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First Impression:
Gears of war is a hugely popular Xbox 360 3rd person shooter. It's designed to make you out think your enemies and to make you use cover.
Graphics: 8/10
The graphics are quite simply stunning. Everything from rubble to corpses is rendered beautifully and implemented into the game quite well. The textures are top notch, I rarely note anything that is blurry or looks out of place. They have original designs on most of the characters and enemies as well as original enviroments.
The reasoning behind the lower score is that, while beautiful, it's not reactive. It is sorta like the pre-rendered backdrops in the Resident Evil remake on the gamecube. All in all, it's the pretiest 360 game that I have ever seen, but they could have pushed it a bit further for the sake of immersion. The colors are also very bland in my opinion.
Sound: 9/10
The sound here is very well done. The voice acting it top notch, hollywood quality at times. The gun effects, enemy sounds, footfalls and explosions are exactly how they should be. It's not impressive enough to make you go "WOW", but it's still great for this game.
Gameplay: 9/10
The gameplay here reflects the rest of the game, NICE. The cover systems, shooting mechanisims, enemy AI, and level design are top notch. There are multiple paths to choose from to break up the linear-ness of it, which is a welcome refreshment from most "One path shooters".
The action button can be annoying at times, since it controls the sprint, cover, move from cover, and leap over cover actions. I have meant to go OVER cover and instead went to different cover. It gets old at times when that happens. Your teammates are acceptable and can usually hold thier own, there were only a few frustrating places where my teammate actually DIED and I had to restart.
The grenade and weapons system actually WORK as does the cover systems. Add in a nice split screen co-op mode and you have a DAMN FINE game.
Alas, with most DAMN FINE games, it's short as hell. I completed it in just under 8 hours of game time, but it was some of the best 8 hours that I have spent on a game in a long time.
Story: 5/10
Well, they say it's like a porn flick, a story is nice, but not necessary, this game holds true to that. All action and no story to speak of. It doesn't matter, becuase you don't bother asking questions, you just enjoy the game and be done with it.
Final thoughts : 8.5/10
This is the example of a VERY well done game. It's polished, there are no bugs to speak of, it has good graphics, and great gameplay. The story is lacking, but who gives a damn? More games need to take a lesson from them, Halo started the greatness of shooters on Microsoft console, and Gears of war is continuing the legacy.
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