to play it. After that I just decided that I would wait until my friend Mike and I played through the entire game before making a post. Also, while I had an awesome time the first time I played, I wanted to play as much as possible and really let things sink in before I talked much about it. Well, we finally finished the campaign last night and here I am.

GoW pretty much did every possible thing right, and instead of gushing over it for a couple pages I'm going to touch on some aspects that were a pleasant surprise for me. You can find tons of reviews all over the net talking about how great the gameplay is, and I can also testify to that being true. The gameplay really did turn out to be just as fun as it looks, and I never found myself wanting to even take a break. The entire game looks incredible. Incredible. I think it's safe to say Gears is the best looking game I've ever played. However, like I said, you can find people talking about these aspects on every gaming site on the net, so I'm not going to go say too much about them.

One thing that Gears really did well was character interaction. While the story could've used more screen time, I really took a liking to the main cast, and this was mainly due to how they interacted in certain situations. I love it when you see characters interacting in real time, when you actually have control over your own character. A good example of this in another game would be in the Metal Gear Solid series, where several examples come to mind. In MGS2 both you and Snake have to provide cover fire for Emma as she crosses between two struts. Just seeing two other characters move around in real time made them seem so much more alive. This type of interaction is presented several other times throughout the game, and also in both MGS and MGS3.

Real-time character interaction like that is also presented throughout Gears of War because you're always running around with members of Delta and Alpha squad. Conversations are held in person throughout the game, and in situations where the group splits up characters will still converse over the radio. These situations really give the chance for characters to come to life, and it was easy to feel attached to them.

Another aspect that I liked was how some enemies would really just show up out of nowhere. By this I mean larger enemies, and they're sometimes introduced without using a cutscene, which is something I've always wanted more games to do. Now, it wasn't done to the extent that I'd like, but the fact that they did it at all got me pretty excited. I'd love to go into more detail, but I don't want to ruin any segments of the game for anyone who hasn't played it yet.

While the campaign mode was really well done, another chapter to help extend the length would've been nice. I wasn't tired of the gameplay in the absolute least when we finished, and the story could've used a bit more fleshing out. Still, I think Epic did a fantastic job with it. It met all of my expectations, which were considerably high by this point. I haven't even gotten the chance to touch multiplayer yet because Mike and I couldn't pull ourselves away from the campaign, but I'm really looking forward to putting some time into it whenever I get the chance.

Another thing that I'd like to mention is the art direction. The planet of Sera really does look war-torn, and I often found myself attempting to stop and look at the scenery(the damn Locust kept interrupting my sightseeing). There are some really beautiful areas in the game, albeit destroyed, and there are others that are just plain cool. I'd also like to applaud character designs in general. The main cast of COGs are the manliest men I think I've ever seen, and you pretty much feel like the man as you're owning the Locust horde throughout the game. The Locusts themselves look great(and ugly!) as well. The designs for even the basic drones are intimidating and very cool, while larger enemies such as Berserkers have you biting your nails.

Finally, I have one last thing to talk about regarding Gears. I know CliffyB is a big fan of Resident Evil 4, so it wasn't too big of a surprise to catch different influences from it in certain areas of the game. First off, and most obviously, is the over-the-shoulder camera. RE4 was the first game I played that used it, and it did so extremely well. Now, who knows if Epic was already planning on using this camera style or not, but I figured I'd at least mention it considering it's also the first thing anyone reading this would think of. Secondly, both games feature a mine cart section. Now, they're actually quite different from each other, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is where the idea came from. Also, while they're set up differently, RE4's version of it was actually quite a bit better. Finally, the last thing that just screamed RE4, and undeniably so, is GoW's Berserker enemy. They're Epic's version of RE4's Garrador, plain and simple. They work great in both games, so I was absolutely fine with it. I'm willing to bet there are some things I'm leaving out, but I'm feeling pretty crappy at the moment, so I'll leave it at that.