Gears of War is the long-awaited "Halo killer" for the Xbox 360 - and thank god it actually lives up to the hype.
Gameplay:
Gears of War is a 3rd person shooter. It doesn't do much different from previous 3rd person shooters, it just does everything right. First of all, running out in the open and mowing down everything you see is no longer an option. You may be able to get away with it in the earlier levels, but soon you'll find out cover is your best friend. You have to crouch behind things or you will not do very well at all. Thankfully GoW innovates on this aspect. It has many different button combos to help you move from cover to cover. You can jump over things, move from where you are to the next closest spot, run to the closest spot, etc. Another nifty aspect of the game is the perfect reload feature. If you press the right bumper you will reload, and a bar with a white area in the center of it will appear. A tick mark will begin moving across the bar, and if you press the right bumper again when the tick mark is in the white area you will get what is known as a perfect reload. This basically instantly reloads your gun and gives you a small damage boost. One complaint I have for Gears of War is the fact that the story is not very well developed. You never actually get a sense of depth for the characters - they're just kind of thrown in there for you to play around with. You never care about them or what happens to them. It gives you an unwanted sense of playing the game with complete strangers.
Graphics:
Gears of War easily has the best console graphics I've ever seen, and beats out almost all PC games that I own. There is an incredible attention to detail in the game. Two parts that really stood out to me is an area where you are in a jungle during a thunderstorm, and the water effects are amazing. There is also a part where you are in a cave and it actually looks photorealistic. One of my favorite aspects of the game, however, is the overall gruesomeness of it. GoW is EXTREMELY bloody - you can blow baddies into tons of bloody chunks with your shotgun, cut them up with your chainsaw, or stomp their heads in by curb stomping them. And when you do that, their meaty parts don't disappear or anything - they actually stay there and you can kick them around. Another great feature is the fact that you can shoot at a corpses leg, arm, or head sockets to dismember them, and kick those around too. It's pretty great.
Sound:
The only section of gears of war that actually suffered was the sound. The voiceovers and soundtrack are very well done, but unfortunately the music does not fit the game at all. The game is, or at least I thought it was supposed to be, very intense with a slight horror aspect to it, but the music does not give it that feeling at all and actually takes away from it quite a bit. Even on the last boss there is what feels like victory/happy music playing when you're getting the crap shot out of you by one of the ugliest things you'll ever see in your life. Normally I do not pay attention to the soundtrack much because it fits with the game and does not draw attention to itself, but as I was playing GoW I just had to think to myself "What were they thinking?"
Value:
Gears of War, as with nearly any other Xbox 360 game, comes with online multiplayer. The multiplayer is not extroadinarily fun, and unfortunately there are no actual deathmatch games where victory is measured by how many kills you get in a certain amount of time. There are 4 game types, and in each of them when you are killed you do not respawn until the next round, which is unfortunate seeing as I hate watching other people play. My favorite deathmatch game is Execution, in which the only way to kill someone is to blow them into bloody bits, either with your shotgun, chainsaw, or curb stomping their heads in. The real online fun lies within co-op, however, in which the host takes the role of Marcus and the joined player takes the role of Dom (Marcus's friend/sidekick guy). It's a lot of fun to play through the game with a buddy and you can unlock many achievements playing co-op. Speaking of achievements: there's a lot of 'em. And they're very diverse. Getting all of the achievements in this game will take you quite a long time. Gears of War is definitely not a rental.
Overall:
Gears of War is a fun game with amazing graphics. It has decent online play and will keep you entertained for quite a while (even though the entire singleplayer experience only clocks in at 18-20 hours). Buy it.
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